Thursday, June 25, 2009

U.S. Stuns The Futbol World !


The Spanish futbol team (that's soccer team to us Americans) is the reigning European champion. They are also the number one rated team in the entire world. They had an unbeaten streak of 35 games in a row, and one more win would set a new world record. They had easily won all three of their group games to make it to the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup, and most people expected them to raise the cup in victory after it was all over.

The United States team was ranked 14th in the world, but they started the competition playing like an even lesser team. They lost their first two games, and needed a lot of help just to make it to the semi-finals. Now they were matched against Spain, and nobody expected them to win. Even us homers were mainly hoping they would just play well and not get beat too badly.

But sports miracles do happen sometimes. It happened to the United States Olympic hockey team in 1980, and yesterday, it happened to the United States men's soccer team.

In the 27th minute of the game, Jozy Altidore kicked a goal for the Americans, and that was the way the first half ended -- 1-0 for the U.S. In the second half, the Americans played some great defense, and in the 74th minute, Clint Dempsey doubled Spain's misery by kicking another U.S. goal. In the 87th minute, America's Michael Bradley received a red card, and the U.S. had to play the last 6 minutes short-handed (including 3 minutes of added time).

In the end, it was the underdog United States team shocking the futbol world by beating Spain 2-0. Now they get to play in the finals on Sunday (against either Brazil or South Africa). No matter what happens on Sunday, this has been a wonderful accomplishment for the U.S. team.

1 comment:

  1. Yes!!!

    The U.S. team gained a little respect with this victory. Now hopefully they'll win the title, but either way I hope the momentum from this tournament carries over into next year's World Cup.

    ReplyDelete

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