better...

Well, the US national team have redeemed themselves – a bit. They certainly gave a much better effort and ended up looking like they belonged in this tournament. They will have to do better still to beat Ghana who will challenge them with some dangerous match-ups.

I still think coach Bruce Arena needs to do better. I don’t understand how he finished that game with a substitution left to use!? You’ve got a winnable game, 9 tired players on the field (8 really, since Beasley should not have been tired) and the Italians have not subs to counter with! Get McBride off the field since no one is serving him head balls anymore and he obviously can’t finish a shot – not to mention having a concussion – and get someone like Wolff out there to run around the midfield and forward positions. You would thing that having a fresh Beasley and someone else chasing down every Italy pass would have caused them problems and given Reyna an occasional target for counterattacking passes. Again, this game was winnable and they should have tried harder in the end to take advantage of it.

Well…at least well have a tense last game.