Job Well Done

What a goal from Carli Lloyd! It will certainly go down as one of the best strikes ever by a U.S. player in Olympic history, but even more importantly, in an instant it helped wipe away the bad feeling from the USA's first match against Norway. Yes, the Americans could have scored a few more - the USA doubled Japan's shot total -- but the Japanese were truly one of the best teams the USA has played in a while as far as rhythmical attacking soccer, so give tremendous credit to the overall team defense for holding off the Nadeshiko. The match was full of good chances -- a few close calls for Japan as well -- and a great game to build on heading into the New Zealand match. The Kiwis lost just 1-0 to Norway so the Americans have a challenge ahead on Aug. 12 in Shenyang. The win over Japan was the USA's seventh 1-0 victory in 2008, a pretty impressive stat.