Two nothing, that's it

'Coming up roses in Bloemfontein, it's death in the afternoon for Spain'

I always love the way nobody can agree on what they just watched together.

The US played amazingly, or Spain played dismally. This was bigger than beating Portugal and Mexico in 2002, or not as big as the World Cup, where Spain will not make the same mistake. Take your pick.

Does it matter? No, the result is all that counts, providing the playing field was level. What goes on for an hour and a half offers myriad perspectives, fueling the soccer media, or as a Florentine friend put it to me, 'When the Azzurri play, we have 60 million coaches'.

Read the FIFA stats from the Confederations Cup semi-final and you will see Spain out-shot us 29 to 9, won 17 corners to our 3 and played only 8% of their football right in front of their goal, to our 17%. But they still lost.

Tim Howard's view was thus: "We are scratching our heads just like you guys are but it goes to show what hard work and commitment to each other can bring. Football is a funny thing...We rode our luck today."

All I know is that I saw the US beat one of the world's best teams tonight, if not the best. Ok, Spain might have had a penalty, but then we should have finished with 11 men (thanks for removing our key player from the final, FIFA).

With the champagne run out and the victory buzz wearing off, a few reflections on a famous win:

JRR Tolkein was born in Bloemfontein, which explains the Hobbits - Xavi, Mata and Donovan.

Are we fit enough, mentally? Or is there a slow-release in the half-time energy drinks? We looked lethargic at the start of the second half just as Spain were upping their pace. Whatever was in those bottles, Sergio Ramos must have had a swig of it. What on earth was he thinking when he put his foot on the ball in the six-yard box? Good job Dempsey was there to punish his gaffe, hee-hee.

Remember the Alamo? Our center-backs did. Gooch still plays like he's wearing clogs, but he was no shrinking violet in the City of Roses. And Jay might be little more than a stopper as a defender, but how many attacks did he stop tonight? Plenty.

The 442 worked a treat when the two lines of four narrowed like housecarls protecting the king, but without a Michael Bradley charging the ball-carriers, the Cesc Fabregases of this world can run riot in the gap between them. Do we have a ready replacement if he is out?

Karma was revisited on Gerard Pique for his unpunished handball against Chelsea in the Champions League semi. How funny he forgot the first rule of marking: Get goalside! You can't expect your top-ranked opponent to gift you two schoolboy errors in goalscoring positions every game, but you can pressure them into making mistakes.

Jozy Altidore once more showed he needs experience, and slicker skills. He is strong enough to lap up defensive errors of the likes of Pique's, but he did not challenge for enough 50-50 balls and too frequently snuffed out his own team's promising advances.

Michael Bradley, Dempsey and Donovan are worth their weight in gold to us, and Tim Howard in platinum. Deuce's carat value gets bigger all the time. In the city of cheetahs (the African name for Bloemfontein), he was like a leopard unleashed in his forward role. What a leap this season.

Michael Bradley needs a spare pair of legs after he ran eight miles against Egypt...He would have covered the same amount tonight but for the pompous refereeing edicts FIFA impose on their tournaments. A straight red for that tackle in the Bundesliga? Ich glaube das nicht (IDTS).

Bad calls are part of the World Cup experience. Three sendings-off should win some sort of FIFA unfair play award, but expect there to be similar miscarriages of justice next summer. Let's pray we don't get a Byron Moreno, who famously wrecked the Italy v South Korea Round of 16 game in 2002.

Davies and Spector need to practise their crossing. They got into some really useful positions out wide but like Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon today, over-hit their serves.

Am I being over-critical? Yes, but let's not get carried away. We were bullied for twenty minutes after half-time and but for some heroic defending and goalkeeping, the story could have been different. We can't hope to hold out every time when we stay with our backs against the wall like that. Defending en masse is often the best policy when you lead a superior team (ask generations of Italians), but it is risky.

We didn't put Spain on the back foot in return, but when we did break upfield in the 73rd, we learned that the best form of defense can be attack. The second goal knocked the stuffing out of them as the clock ticked away.

We don't look a team of world beating individuals yet, but while as a team we can lose to the world's best (Brazil & Italy), we can also beat the world's best, and that should be the main lesson from Bloemfontein.

Now bring on South Africa.

- Sean O'Conor