Can They <i> Really </i> Forget About Colombia? : Group A: Americans vow to take them one at a time, with Romania coming up Sunday.

One or another of the players on the U.S. World Cup team was saying how Romania’s 4-1 loss to Switzerland last Wednesday was inevitable, coming as it did after an emotional victory over Colombia in their first game.

“It’s expected that a team would come out flat after that kind of game,” is the gist of what many players said.

Using that logic, shouldn’t the U.S. team also come out flat against Romania on Sunday? Won’t it be similarly affected by its emotional victory over Colombia?

“No. Our mentality is different than the Romanians’,” Marcelo Balboa said. “When they (fall behind), they start bickering. Our mentality is very good. We’ll be focused.”

The U.S. players are certainly talking the right talk to demonstrate that they aren’t dwelling on the upset. They don’t even want to talk about it anymore. Which in no way means they aren’t asked about it every day after their morning practice at the Mission Viejo training center, when they meet on a patio with the ever-growing international media contingent showing an interest in the team.

Daily since Wednesday, the U.S. players have been asked by a still incredulous world press how it was that they beat a team that was seen as a possible winner of this World Cup tournament. Every day they try to move on.

“The Colombia game is so over,” Alexi Lalas said.

The Americans’ approach to Sunday’s game will be an interesting test of that ability to focus, because rarely has the team been in a position to put a big victory behind it. After the 2-0 victory over England in last summer’s U.S. Cup, the team played Germany and came away with a respectable 4-3 loss.

The most recent gauge was the team’s final warm-up game, against Mexico on June 4. Only minutes after that 1-0 surprise victory, the players were talking about their first World Cup opponent. Their willingness to put the Mexico game behind them is a measure of a team’s maturity.

The way Thomas Dooley sees it, the team has met one goal and now is obligated to set new ones and move on. Dooley, whose life is a series of goals, said the team will have no trouble leaving the Colombia game behind.

“That’s not a problem,” he said. “We have such unity. We have talked about our goals and what is our plan. It’s important that everybody see the same way. It’s easy to say, ‘We want to get to the second round.’ But we need a plan.

“We set our goal to get four points, and now we have four points a little early. Now we must set another goal and move on. We must get at least another point from the game against Romania. This will help us reach our higher goals.”

The flip side to all this is Romania, which, Lalas notes, is likely to be “very ticked off.” The Romanians have only three points in the group and, like the United States, want at least another point to ensure advancement to the second round. If they were flat against Switzerland, there’s not much chance they will make the same mistake against the United States.

“They are an emotional team,” U.S. assistant Sigi Schmid said. “That emotion brings them to great highs and that can also bring them down a little bit.”

The U.S. players want to maintain an even keel, even as they sail into unfamiliar waters.