Show Rounding the Bases Why did they even try Jeren W. W Canning Senior Editor By no means is the United States a soccer lov ing country But every four years we at least perk up our ears to listen to how the nations nation's soccer team did in inthe inthe inthe the World Cup Traditionally the United States has had a very very poor soccer team fielded with players who could get beat by the kids playing in inthe inthe inthe the park on weekends In t I 2002 however the US U.S. snuck up and beat a few unsuspecting teams and made it to the second round This year though was a completely different story Coming into the World Cup tournament ranked as the fifth best team in the world the highest ever ranking for forthe forthe forthe the US U.S. they ended up losing losing losing los los- ing two games and tying one and to top off the humiliation only scored one goal in their three V games rf P f a T 1 TW 1 1 3 lV The Th t team am began preparing the country for an upset upset like this months ago when they complained that they drew the death card by being placed in n the same group as Italy and the Czech Republic teams that are ranked in FIFA's top 10 below the US U.S. The call to fire the teams team's coach Bruce Arena has already begun because of his conservative style of play that is very problematic ic when facing the high- high powered European teams He has also been crit criticized for decisions Coming from a person that really knows nothing about the sport of soccer the US U.S. team looked horri horri- ble To start off the tournament tournament tournament ment the Americans lost 3 30 0 o to the Czech Republic a setback but moving to the secona round was still a good possibility In their second game they took on an Italian team who has recently gone through much turmoil due to players and coaches being removed from the team for fixing games in the Italian professional leagues If they would have won the game they would have had hada a very good shot at moving into the second round but instead they tied leaving their fate only partially in their own hands With Italy's defeat of the Czech team all the Americans had to do was beat Ghana the worst team in their pool by one goal and they would earn a aspot aspot aspot spot in the second round Instead of blowing away Ghana like they should have the Americans lost 10 10 1 10 0 while never truly mounting mounting mount mount- mounting ing an attack on the goal If the Americans weren't going to play playas as as the they could gf dd L d-L S even even f bother taking the flight to Germany The only good that can come out of the Americans' Americans loss in the World Cup is th the women's US U.S. team should come out outon outon outon on fire next year in their World Cup |