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| Ronaldo saved his heroics until the end of the match. Photo credit: AP |
The United States men’s soccer team was literally seconds in stoppage time away from advancing into the knockout round. Those dreams however, were dashed away by a perfect high crossing pass from Ronaldo to Varela who bulleted home a header past Tim Howard for the equalizing goal and manage to prevent the U.S team from getting those three precious points.
By: Sunil Sunderraj
In the first couple of minutes of the match were slow to begin with. At the five minute mark, a failed clearing attempt by Geoff Cameron led to Nani ripping a shot into the upper corner of the net giving Portugal an early 1-0 lead. The United States carved out several golden scoring opportunities. to get themselves back level with Portugal.The best of those scoring opportunities came when Clint Dempsey weaved through a tight spot to find open space and fire a shot from close range that was kicked out by Portugal’s goalkeeper Beto.
On the other end, Portugal had a fantastic chance to make the score 2-0 at the 44th minute, but Nani’s kick hit the goal post. On the ricochet rebound of Nani’s kick, Team U.S.A goalkeeper Howard sprawled acrobatically out, knocking the ball away with his left hand over the crossbar. to keep his team within striking distance of Portugal.
Due to the oppressive heat and humidity at Arena Amazonia in Manaus, the referees called for a water break timeout. The water break is allowed after 30 minutes under FIFA rules in extreme heat.
The United States ratcheted up the offensive pressure in the second half. The American’s again were creating great scoring chances for themselves and made Portugal have to play in their own part of the pitch. The U.S’ Fabian Johnson’s launched a shot was deflected by a Portugal defender which in turn forced Beto to make a stretch save. You could sense the U.S was close to cashing in on one of these opportunities.
The best opportunity for a United States equalizer came at the 54th minute as Graham Zusi with a surgical pass through to Johnson who sprinted toward the end line and fed Michael Bradley, who had a wide open net ,but remarkably defender Ricardo Costa scissored kick the ball away denying the U.S. once again.
The United States finally would strike at the 64th minute off a corner kcik. The ball came out of the box, Jermaine Jones trapped the ball and spun around and was able to curl a right footed shot from a distance past a screened Beto into the right corner part of the net tying the match at 1-1.
The United States continued to press Portugal and at the 82nd minute , they were able to hit paydirt. Bradley was able to slide a pass over to Zusi whose cross pass into the goal box deflected off Dempsey into the middle of net leveling the score at two.
All four teams in Group G have yet to advance to the Second Stage. On Thursday June 26th, Germany and USA will face off while Portugal and Ghana will square off against each other. 