Monumental. That’s the best way to describe the late goal by America’s Landon Donovan during the World Cup match vs Algeria today. Due to the late time zone shift of South Africa (+6 hrs if you’re wondering), the game was going on here in the states at 10 am EST. That means most people were at work or, like our Uncle Randy, just getting released from the drunk tank at KPD.
The U.S. Men’s National Team , or USMNT to the soccer folk (not to be confused with TMNT), have had their fits with the officiating during this years World Cup. After a critical goal was disallowed in their previous match that would have put the USMNT in the lead you would think that a similar situation would not occur today. Right?
Well, guess what? It did.
The officials called off the first U.S. goal 21 minutes into the match when Clint Dempsey was offsides. Or was he? You decide:
It doesn’t look like Dempsey was offsides to me! Overall, the officials missed several calls including an elbow to Dempsey in the 2nd half as well as calling a yellow card on DaMarcus Beasley for using his hands when he clearly did not.
If the USMNT did not come out of the match with a victory their time in South Africa would be over. That is because in their group, England and Slovenia would advance with a U.S. loss or tie. And it looked like it would happen just like that as the match wound down and entered ‘extra time.’
With only a few ‘extra’ minutes left, the remarkable happened. The USMNT kept pushing on despite several missed opportunities and bad calls to create this little miracle which allowed the U.S. to advance. Goal! Goal! USA!
