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U.S. Beaten By One of Their Own

The name Giuseppe Rossi has been a sore topic of discussion for the past few years in the darkened watering holes and digital chat rooms soccer fans typically congregate. When the New Jersey born soccer prodigy, Rossi, elected to play internationally for the country of his parent’s birth, Italy, U.S. national team fans called him a Benedict Arnold among other names that could make your mother's skin crawl.

One online soccer website has even instituted a “Rossi Rule” which asks posters to refrain from making derogatory statements about Giuseppe and his family. Nevertheless, after the Azzuri’s 3-1 defeat of the U.S. this Monday in their opening game of the Confederations Cup  in which the Italian-American scored two magnificently taken goals I’m sure those soccer forums are on fire again.

The Americans were fortunate Italian head coach Marcello Lippi didn’t start Rossi because prior to the young forward’s entrance the Yanks surprisingly had most of the momentum. The game was altered in the first half when U.S. midfielder Ricardo Clark received an unjust red card for a late tackle on Gennaro Gattuso. The foul likely warranted a yellow card, but did not justify Clark’s ejection forcing the Americans to play the rest of the game down a man. Even Gattuso after the game said that the foul was not a red card.

Despite their misfortune the U.S. battled on taking the lead in the 38^th minute when 19-year-old striker Jozy Altidore (and teammate of Rossi at Spanish league club Villareal) was fouled in the penalty box by the Italian defense setting up captain Landon Donovan for a well taken penalty goal. The U.S. went into the locker room with the lead, but I’m sure fully aware of how hard the rest of the game would be playing against the World Champions with one less player.

In the second half fatigue began to become an issue as the Italians dominated possession and hammered down on the American defense. U.S. central defenders Oguchi Onyweu and Jay Demerit did a solid job of clearing the ball away from their goal, but with Rossi’s introduction the game changed. After Rossi intercepted the ball in the midfield, Demerit retreated backwards allowing the 22-year-old enough room to launch a world-class strike into the corner of the American goal. Another long distance shot got past Yank keeper Tim Howard as Italian Danielle Di Rossi gave the Italians the lead with twenty minutes remaining. Not having a closing midfielder like the red-carded Clark left room for the Azzuri’s long distance attack to wreak mayhem in the second half.

The closing minutes gave the U.S. some hope as they had a few opportunities to tie up the match as substitutes Charlie Davies and Sacha Kljestan gave the team a boost in the attack. Swedish based striker Charlie Davies got loose from his defender on a corner kick, but missed the header only a few yards from the Italian goal. Kljestan in his short spell on the pitch ripped a hooking shot that just flew over the crossbar. In the end it was their fellow countrymen Giuseppe Rossi again who would put the U.S. out of their misery with an extra time volley to finish the game 3-1.

It would have been interesting if the game hadn’t been wrongfully altered early on with the red card, but regardless of the officiating U.S. soccer learned the lesson of how losing their homegrown talent to other countries can come back to haunt them.

All the United States can do is not worry about what that can’t control and get focused for the next game on Thursday against another world class opponent. On Thursday if the Americans can pull of a historic upset against the Green and Yellow of Brazil U.S. soccer fans might just take their celebration out of their dirty pubs and fan forums.