Supposedly, I should be proud. Proud of how the United States Woman's National Team performed in this world cup final, which was lost 3-2 on penalty kicks to Japan. Sounds like fluff to me, though.

This was a missed opportunity. A show of how fragile the psyche of the US Woman's National team is. They broke down but didn't snap after allowing that first goal to Japan to equalize and it was a concern. A good team would have recovered and scored on another one of those 27 (!) shots that they lashed terribly toward the Japanese goal, with a pathetic 5 of them on target all game long.

This was a chance to make the entire US finally have something to embrace in the footballing world since 2007, which is about the time when the real footballing revolution seems to have started to hit the US leading up to the amazing crowds and ratings for the 2010 World Cup. This was a brilliant chance to unite the country and they choked it away, more fodder for the football-haters of the country to feast on as they forced it into the much-lambasted Penalty Kicks and failed to score on their first three shots after sending two of their worst players in the match to shoot first.

The game was fantastic to watch and the drama was unending to the matches advantage, but when asked about the US team, I see no reason to be proud.