CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- The MVP award seems to be an American invention, and the rest of the world clearly is still getting the hang of the idea. FIFA, soccer's governing body, instituted its player-of-the-year award less than 20 years ago, and there's been an official World Cup honor-- the Golden Ball -- since 1982. In those seven World Cups, the media selected to vote for the award has gotten it wrong more often than not. Especially recently.
Paraguay squeezed through to the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup™ for the first time in their history as Yuichi Komano's penalty miss sent Japan crashing out of the tournament. With the game goalless at the end of extra time in Pretoria, South Africa witnessed its first shoot-out and, after Komano had clipped the crossbar, Oscar Cardozo rolled home the winning spot-kick to give the South Americans a 5-3 win and a last-eight tie against either Spain or Portugal.
The best player on the U.S. national team confirmed his place as the best player in U.S. history at the moment when his team and his country needed him most.
The day after the U.S. World Cup team all but upset scary ol' England by winning a point in this tournament via a draw, its coach, Bob Bradley, was asked what he saw his team needed to improve on most to be successful against the rest of the world.
Group C is up for grabs, but who's got the inside track? Here's a quick run through the scenarios by which the Yanks can advance to the knockout stages.
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