one of the worst jobs

Why in the world would anyone ever want to be a referee? The one in the USA v Italy game blew it, big time. While I do think the first two red cards were deserved, the first yellow on Pope was undeserved, and the second merited a warning but probably not a yellow. What it means, of course (besides putting the US a man down for 45 minutes) is that Pope can not play in the final match. The US defense held up without him, but it will be too bad to have him unavailable. Mastroeni--well, I'm not really sure why he was on the field to begin with.

Go USA! Go Azzurri! Too bad, though, that there is no case in which both Ghana and the US can advance.