The USA shocks the world by advancing out of the dreaded "group of death" and moves on to the round of 16 for the second straight World Cup, edging out Portugal to finish second in Group G. Stories like this were everywhere: Is there a way out of the Group of Death for plucky United States?
The USA lost 1-0 to Germany, the #2 ranked team in the word by FIFA, by advance because of beating Portugal by three in goal differential. After the victory, USA coach Jurgen Klinsman was a happy man as he talked to ESPN's Jeremy Schaap on the field after the match.
Schaap: Jurgen, what does it say about your team that you survived the group of death?
Klinsman: It's huge, it's huge. obviously we wanted at least a tie out of the game. maybe in the beginning we had too much respect, but more and more we got into the game. We should have created a bit more chances and that's something we'll have to improve on. Overall, tremendous energy, tremendous effort from the whole side. It's huge. It's huge for us getting out of this group when everybody said we had no chance. We took that chance and we move on and now we really want to prove a point.
I'm stoked!
The next game will start on Tuesday and the USA will face the winner of Group H. Belgium appears to be the opponent at this point, but as we know with this World Cup, nothing is for certain. It would be awesome if Jozy Altidore could play, but that's asking for a lot.
