I've already received my first email from a reader who can't believe I'm comparing Italy to Guatemala.
That wasn't the intent of my article at all. My point was that in tournament play, things go awry all the time because teams are doing anything and everything to win and luck comes into play and bad calls will happen. At the World Cup, the U.S. only rolled well with the punches versus Italy. They were too easily dazed when things went wrong versus the Czech Republic and Ghana.
Keepings one's cool is vital - and only the pressure-cooker of tournament play can produce the circumstances that help deal with that. For once in the World Cup, the U.S. faced expectations, and they crumbled under them in 2006. In the 2007 Gold Cup, the U.S. is considered a big dog, and teams are upset-minded at every turn, but the U.S. held it together against Guatemala and that's the kind of thing they need to do wherever they go.
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