Own Goal Italy!

The Italy v USA game, played on June 17 at Kaiserslautern in 70 degree evening heat in front of a 46,000 crowd, turned out to be a great contest. In one of the best performances in their soccer history, the USA played with nine men for 43 minutes to hold out Italy in a memorable 1-1 drawn game.

The Italians, who have had much trouble in the last few months with distracting match-fixing scandals, have not made use of a relatively easy group path and are certainly now at risk of early failure.

The game started at a reasonable pace with both sides feeling each other out. Italy struck first in the 22nd minute after Mastroeni fouled Totti about 30 yards from goal. Zaccardo served an in-swinger into the box that Gilardino headed home.

The USA equalized in the 27th minute when a Convey free kick from the right sideline was awkwardly touched by Zaccardo at the back post and went in for an own goal. The play was set up as Claudio Reyna made something out of nothing. The USA captain won a free kick on the right side, getting fouled after a slow dribbling run up the right wing had him well forward.

One minute later, the USA found itself outnumbering Italy as de Rossi was shown a red card after elbowing Brian McBride in the face. McBride left the game briefly with a cut under his left eye, but did return. In the 35th minute, Italy made their first change of the match, bringing on Gattuso for Totti to bolster a shorthanded defense. Then, just before halftime, both teams were reduced to 10 players when Mastroeni was shown the red card after a late two-footed challenge on Pirlo. Yet another red card sent pope packing for a challenge from behind on Gilardino.

It looked disastrous for Italy for a moment, when Beasley put the ball into the net, but he was ruled offside. In the 73rd minute, USA goalkeeper Keller made a great save, sprawling to his right to deny a flick-on after a chip found del Piero behind the USA backline. He would again make a big save in the 79th minute, punching out a long range attempt from del Piero. The Italians urgently continued their push for a winner in the game's dying moments, but the USA held on doggedly in defence.

An optimistic Keller said after the match, "They're dead tired out there, they've given everything. It would have been a shame to concede a goal late but we stuck in this thing. We're in this tournament, and we have a good chance now. Of course we wanted three points but the point in these circumstances is phenomenal."
Each team has now played 2 games, with Italy leading on 4 points, Czech Republic and Ghana on 3 apiece, with the USA trailing with one point. So the pressure really is on in the final games for this group, with any winner except USA certain to advance.

The next games in this group are played on June 22 at 4:00pm local time:-
Czech Republic vs. Italy
Ghana vs. USA

My picks to advance? - Czech Republic and Ghana, I have just backed these teams at Betfair in the outright winner market (Czech Republic at 75/1 and Ghana at 100/1) with the thought of trading back a little further into the tournament when I can do some profit taking. My logic? – a touch of arbitrage! You always need to be right but a little creative forward thinking can pay off handsomely at these type of events!

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