America showing head for heights

Mexico 0 USA 2

The United States will face Germany in the quarter-finals after an impressive second round win over neighbours and fierce rivals Mexico today.

This really is the World Cup of the underdog. And what a great moment for America. Following a good luck phone call from President George W Bush last night, they booked their place in the last eight of the World Cup finals for the first time since 1930.

What is even more surprising is the manner in which they did it. Mexico, hotly tipped after their first round draw with Italy and wins over Ecuador and Croatia, simply had no answer against a wellorganised and disciplined American team.

Brian McBride set America on their way with a sweetlystruck eighth-minute goal before Landon Donovan completed the win with a second-half header.

Frustrated at their inability to break down the American defence and angry at the referee's failure to spot a handball in the area by John O'Brien when they were still just one goal down, Mexico resorted to kicking their opponents.

That only resulted in the 88th-minute dismissal of captain Rafael Marquez, who was adjudged by Portuguese official Vitor Melo Pereira to have head-butted Cobi Jones. They also had five men booked and could face a hefty FIFA fine.

This was the ugly side of the Mexican game. American coach Bruce Arena refused to be drawn on the Mexicans' dirty tactics but he did pay tribute to his team who, he believes, are starting to close the gap on the world's top sides. He said: "This is a great accomplishment against a Mexican team who have been outstanding. This World Cup has shown there is no longer an established football world. The gap is closing.

"This World Cup looks a little different now to the one the experts were predicting three weeks ago. There are no experts outside the game, the only experts are the 11 players."

Arena added: "We understand the Germans are the overwhelming favourites. On paper it looks no match. They have got one of the best goalkeepers in the world and the top scorer in the tournament so far. But I believe in my guys. We will enjoy this victory for a couple of hours and then start working on a gameplan for Friday."

Mexico coach Javier Aguirre continued the trend for losing coaches to blame everyone and everything but their own players. He said: "We were unlucky to concede a goal at a bad moment when we were trying to get control of the game.

Then the referee made a decision which made everything go wrong.

"It was very bad for the team. It was replayed on the big screen, everyone could see their player handled the ball."

True, it was a bad decision. And there's no doubt the Mexicans lost their heads after that.

But the United States never looked like losing theirs after McBride put them in front in the eighth minute with his second goal of the finals.

In what was their first real attack of the match Sunderland's Claudio Reyna burst down the right and, after beating two players, delivered a low, driven cross to the near post. The ball was neatly laid back by Josh Wolff to McBride, who picked his spot with a firm drive.

Mexico tried to hit back instantly with Cuauhtemoc Blanco presenting their best hope of getting an equaliser. The 29-year-old Valladolid player, famous for his bunny hop trick in France 98, came close with a shot in the 15th minute and then forced Blackburn's Brad Friedel into two fine saves before the break.

But after half time the Americans managed to silence him and once Donovan added their second goal - a fine header from a cross by Fulham's Eddie Lewis - it was all over for Mexico.

World Cup top scorers

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in