MY WORLD CUP FEVER HAS DIMINISHED EXTENSIVELY

That sucked.

Some country named Ghana defeated the United States, 2-1, today, ending my dream of America becoming a dominating force in something besides blowing shit up.

I really don't know what to say about the two-week performance, other than the fact the three guys who were supposed to take the USA to the next level (Landon Donovan, Brian McBride and DeMarcus Beasley) clearly were not ready to grab hold of the international stage.

I could describe each time one of these three made me want to fire my remote into the television, kick a hole in the wall or take up drinking and smoking as a 24-hour job; however, by doing so would cause my head to explode. I need my head in order to direct my ire at the true culprit of this international disaster, head coach Bruce Arena.

As for the spineless, egotistical, arrogant prick who leads our national team, let's just say some of his tactics were questionable. Clearly, his decisions not to use his final substitution in the Italy game and holding out Eddie Johnson until the 60th minute of today's game will likely go down as the rope and the tree of his national coaching career.

Also, his apparent halftime speech of "maybe we can get a make-up call" might go down as one of the most pathetic speeches in sport history. In fact, it's just downright pansy in nature.

I once had the pleasure of attending every halftime speech of a Division I college basketball team that went 2-26 on the season; which, needless to say, left me with some pretty uninspiring moments. However, I never heard anything that dab and dreary.

It's about the equivalent of a coach giving a rousing speech only to end it with something like "Disregard everything I said; because, let's be honest here, we are going to need some help."

If I were the coach in Arena's situation, I would have extended my middle finger and dog cussed every person ever involved in the sport of soccer. It would have been a rousing, profanity laced tirade that basically would have ended with, "nobody but ourselves can [expletive] save us now, so let's go beat the [expletive] [expletive] out of those [expletive] for 45 minutes."

As for the ref who made the call against the United States, what the hell does everyone expect? The world hates, loathes and despises the Unites States. When FIFA has to provide extra security detail and black-mark the team bus, I think it’s a sign some things might not go our way when foreign officials are involved.

And, finally, as for the sport of soccer itself... I hate those mother [expletive] flopping foreigners. A complete disgrace to the game. However, as a friend from Kansas pointed out, at least we now know a simple spray to the back or an application of ice seems to have downright mystical healing effects. Quite simply, it’s a discovery that will be sure to revolutionize world health.

So we got that going for us, which is nice.