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Bloodied but not beaten, the United States bounced back to hold Italy to a 1-1 tie Saturday night in an ugly World Cup game with three ejections, a disallowed American goal and wide-open play.
With thousands of fans in red, white and blue cheering the United States on a warm night, the Americans came out aggressive — and then hung on while playing most of the second half at a man disadvantage. Their reward was their first World Cup point in Europe.
U.S. goalkeeper Kasey Keller saved the Americans with a pair of point-blank stops on Alessandro Del Piero in the final 20 minutes.
"It was a total team effort and those guys bled today for our country and our team," Keller said.
The American team, harshly criticized for lackluster and nervous play in their opener, went to a corner of the field after the final whistle to salute their fans at Fritz-Walter-Stadion, a group roughly equal in size to supporters of the famous Azzurri, a three-time World Cup champion.
"We gave everything, but it was difficult after the second red card," captain Claudio Reyna said. "We gave everything at the end to get a point."
The result complicated a group that after the first games seemed clear.
Italy (1-0-1) leads Group E with four points, one ahead of the Czechs and Ghana (both 1-1) and three ahead of the Americans (0-0-1).
The United States, seemingly deflated after a 3-0 loss to the Czech Republic, now finds itself with a chance to advance to the second round if it beats Ghana on Thursday in its final first-round game.
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It sounds like science fiction. Rocket propelled jets racing across the sky at hundreds of miles per hour, while millions of fans watch and cheer at home and in stadiums all across the world.
Well, for now it is, but if Peter Diamandis, founder of the aerospace Ansari X Prize, has his way, it will be a reality by late next year.
Diamandis unveiled the Rocket Racing League, a strange hybrid of NASCAR and NASA, at a ceremony Monday in New York as its co-founder and chairman.
"For me, it is a remembrance of sort of 'Star Wars' pod racing," said Diamandis, referring to the rocket race portrayed in 1999's "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace."
Diamandis hopes to hold an exhibition event with four so-called X-Racer planes in October of 2006. The project aims to "inspire people of all ages to once again look up into the sky and find inspiration and excitement," the wild eyed entrepreneur said in a statement.
The hour long races are set to include a dramatic X-Racer liftoff allowing fans to follow each rocket plane by tracking their 20-foot exhaust plumes and watching large-screen TVs.
Streaming multi-angle video would be available from each aircraft, showing cockpit, "on-track" and "side-by-side" and wing-angle views. Fans also would be able to track races by using hand-held GPS devices connected to WiFi systems.
The rocket planes will have a liquid oxygen/kerosene fuel mix, calculated to have a burn time of four minutes, requiring pilots to shut down their engines repeatedly and glide, then restart to pass opponents at up to 300 mph.
The race course would be two miles long, a mile wide and about 5,000 feet high.
This might make Baseball season bearable again
xxoozero
CNN
