Nearly 12 hours since the end of the U.S.-Algeria thriller and I'm still amazed by the finish. I watched in disbelief as I'm sure most of you did as chance after chance after chance fell by the wayside. I'm sure some of you felt like I did - crap, it's going to finish 0-0 and it's not going to be enough.
Thankfully, the U.S. has Landon Donovan, who has been nothing short of outstanding throughout the World Cup. Thankfully, Algeria's shot in the 10th minute hit the crossbar and didn't drop down 6 or 12 inches more. Thankfully, after that, Algeria seemed to not care about scoring and winning the match.
Now, it's a matchup with Ghana, which I thought looked good until Wednesday's loss to Germany, when the Black Stars, like Algeria, almost seemed disinterested. Still, it figures to be better than a matchup with Germany, which seems to make the quarterfinals every year and will have Miroslav Klose back after his one-game suspension because of a bad red card.
Germany vs. England in the first knockout round, though - WOW! Someone is going home disappointed and walking into a wrath of bad press in their homeland Monday morning. Hopefully, that will be England.