Here me, all gods and goddesses, of turf and balls, and gods of Mali, the land of this affliction. Curse the referee; visit misfortune upon him; Stick a vuvuzela up his ass and have an elephant blow it. That, ladies and gentlemen, was a 1,000,000% legit goal. The USA should have been at the head of the group right now, and be certain to qualify with a tie in the last group match. Now we qualify for sure with a win, and there's an outside chance to qualify with a tie. Lose and we go home.

Confused? You won't be! Not after Tio Ricardo explains all.

About the Slovenia game (2-2 tie. 2-0 Slovenia at halftime):

a) We (The USA) were much better than the Slovenians today. The Slovenians were more effective in translating scoring opportunities, but we shot on goal twice as much, had twice as many corners, and they had 4 yellow cards to our one.

b) The USA's third goal was utterly legal. The ref should be charged with high crimes (impersonating a referee) and misdemeanors (al-Qaeda affiliation springs to mind...)

USA can and should beat Algiers and qualify for the sweet 16. If it wins it can possibly even finish first though one or two things have to happen in addition to our win. If it ties...we pray.

Here are the scenarios and outcomes:

USA wins over Algiers
Slovenia beats England

Slovenia 1st, USA 2nd (top two qualify).

USA beats Algiers
England beats Slovenia

USA and England qualify. If both win by the same margin and same score (or even if Eng. scores one more, i.e. they win 2-1 and we win 1-0), We finish 1st.

USA beats Algiers
England and Slovenia tie

USA qualifies along with Slovenia, from 1st place if it wins by two or more goals or scores more goals in the final game than Slovenia (i.e. Slovenia ties 1-1, we win 2-1).

USA ties Algiers
Slovenia beat England

USA qualifies from 2nd place.

USA ties Algiers
England beats Slovenia

Yankee go home. :-(

USA ties Algiers
Slovenia ties England

USA qualifies from 2nd place unless England scores 3 more goals in its tie. if it scores 2 more, the two teams (USA and England) will be tied in all aspects for 2nd. I think they actually draw lots if this happens.

USA loses to Algiers
USA goes home no matter what. Algiers advances from 2ns place unless England beats Slovenia, in which case England qualifies from 1st place, Slovenia from 2nd (unless Algiers beats us by more than one, in which case They qualify as 2nd place to England).

So to summarize:

1) The referee's mother is a woman of ill repute, infamous for passing the clap around in the marketplaces of Timbuktu.

2) The USA played fine in both its games so far, with marked improvement today.

3) Tuesday, June 23, 10am EST, USA-Algiers. Win and we're in. Nuff said. Go USA!