For the first time since God knows when,* the U.S. advance out of group play in the World Cup. To top that, we even beat out England to top the group because we scored more goals throughout the tournament than they did. All that getting dicked over by shitty calls from the refs doesn't even matter now that we qualify for the last stage of the tournament.

That being said, I don't have much hope that we'll progress much further. It's a heart-bleeding miracle we even got this far. Even with lousy ref calls, those wouldn't have mattered to begin with if we weren't sloppy during the first half of our first two games. I'm just glad we managed to pull it together this time around, though it really was looking hopeless for a while there.

Whatever happens now, I can be glad that we at least made it this far. And, in the fairness of competitive spirit, I hope England does well also. ...but not if we face them again. =D

Spain's another one I'm interested in seeing, too, though I've paid significantly less attention to them so don't really know where they stand.

*The commentators said the last time the U.S. topped its group was in 1930, but that doesn't necessarily mean we managed to get out of group play since then. I'm not a huge sports fan so don't really pay much attention to history and things. Truth is, I only really pay attention to the international stuff like this, which is why I'm even bothering to talk about it at all.

Most recent blog posts from Leslie Dickson...
Anyone into Trophy Hunting? Well, I've updated a review Demon's Souls

Feedback
	aschultz - June 23, 2010 (01:03 PM) I found it wonderfully ironic that the US, whose mantra of football is "keep your hand on the ball," won a game you normally play with your feet...with a wonderful throw by the goalie to start that final move. Spain needs to win, or keep a better goal differential last round than Switzerland. Head to head matches are lower than goal differential in the tiebreaks. A win and Spain's through. If they beat Chile, they have goal difference, and if Switzerland wins, 1 team with 2 wins is eliminated. US won't meet England til the final if at all. OK, maybe the 3rd place game. I'd take that. Basically 2 teams from the same group are put on opposite sides of the bracket. All this pedantic stuff belies the excitement I felt from earlier today. Either way, if the US had or hadn't won, I'd have been in disbelief. They deserved it, though Algeria were better than advertised.
	JANUS2 - June 23, 2010 (02:12 PM) So what's the reaction been like in the US? Even though England have been pretty awful so far, this is a great achievement. And the quarter finals and maybe even the semi finals are definitely reachable. But do people care?
	Genj - June 23, 2010 (02:19 PM) Why would Americans watch soccer when baseball is on?
	JANUS2 - June 23, 2010 (02:25 PM) Maybe what FIFA need to do is provide more illegal drugs so that players can set stupid records. That might pull in the US audience.
	True - June 23, 2010 (03:19 PM) Do we think this has anything to do with us bringing David Beckham over?
	Suskie - June 23, 2010 (08:37 PM) We care so little about soccer in this country that we don't even call it by its correct name. We transplanted that name to a completely different sport that we do care about.
	wolfqueen001 - June 24, 2010 (10:35 AM) I dunno. Even if Ghana is a possibly beatable team, they did beat us in the World Cup four years ago, so as far as I'm concerned, it can go either way. The England/Germany match should be exciting, too. I can see that one going either way, too, especially with England's performance this time around. Haha. Sadly, what the others have said is basically true. We generally don't care as much about soccer as other sports here, but there's still a fanbase, and I have seen considerable support for our team on news features and the like (though that's kind of their job). In any case, at the very least, our progress in this tournament may awaken more support for the sport than we have now, but you never really know.