say goodnight, gracie

the united states and their dreams of someday soon winning the world cup are gone for at least another four years -- and maybe longer. certainly they have some room for complaint today (although i thought they had no room for complaint against italy); marcus merk's sketchy penaly award at the end of the first half was classic merk: bad call, stupid moment, game deciding mistake.

but it is awfully hard to feel sorry for a team packed with assheads like landon donavon, eddie pope and demarcus beasley. sure they have a couple of classy players (mcbride, reyna and keller come to mind), but the bulk of the team are pissy little boys completely captivated by the strength and dessert of their nation. they continually say "we're the united states, so we're going to win eventually." and that pretty much sums up the yankee attitude about everything. so it is particularly sweet to see the youngest team in the world cup, the forceful, brave and totally fit ghana side put the screws to the american ego.

and even better is that mexico, the u.s.a.'s biggest rival are through to the next round.

in the end, even with merk's call, the u.s. should have done better. they should have played better against a czech side that has proven to be too old and shallow to compete; they should have stolen the game from italy and by trying to match italy's thuggery they only got themselves two very deserved red cards; and they should have beat ghana -- at least they should have if they were as great as they claimed.

so that's that for the true group of death. see ya u.s.a. and czech. bring on the round of 16...soon.