Worst reffing ever.

I agree about the card to Mastroeni--a straight red card?!?! What a weak ass make-up call that was...

O'Brien will get the start for Mastro, IMO. I just wonder how his fitness is. I'd like to get Eddie J in there as well, but I'm not sure how it will all fit. As for the D, Conrad got the call in the Italy game, so I expect to see him again. But Pope is a big loss--he plays good position Dfense and is a reliable guy. The younger guys are untested, and Ghana has some speed and flair up front. But they lost their 2 goal scorers from the Czech game to yellows, so maybe we'll be ok.

At least we're having this discussion! Man, after the Czech game I thought it was going to be France all over again, where we lost to IRAN! A win will really say we're for real, even if we don't get the help we need. Going 1-1-1 in this very tough group is a big deal. But don't get me wrong--we're gonna smoke Ghana, Italy will ice the Czechs, we'll go on to upset Brazil (avenging our loss to them in the USA world cup), and then it's on to glory!

i am not impressed with donovan's play this cup...he had some sparks the second game but did not look like he did in 2002...he better step it up, because to this point he is not playing up to par at all.

i seriously feel the refs were giving out excess reds to our team bc we are Americans. I do feel a part of it is what coach arena was saying, about us being a weak team, therefore not getting the calls. But I think a huge part of it is, the World does not want to see the US do well at "their" game. Basically they think we kick ass in pretty much everything(cant argue with em there), and they are jealous so they dont want our team to do well at something else they can actually do.

i seriously feel the refs were giving out excess reds to our team bc we are Americans. I do feel a part of it is what coach arena was saying, about us being a weak team, therefore not getting the calls. But I think a huge part of it is, the World does not want to see the US do well at "their" game. Basically they think we kick ass in pretty much everything(cant argue with em there), and they are jealous so they dont want our team to do well at something else they can actually do.


Maybe, but it certainly has been a trend for everyone in this cup--obviously FIFA told their refs to pass em out like candy in the first stage, with the hope of chilling out the tough tackles later. But we came out looking to shut down the Italian midfield, as we didn't do to the czechs. Areana obviously told them not to let the Italians turn and run at us, and it worked very well, IMO. It's just that this ref got red card crazy, and it almost backfired. But we have to pressure these skilled teams if we are going to survive. We don't have that level of skill all over the pitch, so the way to equalize things is to knock some folks down. Still, the 2 reds were over the top, even though we were playing tough.

I wonder if we'll get the benefit of the doubt against Ghana, or if it will be more of the same. I'm sure the Ghanians will be diving like swans to try to get cards after they saw our match. Hopefully, we'll get a ref who's got his sh** together and we won't get burned.

As for Landon, yeah, he needs to step up. He looked much better in midfield running at players. Hopefully the best is yet to come. We've got to score some goals!!!