From: Hildegaard Beauregard [ljlife@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 2:10 PM
Subject: Re: US soccer shocker!!

The 3 U.S. goals in the first 36 minutes
were the highlights! The other highlight was the goal
the U.S. scored for Portugal in the second half. They
were enjoying the scoring fest so much, they scored
one for the other side. Portugal is definitely the
better team, ran possession easily, especially in the
2nd half, but the U.S. have some striking capability
and some speed in Landon Donovan (of San Jose Sharks)
and DeMarcus Beasley. They will need to improve their
midfield and possession game, though, if they are to
succeed against South Korea, who look great in
dominating Poland. Still, it's the biggest win for the
U.S. national team since the 1950 1-0 upset of
England, maybe bigger than that, even. Portugal were
ranked 5th in the world and won the qualifying group
that included Ireland and Holland.

Ireland scored at the last minute, of injury time too
no less, to salvage a tie with Germany. It stalled
Germany's advance and preserves the chance for
Ireland.

The tournament is really looking wide open right now.
The world order may have changed significantly even
since the last Cup. I have been most impressed with
Italy and South Korea, and if South Korea keep up
their excellent play (which had been going on in
friendlies just before the Cup, too), the legendary
home factor could come into play (it was not supposed
to in this first Asian Cup, presuming the superiority
of Europe and South America). Brazil still have some
fireworks, and Ronaldo may not be what he once was,
but he's definitely still enough to give anybody
trouble. Japan are enough to take on the European
teams, too, if perhaps still not organized enough to
take charge. And the African teams have already showed
they are competitors with Senegal getting the best of
it even though they came in as the newbie.