No point crying in one’s beer, but like Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers, the US Soccer team was deprived not merely of an accomplishment, but of place in history. No team in World Cup history has come back to win after trailing by a 2-0 score, and yet the US would have done just that, had not referee Koman Coulibaly disallowed what appeared to be a perfectly spotless goal by Maurice Edu; if anything, the American Michael Bradley was obviously tackled and should have been awarded a penalty kick. The call was inexplicable and unexplained; nobody knows what Coulibaly thought he saw. Oh well. The most memorable moment of the comeback, however, was the first goal scored by the US, a shot by Landon Donovan that hot up like a mortal rocket at about a 75 degree angle, seeming to take the goalie’s eyebrows with it. Fantastic.
