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U.S. Eliminated After Loss to Ghana

By Steven Goff

NUREMBERG, Germany, June 22 -- When the final whistle sounded, Bruce Arena turned toward the tunnel behind the U.S. national soccer team bench, then looked back and waved in the direction of German referee Markus Merk.

It was a dismissive act, signaling his disgust with Merk's controversial decision to award Ghana a penalty kick just before halftime -- a call that dramatically turned Thursday's match and helped the Black Stars seize a 2-1 victory over the Americans at Franken Stadium.

The wave served several other purposes too.

Goodbye, World Cup.

Goodbye, Germany.

Goodbye, Claudio Reyna.

Goodbye, Arena?

Four years after a historic run to the quarterfinals, the Americans didn't win a game, managed just two goals in three first-round matches (one on an own goal) and one point in the standings to finish last among four teams in treacherous Group E.

They began the cool, overcast day with several scenarios to reach the second round, none better than combining a victory over Ghana with an Italian win over the Czech Republic in a game being played simultaneously in Hamburg. Italy did its part, but the U.S. team never could overcome Merk's controversial call, another sad performance by star forward Landon Donovan and its own failures in the second half.

"We knew it was going to be a grueling three games in group play and there wasn't a whole lot of room for error," Arena said. "And so there were too many errors."

There were egregious errors in the 3-0 opening loss to the Czechs 10 days earlier and a pair of ejections in the second game, against Italy. There was Reyna's blunder in the first half against Ghana that left the Americans behind after 22 minutes and several squandered scoring opportunities in the second half.

Arena and his players pinned much of the blame on the highly decorated Merk, but also came to the realization that they did not perform nearly well enough to escape the group stage.

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