The US/Germany match represented everything that is wrong with soccer.
While Germany was playing keep away for most of the game, the US was timid and even seemed afraid to attempt to advance the ball into the German zone. The best play the Americans had was to pass the ball backwards. If they could have, they would have passed the ball back to Miami.
The US only had 1 or 2 chances to actually score in the game, so being shutout was not that surprising.
There were of course the obligatory dives from the Germans and even one or two attempted dives by the Americans.
The play that encapsulated everything that one needs to know about soccer was the yellow card on Benedikt Howedes.
Germaine Jones had gotten past the defender with the ball and would have advanced on the German goal with superior numbers. Better scoring opportunities don’t often come along in soccer.
In typical sporting fashion, Howedes did the only thing that he could. he reached out and intentionally kicked the legs out from under Jones.
Unsporting, against the spirit of the rules of soccer and a potentially dangerous play. Soccer has a mechanism for dealing with this type of play. The red card. Howedes should have been tossed from the game. Here comes the ref running up to the play and he is reaching for...the yellow card.
The dirty little secret of international soccer is that you never penalize a favored European team against a non-European team especially so early in the game. The fix was in and the outcome was no longer in doubt.
Belgium played a man down for over a half against Korea.
And they still were able to score a goal even a man down to win.
Keep in mind that Germany had a crucial extra day of rest, and also the US played a grueling game in the conditions at Manaus just a few days before.
Not getting blown out was a huge victory for the US.
I think had Germany played the US first, instead of last, it would have been a much better game on both sides.