Here's the reasoning: If US goal against Slovenia stands, then USA wins game against Slovenia. Game against Algeria becomes less important: a tie or even with a loss we can go through, if England wins. Media saturation and national outrage does not occur throughout the week. Ratings for midweek, mid-morning game against African nation many can't place on a map takes on no importance. Bradley plays for the draw and maybe we win the group or maybe come in second. There is no miracle finish from Landon, no tearful interviews, no ex-President extending his stay, no Jim Rome show where he chokes on crow while talking about soccer for a full three hours, no late night and early morning talk hosts clambering over themselves to get an interview with Landon Donovan, etc. If we come in second, we're facing a path of Germany, and then, if we can get by them, most likely a very dangerous looking Argentina. As it stands now we face a team we can compete with, Ghana, and then other teams we should challenge, probably Uruguay, but possibly South Korea. Nothing is given, we can still fall to Ghana, but the present path looks a lot more palatable. And now this game is on a Saturday afternoon, hyped to the gills on ESPN and ABC, not mid-morning on Sunday when many are in church of sleeping off Saturday night's booze. From an exposure standpoint, this couldn't have played out any better, although you could argue that a "name" team in the next round would be better. Still, you keep winning, you get to the "name" teams. Don't get me wrong - the call was awful, that ref was awful - but in the end that bad call ends up being a precious gift from "Sleepy Eyes" Couilbaly.
honestly there were many other ways to get 1st in the group, the only good thing from the disallowed goals is how americans that usually don't like soccer are really pissed now from all the injustice and are hungry for us to win more after all of this
OP is right. In terms of the storyline and the narrative, it's good for the USSF, ESPN, etc. It's like the 1992 game 7 between the Braves and the Pirates. Because the Braves' bench was thin, they couldn't put in a pinch-runner for Sid Bream, possibly the slowest player in the majors at that time. A faster runner would have meant the play at the plate wasn't close. As it turned out, the play is supermemorable. I agree with this too.
I completely agree--ended up being a good thing in the end from a PR perspective, and we ended up winning the group anyway. Especially since there's now a spotlight on FIFA from not one but two bullshxt disallowed goals, so hopefully the refs for our knockout games will be kept on a leash. I mean yeah, I'd like to have the 20 years of my life back that the last week took from me, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Yeah, its if the entire USSF marketing department got plugged more or less permanently into Woody Allen's Orgasmitron.
Good god why would you bring up that game. As a pirates fan, who hasn't experience a winning season since I was in little league, haven't I been through enough. Damn cabrera and bream. Anyway, I have noticed that many more of my friends/family/acquaintances have been inquiring about the usmnt and the world cup in general the past few days. I've literally explained the round robin into knock out phase tournament concept a dozen times this week. Don't even get me started on points/tiebreakers. There has been some real neutral interest stirred up this week. Good for us.
Actually, we had the Red Barons who were the Phillies AAA for about 20 years. Only switched affiliation to the yanks a couple years ago. But for me, my dad was a pirates fan and that was that. Great move dad.
If US Soccer can parlay the last two weeks and tap into the "They don't like us and we don't care" sentiment of the general populace.....watch out. Us getting hosed on cheap calls is nothing new in the WC, or qualifying for that matter. That the US population is now getting exposed to that fact is a great, great thing.
i agree! nothing unites America more than painting a picture of the USA against the world. America loves to be the world's underdogs, a role that has been hard for us to justify for about 100 years now...this world cup gives us that status
I smile every time I think of big Sid rounding third and beating that throw, ahhhh glorious. CHOPCHOPCHOP
My friends in Vietnam said that watching the match U.S v. Algeria was like breathing in oxygen and whole 94 minutes lol. But in a way, OP has a point! I still want to see that ref out of job forever though!
It's only the best thing ever if the US advanced out of the group. The US also had a disallowed goal against Italy because of a dubious call. Had they advanced, the narrative from that game would have been different.