Despite being in last place with one match to go in its opening round group of the World Cup, Team USA actually still controls its own destiny.
The standings in the group have Italy with 4 points, Czech Republic and Ghana with 3 points each, and the United States with 1 point.
Everyone in the group can automatically advance with a simple win except for the United States. The US needs to do more than just win, but technically they do control their own destiny. With a winning margin of five or more goals, they are in.
The easy way of course is for a US win and an Italian win. The Italians, however, only need a tie so their late game strategy might be more defensive than offensive if the game is close.
The hard way comes with a US win and any other combination. Many scenarios could arise, which would all require the US to score a lot of goals. Something they haven’t done well in recent months or even once in this World Cup.
The five goal victory is so unlikely that I haven’t read any news story that provides that as a realistic option. Most will list out all of the possible options or just say that “it can still work out“, but none that I’ve seen have limited the scope of advancing to the single US-Ghana match up.
Perhaps considering a 5-0 win over Ghana is like considering that Allen Iverson could still beat Kobe Bryant for the scoring title by scoring a few hundred points in his final regular season game.
Eric Anderson at 6:41 pm
