USA 2 Slovenia 2: Great game, great quotes, a clear injustice

THE USA were denied one of the great World Cup comebacks when Mali referee Koman Coulibaly ruled out a dramatic last-gasp winner against plucky Slovenia at Ellis Park.

Mali don’t often feature at the top level of football. But Coulibaly will certainly grab a few headlines in the morning. Quite how he disallowed America’s 86^th minute winner from Maurice Edu, I’m not sure. Suffice to say there was plenty of pushing and shoving going on. Mostly by desperate Slovenians.

Here then, after the best game of the World Cup so far, the best quotes of the tournament, from the USA’s best player, Landon Donovan.

Man of the match Donovan, who scored the USA’s first and thought he’d made the clincher for Edu in the 86^th minute, said: “I’m a little gutted to be honest, I don’t know how they stole that goal from us. That’s too bad, it was a fair goal I think. I saw a good finish and a good goal. The referee wouldn’t tell us what the call was. We asked but he wouldn’t say.

“It was the guy’s first World Cup game. Maybe he got caught up in the moment. You can’t take away a good goal from a team. In a World Cup that’s disappointing.

“At half-time, 2-0 down, we said if we don’t believe it, there’s no point in going back out there. We know we’re good enough. We’re still alive. We’ll see how the England game goes. We can’t keep putting ourselves in a hole like that. If we win against Algeria we should still go through. Emotionally we have to get ourselves up again.

“But you know I’m proud of our guys. I’m not sure there are many teams who would respond in that way after going 2-0 down.”

Everton boss David Moyes, who had Donovan on loan last season, said on the BBC: "I've just seen that disallowed goal again - and not only was there no foul by a US player, there are probably two penalty-kick offences being committed by the Slovenian defenders. Shocking decision."

England don’t kick off for another three hours and already I’m exhausted. Just told local listeners on South Africa’s 702 radio they cannot turn their back on their country after Bafana Bafana’s 3-0 defeat against Uruguay. And the callers came on, embarrassed they had left Loftus Versfeld early the other night.

Don’t worry, if England lose against Algeria tonight, I’ll be sorely tempted. Got to do BBC Radio 5 tonight, hope it’s a cheerful occasion. Then Detroit’s WJR at 6.40am Eastern time tomorrow across 17 American states.

Will I make it? Phew. After Serbia’s dramatic 1-0 win over Germany, the Slovenians kept us glued to our seats.

They started with a 13^th minute rocket from Valter Birsa, the first undeflected goal from distance at this World Cup, using the ultra-light Jabulani ball. After sustained American pressure, they produced a second, a lovely Zlatan Ljubijankic finish which looked offside but wasn’t - quite.

Donovan put the Americans right back in the game with a great strike into the roof of the net from the narrowest of angles just three minutes into the second half. The World Cup’s smallest side, Slovenia (population 2.3m) were hanging on against the biggest, the USA (pop 3.2m) but remember, the tiny mountainous nation, the northernmost of the old Yugoslavian federations, generally consider skiing to be their national sport.

But the miracle couldn’t last. The US levelled through Michael Bradley, son of coach Bob, and it was game on as the Americans went crazy – some of their fans, the most numerous here, burst into tears in the chilly Ellis Park stands.

This was where South Africa won the Rugby World Cup in 1995, where Nelson Mandela’s support inspired the Hollywood movie Invictus. And as if this one too was scripted, with the Americans playing an incredibly offensive 3-4-3 formation, in came Edu to score with four minutes left on the clock. But it was disallowed by Koulibaly, who had been handing out yellow cards like confetti. Was it off-side? Was it a foul? I guess we will never know. But we know this. The World Cup was denied its greatest moment so far.

Jozy Altidor and both Bradley’s were losing it with the novice Mali referee. And English fans were celebrating. A draw is probably the best result they could have hoped for. If Fabio Capello’s men beat Algeria tonight. But that’s a sizeable IF.

Neal Collins is in South Africa to promote his first novel A GAME APART, the real story behind the 2010 World Cup. For more information, see www.nealcollins.co.uk.

To see the two goals that rocked America, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHYlWHrVcG0

USA 2, Turkey 1: Blimey, hold on a bit, these Yanks can play!

You can just see it happening in lounges across England. Those lucky enough to get ESPN's satellite coverage of Saturday's pre-World Cup friendly between Turkey and the United States in Philadelphia were suddenly sitting up in their sofas, with beers and crisps flying everywhere.

"Cor blimey, luv a duck, these bleedin' Yanks can play!" they'll have yelped as Fulham's Clint Dempsey was hitting the back of the net to put his side, England's opening Group C rivals on June 12, 2-1 up against a very useful Turkish outfit.

And there we were thinking baseball, the NFL, ice hockey and basketball (oh, and track and field) are what they're really good at. It may be some game. Especially when England were put through such a struggle by Japan yesterday, before running out 2-1 winners in their deeply unimpressive friendly in Graz, Austria.

Certainly the Americans made me sit up in Centurion, my World Cup base, on Saturday night. Today this American side—prepared pretty thoroughly by the experienced Bob Bradley, who has been in charge for 60 games—fly in to South Africa. By tonight Landon Donovan—who made Bradley's goal last night with some aplomb—will be sleeping about a mile from where I am, in the lakeside luxury of the Irene Country Lodge.

I've just been there for lunch, with former South African goalkeeper Deshi Bhaktawer along with the owner of the lodge and most of Irene, Adrian van der Bijl and their families. What a place. A British village in the middle of Gauteng. Today, for about £5, we had "the same lunch the Americans will be eating". The talk was all of football and who'll win the World Cup.

And you can't rule this hard-running US side out. Not when they're based in such a delightful spot. For a sneak preview of where they are, see my video athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OtSyTVjDOc .

It was a pig farm when I was a kid. Now it's blooming lovely, and the staff are great... and they speak American (unlike the German base at the exclusive Velmore Estate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwmti01pfUs ) or the Greek hotel at the Beverly Hills (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px-ROLawUnU ))!

Mind you, nobody's quite got what England have at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Complex though (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAousno69r ).

It took the Americans a while to start playing last night. Ranked 14th in the world, they so nearly made a mess of the last game in their "send off series" tour. Everton's Tim Howard was called into action plenty in the opening 15 minutes and eventually conceded the first goal—from Arda Turan in the 27th minute—amongst howls of disbelief from a bumper 55,407 crowd in Philly.

But yes, these Turks were trying to impress their new boss Guus Hiddink. He will take over when his contract to manage Russia finally runs out in the autumn.

For a long time it looked like Michael Bradley, now with Borussia Moenchengladbach in Germany, was getting overrun in the midfield, despite his massive engine. Any thoughts I may have had about nepotism (he's boss Bob's son) were soon dispelled though as he sweated blood to keep his side in the game.

And then who pops up with the best run of the first half? Jozy Altidore, the Hull City striker who managed just one goal—against Manchester City—in the Premier League last season.

And the man whose greatest claim to fame was giving Sunderland's Scottish fullback Alan Hutton a good old head butt towards the end of the season, then produced the 58th-minute equaliser...in his first match since that red card on April 24.

That left Dempsey to send the huge crowd home happy with a well-taken 75th-minute winner as the US dominated the closing exchanges.

The 27-year-old from Texas, showing off his wonderful set of tattoos, said of his 18th goal in 61 appearances afterwards, "It was great, I just stuck it away. We were so much better in the second half."

The US play Australia in a friendly in South Africa next week (June 5). And then, with the very public backing of their President this week ("We are proud of our team, I will have a man in the Oval Office keeping an eye on their fortunes"), it's England, ranked 8th in the world.

Rustenburg's Royal Bafokeng Palace is the place to be on June 12...if you can get a ticket, as the World Cup's two best-supported visiting teams go toe-to-toe.

Still, with Algeria (ranked 30th) stuffed 3-0 by Ireland last week — the Irish should be here but Thierry Henry's hand denied them the chance in Paris last year—and Slovenia (25) lucky to get past Russia in the playoffs, the US and England should get through from Group C whatever the result.

Just as well really. Because blimey, these Yanks can play! Given that England needed two highly-flukey own-goals to see off Japan, this World Cup is anyone's.

Did anyone notice New Zealand, ranked 78th in the world, beat Serbia (15th) 1-0 tonight? Those Kiwis can play a bit too. Italy be warned! But what about favourites Spain—3-2 last-minute winners over Saudi Arabia?!

Germany cruised past Hungary 3-0, Slovakia drew 1-1 with Cameroon in other friendlies while earlier today, troubled South Korea fell 1-0.

I'm off to South Africa v Guatemala is Polokwane with Desh and the SABC lads tomorrow. It's just around the corner, this World Cup. Can you feel it?

Who the hell is Neal Collins (nealcol on twitter)? See www.nealcollins.co.uk .