JOHANNESBURG -- 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.

Bradley, in what is his haltingly cautionary answering style, pondered the query for several seconds. Then he said his charges couldn't continue to play from behind early. England scored that game's first goal four minutes in.

On Friday at Ellis Park Stadium in the U.S.'s second game, Slovenia scored first in the 13th minute. It netted the match's second goal in the 42nd minute.

The Stars and Stripes didn't learn. As a result, they had no one but themselves to blame for winding up with just another point by tying another game – certainly not a rookie World Cup referee from Mali who waved off what the U.S. squad and every U.S. fan thought was the potential winning goal booted in by Maurice Edu in the 85th minute. To blame it on Mali would only be proper as a movie title.

It wasn't referee Koman Coulibaly, after all, who left the U.S. in the precarious position it found itself in Friday after 90 minutes of play, the first 45 of it quite lackluster, against Slovenia, the third smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup. It was the players themselves and coach Bradley's inability to light the fire beneath them.

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Blaming the referee when our team loses is, of course, as American as cherry pie. It is also a favorite pastime in the rest of the world. South Africa's coach Carlos Alberto Parreira on Thursday called referee Massimo Busacca, who disqualified Parreira's keeper Itumeleg Khune, "the worst referee so far" and added "he doesn't deserve to be here. FIFA boss Sepp Blatter, unlike his NBA peer David Stern is wont to do, did not sanction Parreira for disparaging one of his association's game officials.


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Had Friday's match been an NBA or NFL game, however, there really wouldn't be much for the team that thought it had nudged ahead near the end to cry about. Coulibaly drew his yellow card for egregious fouls five times, and four of those times he did so against Slovenia.

Further, he gave two direct kicks to the U.S. and none to Slovenia. He called Slovenia for offside three times and didn't indicate that the U.S. broke that rule once. Four times he booked Slovenia; he booked the U.S once.

The only differential in which Coulibaly leaned to Slovenia was in total fouls -- he cited the U.S. 18 times and Slovenia three times less. And the U.S. made little of those extra opportunities.

The U.S. players said Coulibaly, who speaks French, English and Bambara, didn't explain his nullification of Edu's goal, which he didn't indicate as offside but as a foul somewhere. Bradley wasn't surprised. International soccer isn't run like American sports where every Jim Joyce must explain himself. FIFA doesn't overturn referee decisions anyway.

Some soccer wise men quickly pointed out after the game that Coulibaly made a number of questionable calls in the Africa Cup. I won't dismiss their word even though I didn't see it and am not going to pretend to be a footie expert who could make such a judgment.

Instead of questioning the referee, the U.S. should ask itself about another horrid start.

But I did see Friday's contest and witnessed possessions and plays the U.S. team, not the referee, squandered, like a mad four-man rush in Slovenia's box in the 41st minute that the U.S. couldn't cash in before Miso Brecko kicked the ball away. Slovenia immediately turned the table and scored the game's second goal just before the half.

In the 50th minute, after Landon Donovan finally put his team on the scoreboard, Oguchi Onyewu missed putting a long free kick from Donovan, which flashed across the face of the goal, to the back post.

In the 70th minute, Jozy Altidore, the rising star striker, got a 22-meter free kick from Donovan but slammed it right at the appropriately named Slovenian keeper, Handanovic Samir.

If the U.S. has one legitimate complaint about the refereeing Friday it would be for the handball called against Robbie Findley in the first half that forced him out of the final and critical group match next week against Algeria. The replay appeared to show that the ball in question struck Findley in the face. Because the referee ruled it hit Findley in the hand, which was his second caution in two games, Findley must sit the next match.

But the team appeared more threatening in the second half with Maurice Edu and Benny Feilhaber in for Findley and Francisco Torres, who struggled so mightily in the first half that Donovan shoved him to get his attention.

That the U.S. players opened the second half playing with the fury they should've displayed all along could have been because they saw their 2010 World Cup run flash before their eyes. Then again, it could've been because the side Bradley sought in the last 45 minutes to salvage what was a World Cup run quickly slipping away was better built.
Blackistone in S.A.

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National Columnist Kevin Blackistone is on the scene in the home of World Cup 2010.
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Bradley said after Friday's near debacle that he sees the early stages of a match, particularly against a Slovenia team his side never before met, as tactical. He explained that he has his team prod and probe with the understanding that the rhythm of the game will reveal itself.

"Our goal was to win," Bradley assured. "Our mentality was to win.

"I'm not sure there's anything to change in the pre-game," Bradley responded when asked about reversing his team's slow starts that continue to force them into a catch-up game.

But Bradley doesn't have the luxury of an offensive threat as dynamic as a Cristiano Ronaldo or Didier Drogba.

"Maybe we'll try something," he said shrugging off the query, "I don't know."

He'd better, lest he continues to leave the fate of his team to one decision by a referee.