We Got Game!

Now we just have to beat USA...

OK, two concessions and two rebuttals:

I concede:
1. That the foul that resulted in a penalty being awarded to Ghana was complete and utter theater.
2. That the late foul on the Czech player should have been a penalty.

Nevertheless:
1. The penalty kick went off the post, resulting in no point scored.
2. Had the Czechs' penalty gone in, the score would still have been 2-1.

My point is that the Czechs seemed just to give up around the 68th minute. I'm a big fan of the Czech Republic, and I know Ghana's midfield is, like, the best in the world, and I know the best Czech strikers are out with injuries... But I was still dissatisfied with the Czech Republic in the last 25 minutes or so of the match. They gave up attacking and just played the "offsides trap" game with the Ghanaian attackers, even when they were only one goal down and should have been trying like anything to score.

What happened to the supposed No. 2 team in the world? On Monday, when Ghana was in a similar spot against Italy, they kept on playing, leading the president of FIFA say that the Ghana-Italy match was the best football he had seen yet, and the Italian coach to say that in many ways, Ghana was a better team than Italy.