We really did think that this game had United States written all over it but at the end of the day, Ghana had more in the locker and they opened up the locker tonight.
Ghana will go on to play Uruguay after that win but Uruguay will be, or should be, the more confident of the two sides and while we don't feel let down by the United States - they had plenty of shots saved tonight - we do feel like they lacked something.
The effort was there, as it always is with the United States, but something seemed to be lacking. We don't know what it is, maybe belief, but that is a hard thing to accept from any American sports team, maybe something else.
The first goal came after 8 minutes when Kevin-Prince Boateng picked up the ball on the half way line, ran with it to the edge of the box and beat Howard with plenty of room. This lasted until the 62nd minute.
Clint Dempsey was brought down in the box and Landon Donovan stepped up to convert the penalty and at this stage we thought were going to see what we expected to see from the first minute - but it never really came.
After ninety minutes the game remained 1-1 so we went into extra time and it didn't take long for Ghana to get the winner. It came from Asamoah Gyan who managed to find himself in the box with a ball bouncing at his feet and he fired past Howard in goal.
The rest of extra time was very much all United States but they didn't have the luck, but they did go out fighting and they wont have any complaints. That is what they lacked tonight; the luck.
Still, they have four years to get ready for Brazil in 2014 and now we can hope Ghana do Africa proud. They didn't look that convincing - but they could get better.
