JOHANNESBURG, S.A. – It was the must win match for Team USA. At the least, manage a tie if they wanted keep hopes alive of making it out of group play. In their match with Slovenia, Team USA found themselves in a huge 2-0 hole going into halftime, but got huge goals from Landon Donovan and Michael Bradley in the second half to finish the comeback and tie with Slovenia, 2-2, in Johannesburg on Friday.
It was the true David versus Goliath match if you were strictly looking at country size. The United States (0-0-2) are the largest country in the World Cup this year, while Slovenia (1-0-1) is the smallest by population. However, the USA entered into the match with an 0-5 record against Eastern European nations in World Cup play.
Valter Birsa put Slovenia ahead early in the first half with a left-footed shot from 30 yards out, to continue a growing trend of the U.S. falling behind early in matches. On the play, U.S. goalkeeper, Tim Howard seemed to have his vision blocked by one of his teammates as he froze on the shot and could not make an attempt on it.
In the 37th minute of play, U.S. midfielder, Jose Torres, nearly scored on a free kick from the side of the penalty area, but it was knocked away by the Slovenian goalkeeper, Samir Handanovic.
At the end of the first half, U.S. striker, Robbie Findley was given a yellow card for questioning a hand ball call in the Slovenian penalty box. The replay showed that the ball actually hit Findley in the face and was nowhere near his hand. Because that was his second yellow card in as many matches, Findley will have to sit out for his team’s final group match against Algeria.
One minute later, Team USA nearly tied it again when Clint Dempsey crossed to Donovan inside the 6-yard box, but was deflected away by Miso Brecko and Slovenia went on the charge. Zlatan Ljubijankic got behind the U.S. defense and slid a shot past Howard to push the lead to 2-0 into halftime. It was beginning to look like another disappointing year for USA soccer.
At the start of the second half, it began what would be the tale of two halves. After a couple of lineup changes, including the entry of Maurice Edu, the U.S. quickly got a goal back in the first five minutes of the second half. Landon Donovan finally arrived to the World Cup party as he took a pass from Steve Cherundolol at an extremely close angle to the goal and scored right over Handanovic to cut the lead in half, 2-1.
It seemed to be a stalemate for both teams for much of the second half, until the 82nd minute when Michael Bradley, the son of coach Bob Bradley, took a header from Jozy Altidore that fell right in the middle of the penalty box and tapped it in for the equalizer. Four minutes later, Edu looked to give the Americans the lead after hitting a close range shot from Donovan’s free kick, but the goal was disallowed by the referee, who called a foul before Edu reached the ball.
With the tie, Slovenia still leads Group C with four points and would have qualified for the second round with a win today. The U.S. moves up to second place with its second tie of group play and will wait to see where they fall after England’s (0-0-1) match with Algeria (0-1-0) later today. The top two teams of the group will advance to the knockout rounds after the final day of group play. Team USA’s next match is against Algeria to be played next Wednesday.
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