This was a tale of two halves. The Slovenes very much dominated the first half grabbing a 2-0 lead going into the half. But smart substitutions by Bob Bradley to take out Jose Torres and Robbie Findley (who both especially Torres were disappointing) and brought in Benny Feilhaber and and Maurice Edu, and later switching to a 3-man defense by subbing in Herculez Gomez for Oguchi Onyewu.
The US played inspirationally well and they showed heart. It was sparked by a goal from the best US player ever Landon Donovan early in the second half. The US looked to have a goal in the 85th minute by Maurice Edu from a free kick from Donovan. It was disallowed by the worst referring job I've seen.
That was also a tale of a horrible referee. I have been applauding the jobs the refs have been doing during the World Cup. We can't dwell on this but everyone both on the English network and the Spanish network said there was nothing there to disallow the Edu goal. (Edu has a history of scoring late, important goals). If anything the ref could have given a penalty because of two separate instances in the box. There was no offisides or anything against the US upon seeing various replays. Its not like that was his only bad call against the US in that game. It was one of many for this guy making his World Cup debut as a ref.
Why did Bradley not start Buddle, I've been calling for Findley to sit forever and Buddle didnt even make an appearance off the bench. The US wasted another 45 minutes and showed their class in the second half. You have to wonder what the US could do if they concentrate in the first half.
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I forgot to add the Man of the Match. It's the referee for his efforts to preserve the Slovenian draw
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