Landon Donovan (pictured above celebrating with teammates) scored in the 91st minute to lift the USA soccer team to a 1-0 victory over Algeria. The USA wins Group C with the victory and advances to the knockout stage. England also advanced with a 1-0 win over Slovenia. If the game had ended in a draw, Slovenia, not the USA would have advanced. Team USA takes on Ghana on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. MT on ABC.
It was quite dramatic to have the goal occur in stoppage time and I have to admit that I was quite nervous. It was a heck of a game and a heck of a finish. It would have been a big disappointment if the U.S. had failed to advance and they only did so by the skin of their teeth. They had several scoring chances throughout the match and I thought clearly outplayed Algeria throughout. Algeria curiously appeared to be content to playing for a draw which was interesting when they were still mathematically alive to advance during the match. It seemed that their main objective was to keep the U.S. team from advancing. I thought it was pretty sad that they had been reduced to that.
It would be nice to see the USA take an early lead against Ghana just to ease everyone's nerves. I think they did better kicking it into gear today early in the match, though they were lucky to avoid an early Algerian goal when the ball bounced off the crossbar. With so many chances, it would be great to put one in the back of the net early on. To be fair, the U.S. should have had a goal about twenty minutes in, but Clint Dempsey's goal was disallowed for on an offsides call. However, it was pretty clear in looking at replays that Dempsey was not offsides and that the Americans had once again gotten the raw end of a bad call. Fortunately Donovan was able to put one in and it's a rather moot point now as the USA won the group. I'm looking forward to the match on Saturday.
Nice to know the USA can advance even with those unjustly denied goals.
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