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The first four days of the World Cup have been given us some absolutely breathtaking soccer. We've seen late winners from Switzerland, shock wins from Costa Rica, as many beauties as own goals, and goals galore from everywhere. If this World Cup keeps up at this pace, it might end up going down as one of the greatest of all time.
Now it's our turn to get into the action. The US Men's National Team will join the fun at 4 p.m. Mountain Time, playing the first game of their World Cup against Ghana. If you've been under a rock for the last eight years, you might notice that there's a bit of historical relevance to this match. Both the 2006 and 2010 World Cups ended after a loss to the Black Stars for the US.
Group G is nowhere near as tough as people made it out to be at the start. Germany has a great squad, but Portugal is a literal one-man team that struggled a whole lot in qualifying, and Ghana is only notable as a fearful squad because of their history of knocking the US out of World Cups previous. That said, this Ghanian team have some pretty good players, including noted US-killer Asamoah Gyan.
The US have some big talent on their side too, though it may have been hidden by our usual inferiority complex. Guys like Micheal Bradley, Fabian Johnson and Clint Dempsey are star quality, and they'll all need to have big games if the US want to advance from this not-quite-group-of-death. No team has ever lost three in a row against the same opponent at three straight World Cups. History is on our side, or at least that's what we're telling ourselves. Go USA!