Bob Bradley
“When Landon Donovan scored in stoppage time to rescue the national soccer team from elimination and sent the Americans to the Round of 16, it was just before noon on the East Coast, just before 9 a.m. on the West Coast, and just plain early in general across the United States. But Americans celebrated the same way, wherever they were.” (NYT)
Desperate Hope, Dramatic Ending for U.S.
“Chance after frantic chance the United States had Wednesday in its 1-0 victory over Algeria at the World Cup, each one more tempting and frustrating than the other. Finally, desperation seemed to tighten like a noose, strangling the Americans’ patience and accuracy.” (NYT)
Goal! The thrill of World Cup victory
“For weeks a multi-front soccer culture war has been raging in the blogosphere. But one goal by the man who just staked a pretty good claim to the title of ” greatest player in the history of U.S. soccer,” Landon Donovan, should permanently change the terms of debate. But first a little context: In the group round of the World Cup, scoring a goal in “stoppage time” — a few minutes of overtime after the end of regulation to make up for time lost to injuries — to break a scoreless tie and move on to the next round is one of the most dramatic things that can possibly happen in soccer.” (Salon)
A Foreign Game Looks Very American
“Tim Howard was playing hurry-up, booting the ball in desperation, watching the backs of his teammates, American athletes, as they raced downfield trying to save four years of effort. ‘It wasn’t a soccer match,” Howard said. “It was an athletics match, track and field.’ Sprinting has been, in its way, an American sport, whereas soccer has always been a foreign sport that frightens people — well, except for the millions of Americans lined up in pubs and dens and offices all over their country on a weekday morning, going crazy after the best, or the most dramatic, or the most important soccer match in American history.” (NYT)
Bliss, and a Belgian Spared
“It has been a beautiful day. It was a perfect match, offering up everything that draws us to football. The devastation of the goal-that-was-not, the relief as the team, rather than fumbling into frustration, kept carefully building up excellent plays, defending beautifully, and pushing, pushing, pushing. Raïs M’Bohli, the Paris-born Congolese/Algerian goalkeeper — who, I imagine and hope, will be moving on rapidly from his professional team in Bulgaria after this showing — stopping the goals relentlessly, seemingly on his way to becoming Algeria’s new national hero. In perfect if sadistic form, the team kept us all in suspense until the very end, when in a beautiful, invincible run, scrappy, a little enraged, bringing together Donovan, Altidore and Demsey in a gorgeous one-two-three, and here in Durham and throughout the country and the world there was that explosion of joy that can only come when it has been long-deferred, seemingly unattainable, and perfectly plucked from out of nowhere.” (Soccer Politics)
The American Ascendancy
“And then it happened. Sunil cried, too. And he woke up this morning to escort Bill Clinton and shake the trees for votes from FIFA’s 24-member Politburo for that 2002 World Cup bid. (Clinton is the bid’s honorary chairman; he got a big cheer when his face appeared on the video board last night.) ESPN was assured another weekend of USA-fired ratings. And given that we’ve landed for the first two knockout rounds in the best group since the Beatles, the possibility for advancing further than any modern US men’s national team are real. Project 2010, anyone?” (TNR)
Scissors Kick 