Team USA goes home

The USA team lost today in a crucial match at the world cup football (I refuse to call it soccer). Not unexpected, when in a poul together with Italy and the Czech republic, although the final ranking of the pool (Italy - Ghana - Czech - USA) was not completely expected.
The inexperience of the American press with the football and the role the USA team plays in it was fascinating to see. A lot of value was given to FIFA rankings. Rankings that work well in sports like tennis, golf and chess, since the players play a lot against each others, so their ratings are calibrated all the time. National teams, on the other hand, only play a handfull of matches each year, and that makes the ratings far from reliable.
So, going into 'Poule E' as the #5 team of the world looked like there would be a solid chance. To be honest, the team is good enough to consider it a serious chance for ending high in the poule. But some realism should be applied as well - both Czech and Italian teams are fearfull opponents, and African teams have proven over the years to be tough opponents as well.
So, the loss against Czech republic came as a total shock. Losing 3-0? Sadly, that was the only match that the Czech played really good, and the USA played really bad. Hence the result. So far, nothing shocking. Anybody can lose from the Czechs, there's nothing to be ashamed about.

What surprised me was the 'analysis' before the second game. Ghana absolutely kicks ass against the Czechs, and the reaction of the commentators: 'this is good news for team USA. They should get hope out of this game'. Basically, now 'all' that is needed is a draw against Italy, winning from Ghana and Italy beating the Czechs, putting the USA in second place. Let me repeat this: your previous opponent, who humiliated you, gets the crap kicked out of them by the team you will have to beat in the last round. And that is good news?

To be honest, I really hoped that the USA team would have advanced to the next round. Hopefully football will survive a blow like this - a lot of the enthusiasm for 'soccer' had to do with the good performance of the USA team so far. This moment had to come at one point; you can't progress forever, and hoping that team USA would be a serious contender for the world cup in the next ten years would be hopelessly optimistic. Any MLS game (and I've watched too many) will confirm that. Still, an 'honorfull' exit against Brazil would have been better than an early exit after two losses and a draw. But the agony of defeat makes the next succes taste better - something that team USA hopefully will learn now as well.