Match 50 (R16) - United States v Ghana - Post-Match Thread [R]

From a Ghana fan, U.S.A leave this tournament with their heads held up high. Kwame, their team just lost. Heartbreakingly. Consider their emotions....no need to rub it in.

Ayew is not much of anything. He's talented but his lack of polish is as noticeable as Jozy's.

Ghana again. They are a battling team. They have heart. I saw they way they beat Brazil in the under 21 final. They were outplayed but pulled off a win. Most of those players are from that team. Today heart and fighting spirit was matched between the two teams. In the end Ghana stifled the US advances. At this level when you get chances you take them. Lalas on tv talks about the gaols scored, he should talk about the goals missed.

Yeah and they loaned him to Granada ( spain ) , sorry my bad .

Thank you M.O.T, you are a classy poster and your team deserved the win. We were inefficient and our tactics/line-up were simply abysmal. We made mistakes, Ghana used their talent to capitalize on them.

Back to the drawing board.

I think most of us were realistic. Sorry if it didn't sound that way. This was 50-50 according to the experts. After seeing the dominating possession on your part and our hapless forwards, I don't think it was that close.

Well done.

He walked off pretty fine and that's important. His leg was slashed a little by another Ghana player. He should be fine.

What US fan in their right mind was doing that? I didn't see much if any of that here. Ghana's a good team, and I think most of us knew it.

That said, I'm probably never going to be able to support Ghana as a neutral again (they join Portugal and the Netherlands on my blacklist). I don't think I've ever seen timewasting as bad as that, and I've seen it from the very best: El Salvador, Guatemala, etc. The fact that they were able to waste away those 28 or so minutes after scoring the 2nd goal without picking up a single yellow card in the process makes an already disappointing loss absolutely infuriating.

EDIT: And I'll just add that that's the last comment I'll make here about the timewasting . . . don't need to say any more on the subject than I already have.

I hated how Ghana wasted time by just taking a rest on the ground should have been taken off of the field for that. I saw a lot of dirty tackles by Ghana especially near the goal area. They did it about 4 times prior to the Donovan pk.

Well played Black Stars - finally some African pride! The big difference in the game - a striker able to finish(Gyan) I just wish England had one

Than you haven't seen my personal favorite in this department- Spain.

What is with that long ball crap we do every single time we get the ball in the back. Its all we did for the whole of extra time and its what we did the first half of the slovenia game. It gets us no where! I just dont understand why we could not have atleast tried to work the ball up the field instead of just booting it! and Findley is useless

He provides an option out wide. I am not sure what other wide players Ghana have but I don't think they have many. From a tactical perspective, not having any width against Uruguay is not a good thing.

Anyone who saw the quality in that team wouldn't say that they DON'T score from open play, merely that they hadn't until today.

Everyone knew that Ghana would create chances. Most thought it would be through the midfield's passing and opening holes in the defense. Oddly enough, that wasn't the story on either goal today, each of which was well finished.

And yet, if WE did that, everyone wold be saying how well we "managed the game" and "finally know how to kill off a game".

We didn't advance as far as we could have due to many factors. Of the ones Bob Bradley could not control are:

1. Charlie Davies took himself out of the WC. The WC is about depth as much as sheer talent and we're as deep as a petri dish and this is true no more so than at forward. Altidore has potential but he's not close to a Jedi yet. Gomez and Buddle are a step behind Jozy and Findley stunk up the entire continent of Africa.

2. The refs. Twice, we had to get results not only against the other teams in our group but also against the refs. That takes a toll on an already thin squad.

3. We have almost no depth anywhere, let alone at forward. The drop-off in quality is dramatic with us. We're improving to the point where our starting 11 is pretty damn good but we can't ride those same guys in every single game.

4. Let's not forget that Ghana, Algeria and Slovenia all showed tremendous heart. Kudos to them. "There are no easy games" may not QUITE be true any more but it's increasing becoming that way. The USA itself is proof of that.

Here's why Bradley can be blamed for us not getting further:

1. What the hell was up with some of his starting line-ups? Findley? Torres? Clark? What's really disappointing is that by the end of the Slovenia game it was blatantly obvious 4-5-1 (which I normally hate) with either Edu or Benny partnering M. Bradley as our most effective formation, with Jozy up top and Donovan and Dempsey as additional scoring options from the wings. I know that it's nice to rest our important players but by bringing in the guys who really should not have been there anyway, Bob put WAY too much pressure on us and it eventually wore us down.

2. In the last two years, Bob never corrected our obvious habit of starting off games in sleepwalk mode. How many times did we give up STUPID goals in qualifying and have to come back? I know it happens but it happened to us far too many times to be accidental. There is something wrong with Bradley's pregame preparations and it's leaving us in a hole which, combined with not having our best 11 on the field for reasons known only to Bob, basically cost us the quarterfinals.

I know. I kinda hated my fellow USA supporters for making this argument, because it happens sometimes in this sport (just like we should be proud the US got a penalty kick). Ghana likes to attack, only Brazil and Argentina (I think) have taken more shots. They're going to get theirs sooner or later and with how slow US always starts, I knew if Ghana went up early it would put too much pressure on the USA again for a dramatic comeback. That's not going to happen all of the time.

I did call this game would be 1-1 at full time, I really however thought that would favor the Americans, as they finish games well, and in general African sides do not. Great fight back from the Americans, and hard luck, deserved victory for Ghana, great finish from Gyan. Uruguay will not be as fit as the US so I think Ghana has a great chance as long as they play their possesion game. Hopefully KPB is not hurt, he has been one of the best players in this WC, Ayew will be a major loss, but Ghana is a much better bench side than in 2006.

The "Easy" Path isn't always easy

Ghana have a great chance for the Semi finals

tre. I am just responding to the guys bashing Ghana. I would prefer to discuss the tactics etc, but these guys are just bashing.

Anyway, it's cool.

It was a good game.

Most teams are going to waste time in a similar position.

Everyone was saying it in the pre-game thread and on TV. That Ghana can't finish and their only scores came from PKs. Which may be true, but today they finished very well.

Uhh, I don't think anyone said it was an easy path, but it was/is the easiest.

I don't think so. I'm not talking about good possession play to kill off a game (there was a lot of that in the first half and that's perfectly fine). What I'm mad about is what suddenly started happening in overtime after Ghana's goal.

As you said, there were a lot of reasons we didn't advance, much of it out of our control. And with our defensive problems, we did well to get as far as we did.

Exactly. I think all 4 teams in this semifinal bracket rightly saw this as their best chance in a long, long time to get to the semifinals. That's not disrespecting the other 3 teams . . . it's just being realistic.

How can you call this an easy path? Uruguay may be the third or fourth best team in the tournament, until now. They are anything but easy.