USA falls to Ghana in Round of 16

The USA soccer team dropped its match to Ghana in the round of 16 in the World Cup yesterday by a score of 2-1. Team USA once again gave up an early goal, this time in the first five minutes of the game and were forced to chase the lead for much of the match. They finally obtained the equalizer on a penalty kick by Landon Donovan about sixty minutes in. However, Ghana scored within the first minute of the thirty allotted minutes of extra time and were able to hold on for the win.

It was a game that I felt the USA should have been able to pull out; it was really disappointing for them to give up a goal so early in the match again. If they had been able to take a lead, things might have shaken out differently. I felt they had the momentum after tying it up, they just gave up that goal in extra time and it proved to be one too many times of them falling behind in the tournament. It's frustrating because they showed flashes of how great they can be but weren't able to be consistent enough to take charge of matches and get as many wins as they would have liked in the World Cup.

I haven't been particularly thrilled with the officiating in this World Cup. There have been a couple of bad calls against the United States (though none too egregious in the match against Ghana) and from what I hear there were a couple of more missed calls in matches today that helped to influence outcomes. FIFA needs to use the technology that is available to have at least some measure of replay to review controversial calls. Replay is available to some extent in all four of the major sports played in North America now and it's time for soccer to catch up. There clearly needs to be more accountability given to the referees; controversial calls should have to be explained and consequences should be levied. These referees should not be able to just hide under the umbrella that is FIFA and not address their mistakes as seems to have become commonplace. The soccer world deserves much better.