I had typed up a lengthy post at 6 a.m. in the Munich airport, but the wireless network cut out on me (perhaps the half-hour I had purchased for 5 Euro had run out) and I lost the whole thing. Anyway, here's a recap:
1. The penalty call on Oguchi Onyewu was unequivocally awful. Referee Markus Merk essentially gifted Ghana a go-ahead goal right before halftime, and in doing so, he altered the course of the match. For all the Americans did wrong yesterday (more on that below), they got jobbed -- no question about it. Ghana didn't get off easy, either. Merk's bogus yellow card on Michael Essien means Ghana will miss its best player against Brazil.
2. On a day when Landon Donovan should have made the U.S. team his own, he totally flopped. With Claudio Reyna and John O'Brien out, the Americans needed Donovan to build on his excellent performance against Italy and carry them to victory against Ghana. Instead, he disappeared for long stretches of the match and did nothing with the ball on those rare occasions when he had it. A huge chunk of the blame falls on Donovan for this loss.
3. On the plus side, the American fans acquitted themselves wonderfully again yesterday. U.S. soccer supporters seemed to come of age in this tournament, specifically in the Italy match. Let's hope the passion continues, and extends to games played on American soil. That kind of atmosphere is one of the sport's greatest attributes, and we need far more of it in the U.S.
4. You haven't lived until you've downed a warm Weissbier on a Deutsche Bahn train at 1 a.m. The German train system, by the way, is as great as it was advertised. It wasn't easy to make the transition from those first-class train cabins to coach on American Airlines, although American was kind enough to show "Date Movie." Alyson Hannigan is our generation's Judi Dench, no?
Anyway, now that I'm home, I can post some pictures, which I'll intersperse into the previous entries. Look for that later tonight.
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