Live from Ellis Park: USA-Slovenia

After the transport nightmare that was getting to and from Rustenburg, it was nice to be at a hostel within walking distance of Ellis Park, making the lead-up to the match much less stressful as a spectator. After being on a bus with four fans that had gotten mohawks prior to the England match, I had decided it was time to get one too.

Sporting a blue mohawk with red and white sides and ‘USA’ carved in red into the back of my head, I set off for Ellis Park ready to see the boys pick up the three points we so desperately wanted. Little did I know that we were all about to embark upon a match that had everything you could have hoped for as a fan – that is if you were a neutral.

On the way down to Ellis Park, the red, white and blue mohawk was certainly a hit as the South African school children all kept telling me, or were they laughing at me? Either way, I didn’t care.

Pre-match reports were true with Paco Torres starting in the middle with Michael Bradley and the feeling among the US supporters in the crowd was overwhelmingly in support of that move.

With the whistle barely out of the mouth of the Malian referee, the first flashpoint had already happened with the Slovenian players surrounding the referee demanding that Dempsey be sent off for throwing an elbow. Thankfully cooler heads prevailed, but this was only a sign of things to come for the referee as it was arguably his most difficult night as a referee.

The first half could not have gone more differently than the script was supposed to read for us. A stunning strike by Slovenia coupled with a great counter-attacking goal left the US staring at a 2-0 deficit at the half. Most of us in the crowd were left stunned, wondering how after such a strong 90 minutes against England we are now looking at ourselves being 45 minutes from for all intensive purposes exiting the tournament.

While I would have thought Stuart Holden would have been the go-to substitution for Bob Bradley as we were in search of goals, he went with Mo Edu and Benny Feilhaber, which certainly proved to work. Torres proved ineffective in the middle and Edu provided the perfect complement of attacking and defensive play.

In a move that pleased the US supporters, we finally saw Dempsey pushed up top and paired with Jozy. Instantly the moves paid a dividend and Landon Donovan proved why he is our talisman, scoring a brilliant goal from the wing. After that, it was one-way traffic with the US surging on and holding all of the momentum. The feeling in the crowd was that we were going to get an equalizer; it was only a matter of time.

Jozy Altidore played arguably his best match in a US jersey as he looked as dangerous as ever in the second half, showing that he is finally progressing into that physical, but skilled forward we always knew he would be.

Around the 60th minute, Altidore turned a Slovenian defender and looked to be clean through, except the defender made a top-notch tackle on him. If he catches Jozy, it’s a no doubt red card.

Shortly after, Jozy turned another Slovenian defender and got dragged down for a professional foul. From my vantage point, I thought it was going to be a red card as the defender looked to be the last man back, but alas is was only yellow. With every touch Jozy looked like he was going to find the net, proving that his man-handling of Jaime Carragher in the previous game was no fluke.

The clever insertion of Herculez Gomez into the match provided just the spark the US needed to find the second goal. A clever run by Gomez provided the space for Michael Bradley to sneak through off an Altidore header and score the equalizer. This set off absolute delirium in the US supporter’s section of Ellis Park. After things had calmed down and I had gotten the beer out of my eyes, I was left thinking, could we snatch a winner?

As we know now, Mo Edu did snatch a winner, but it was called back by the referee for an invisible push in the box. This had set off pandemonium in the crowd for a few seconds, but in the end the US supporters went home happy with the belief that if we beat Algeria we would go through. That coupled with the fact that we had no real way of knowing how bad the blown call had actually been.

All in all, this was the most mentally and physically exhausting US match I’ve watched since the 2006 World Cup against Italy. As a supporter, it was gut-wrenching stuff at times as I couldn’t believe that we were set to crash out at the half. However, in the end it is all to play for against Algeria.

See you in Pretoria!