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What's up with Ghana beating South Korea 3-1? That doesn't seem like good news for the U.S.

I almost scored a beautiful goal today for the Indomitable Drinky Crows. All of my goals--owing to the rarity with which they occur and to the utter implausability of someone of my profound incompetence scoring--are beautiful.

I was playing forward. My best spot is as an outside defender. It's where I can do the least damage. But we have an abundance of Drinky Crow defenders at the moment, so I've been slotting in elsewhere. I'm very versatile in my ineptitude. I planned on staying in for just a few minutes before yielding to someone with more credibility as a scoring threat.

It was about midway through the second half. We'd dominted the game, playing far better than we had all season. Knitting passing combinations together in the midfield, organized and composed in the back. But we hadn't been able to score.

Joe brought the ball forward from the left midfield. I was running down the middle, about 15 paces ahead of him. Just as I hit the top of the box Joe slotted a beautifully paced ball in ahead of me. The keeper came off his line quickly, but I reached the ball just before he could snatch it away, nipping it with my left foot around his on-rushing frame.

The ball was heading for the lower left-hand corner of the goal. It did not, however, have a lot of steam. In retrospect, I probably should have followed up my shot just in case something went wrong. But I preferred to admire my handywork and watch it trickle gloriously into the goal. (Plus I try to minimize running as much as possible.) Unfortunately, a heretofore unseen defender suddenly came streaking across the goal mouth. At the last possible instant, with the ball probably two thirds of the way over the goal line, he mercilessly booted it clear. Oh, the heartbreak.

We scored a few minutes later on a freakish ball across the goal mouth that somehow got tapped in. We won, 1-0. Mr. Gbagbo apparently did his job well.

Posted by Paul Demko at June 4, 2006 6:52 PM

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