Muchos Cojones

Throughout the blogosphere the sentiment towards team USA is largely "Great win... but..." Well, as one of the skeptics (see previous post), I am thrilled to have been proved wrong in a huge way. Our boys today played like lions-- full of heart and fierce on the attack. They played with balls.

What happened? Maybe the team had nothing to lose. Maybe they were sick of all the complaints from home. Or perhaps they just slept well while some of the Egyptians were conjuring up their "robbery story" (new details here). Who knows, who cares? As a devout fan, I want to see this team walk on the field every game, whether it's against Haiti or Spain. Whatever bloggers or the media say about the team, the fact is we all want to see this level of determination and confidence. During the Brazil game we saw a bunch of children. Tonight, we saw true American manly grit. A message to the team: please bring it to Spain. Even if you lose, lose with fire (like the 4-2 loss to Brazil that I watched in Chicago in 2007).

Michael Bradley en fuego
Our boys had a few words to the doubters and cynics Stateside. Loved this quote from Michael Bradley via the NY Times

“At the end of the night, you walk into the locker room, and to be able to experience a feeling like that with your teammates, coaches and trainers, that’s why you play, to do something special like that. When everything is against you, everybody wants to say how bad you are, everybody wants to write you off.” To leave those distractions outside the locker room, he said, “and to be committed as a team to leaving everything on the field, to running for each other, to fighting for each other, that’s what we did.” He added: “All those experts in America, everybody who thinks they know about soccer, can all look at that score tonight and let’s see what they have to say now.”

Hell yea Michael. Now pour out that fire into Iker Casillas's goal!

ESPN's take on tonight's victory: