Based on TV ratings, not many folks care.

The Czech game was just player fetid. I thought the U.S. played heroically against Italy and got jobbed by the refs when they hit the U.S. with more red cards than a hand of Texas Hold'em and took away their goal on a questionable offsides. I guess they didn't have much left in the tank when they played hungry (literally and figuratively) Ghana.

I think the majority of this country wished "schadenfreude" on the U.S. team and clucked in glee when they got their wish. But really, the only world competition the U.S. is able to win anymore involves stoners on skateboards and snowboards.

Are we really all that shocked?

A shame really, those boys have a great deal of heart. I saw this great commercial (adidas I think?) that had great images of the US team and the sh*t it has to deal with during qualifying - all set to the tune of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame". It made me feel a great deal of sympathy for those boys. Even when they play Mexico in LA, the crowd is cheering for the Mexicans!! People in their own country treat them and their sport with disdain, its a shame. If you Americans only knew what an accomplishment (and an ordeal) it is for your team to qualify...many Canadians would give their right arm to see our team in the same situation.

Moreover, your team in general and one player in particular (McBride) showed those Europeans how the game could be played when played by men. If any of those Europeans had taken an elbow to the face like McBride did from that little bastard DeRossi they would have gone down like they were shot and certainly would not have returned to the game. McBride took time only to wipe the blood away and get a couple of stitches before he came back. Like it or not, the Europeans were humbled by that act.

Not much to see here folks.

The FIFA rankings of the US at fourth or fifth worldwide was a joke and didn't seem to have any relevance to the quality of the opposition faced. As far as I could tell, the only way that the US could be ranked fourth in the world in soccer was if Jeb Bush was counting the votes.

That being said, their early exit was no big surprise for even casual followers of the sport.

Who cares. . .I am sick of being lectured every four years about how the-US-will-finally-accept-soccer-as-a-mainstream-sport. . .wet hair, lather, rinse, repeat. . .we've heard this bedtime story before and it's right next to the book that tells us where the WMD's are. . .

This is significant because the World Cup is the biggest worldwide event in sports. The media is trying to portray this as a huge failure by the US team, but its not that bad. Their play against the Czech Republic was disappointing, but they showed up decently against Italy and Ghana. The general public in the US doesn't realize that getting to the World Cup Final in Germany is an accomplishment in itself.

The Economist recently published an article about how, unlike the Olympics, success in the World Cup does not reflect geopolitical clout. That no matter how much money a government chooses to throw at soccer, it just doesn't make that much of a difference in outcomes because of things like the chemistry and creativity required to succeed in soccer (versus, say weightlifting).

I think we saw that today. Ghana, a poor country of 22 million was able to dominate the world's great super power on the soccer field, in a must win game for the US.