On Thursday, the entire US had breathed a collective sigh of relief when the national team was able to advance to the World Cup knockout round despite suffering a loss against the Germans at Recife, Yahoo Sports said.
The US would have been eliminated if not for Ghana, who lost to Portugal in a match simultaneously taking place in Brasilia. Ghana succumbed to a 2-1 defeat thanks to Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, who managed a winning second goal in the 80th minute of the game.
Leading up to the game, Recife experienced a torrential downpour, with floods all over the city that would have threatened US fans to actually cheer for their home team inside the stadium.
Nonetheless, US team coach Jurgen Klinsmann lauded his team's performance in the group matches, considering the fact that their group is touted as the "Group of Death" in the tournament due to its very formidable member-teams.
Klinsmann said, "It's a huge achievement by our team to come through the group and qualify for the knockout stage. We knew it was going to be a very tricky game. We knew we were in a situation where a tie was enough and it was not so easy to handle mentally. We kind of gave them too much respect for the first 20, 25 minutes."
Yahoo Sports said Alejandro Bedoya and Clint Dempsey had failed to deliver an equalizer for the US within the match, with Bedoya's low strike blocked by Philipp Lahm and Dempsey aiming his close-range header over the bar.
Although the score was a disappointing one for US fans, it no doubt has settled rumors of match-fixing, considering that Klinsmann had once played and coached for the Germans in previous World Cups, and at one time, had current Germany coach Joachim Low as his assistant coach.
On Tuesday, US would need to strengthen up and meet the winner of Group H, which would either be Algeria or Belgium, at Arena Fonte Nova in Salvador.
