10-Man U.S. Come Up Short vs Nigeria
(Soccer365) Fresh from being ousted from the Summer Olympics with a 2-1 loss to Nigeria, U.S. boss Piotr Nowak was left to ponder what might have been had defender Michael Orozco not been sent off after just three minutes.
The Americans grabbed a late lead slicer through Sacha Kljestan's spot kick and nearly saved their Olympic run when a last minute Charlie Davies header hit the crossbar, but the 2-0 hole was too deep to climb out of.
"It was extremely difficult when the line-up had to be reshaped," Nowak told reporters. "It is a disappointing outcome for us as things could have been so different."
"Only in the last game against Netherlands, we were so close to qualifying for the quarterfinals, and even today it was a close game."
"But those guys are my boys and they played so hard," he added. "For me, they went into battle tonight and they have improved on the international stage."
"In my heart, the boys won the gold medal."
Comments
Thats horrible USA should have moved on because they so totally had Netherlands beaten until that last 8 seconds. USA should be moving on and up to an olympic medal.
Posted by: soccermada | August 13, 2008 11:02 PM
wow dude if you honestly believe that usa could get a medal over those teams then you need some help dude the usa is not a very good team, if they tried, most of those teams could easily beat the usa because its not a quality team
Posted by: special ed | August 14, 2008 12:17 PM
Special ed is living up to his name you obviously didn't watch the game against the Netherlands and Japan. The U23's+McBride played the prettiest football I've ever seen the US play, they controlled the flow of the game and had the best passing rhythm I've ever seen from them. Its a shame because of that free kick the Dutch squeaked out a draw and then the US were without Freddy Adu and Michael Bradley in the game against Nigeria and were a man down the entire game. They almost got the draw they needed as well, Benny Feilhaber's rocket of a header went off the crossbar. This was a tremendous improvement and considering that a bunch of these guys going to Europe and will be playing for the USA in 2010 I'm very optimistic.
Posted by: Snaves | August 15, 2008 08:13 PM