U.S. makes off with a victory
In keeping with all too much of soccer’s Gold Cup, Thursday night’s semifinal between the United States and Canada ended in acrimony.
Furious with the match officials who disallowed what would have been a last-gasp, game-tying goal by Canada, half a dozen Canadian players pursued Mexican referee Benito Archundia and his assistants off the field, yelling and gesticulating all the while.
The U.S. won the game, 2-1, to advance to Sunday’s championship match against Mexico, which defeated Guadeloupe, 1-0, in the other semifinal.
But Canada would have tied its game and forced overtime had linesman Ricardo Louisville of Suriname not raised his flag in the fourth minute of injury time, calling offside and negating a goal by Canada’s Atiba Hutchinson, even though the last player to touch the ball before Hutchinson had been U.S. defender Oguchi Onyewu.
Canada Coach Stephen Hart was as displeased as his players.
“If one of their players plays the ball back, it’s like a back pass and it cannot be offside,” he said.
Even if Onyewu had not played the ball, Hutchinson still appeared to be onside.
Hart was also baffled over why a Mexican referee had charge of the match, even though the U.S. and Mexico were potential finalists. An official from a neutral or non-involved country should have been appointed, he said.
“I think it’s the only confederation in the world that could do that,” Hart said. “It’s not something that is done anywhere else. But I’m not in control of that. He did the best game he could. There’s nothing you can do about that.”
Even though Canada fought back late to make a game of it, with Iain Hume scoring in the 76th minute, two mistakes in the last six minutes of the first half spelled the end of the Canadians’ Gold Cup hopes.
The first occurred when Julian DeGuzman fouled U.S. forward Clint Dempsey out near the right touchline. DaMarcus Beasley’s free kick was headed away, but the ball fell to Pablo Mastroeni, who passed it inside to Landon Donovan.
Spotting a wide-open Frankie Hejduk, Donovan laid a perfect pass and Hejduk took full advantage, hitting the back of the net from about 23 yards. It was the veteran defender’s first goal for the U.S. in more than seven years and only his sixth in 75 appearances for the national team.
Worse was to follow for Canada.
With less than a minute to go in the half, Dempsey fed a sprinting Beasley on the left and Beasley changed gears as he cut into the box. Canada goalkeeper Pat Onstad came out and upended Beasley, catching him on the ankle, and referee Archundia pointed immediately to the penalty spot.
Donovan did the honors, scoring his third penalty kick goal of the tournament and increasing his overall count to 33 goals, only one behind the all-time U.S. record held by Eric Wynalda.
Onstad said those letdowns caused the outcome, not poor officiating.
“It happens,” Onstad said. “We got ourselves in a position to let the referee influence the game. Whether it was a correct call or not is irrelevant. I think we dug ourselves a hole in the last five minutes of the first half.”
It was not a classic performance by the U.S., but it was enough to put the Americans in the final and keep them unbeaten and untied through five Gold Cup games. The victory also improved Coach Bob Bradley’s record to 9-0-1.
There were two downsides for the U.S. team. The first was that Hejduk picked up his second yellow card of the knockout round early in the second half after a clash with Canada’s Dwayne DeRosario and will sit out Sunday’s sold-out final because of the resulting suspension.
In the final minute, Michael Bradley, the coach’s son, was ejected for a tackle from behind on Canada’s DeGuzman. The red card means Bradley, too, will miss the championship match.
