Egypt Upsets Italy

Bob Bradley and the rest the U.S. national team ought to send a bouquet of flowers to Egyptian coach Hassan Shehata, after his Pharaohs upended Italy 1-0 in the Confederations Cup Group B play.

Even though the U.S. has been outscored 6-1 in two matches, on top of being generally outclassed, amazingly the Americans still have some semblance of a chance to advance ... assuming they can beat Egypt at least 5-0 Sunday and Italy loses to Brazil.*

Piece of cake.
Thursday, Egypt showed that its last-second 4-3 loss to Brazil on Monday wasn't a fluke. The African champions got a first half header from Mohamed Homos and held up the result the rest of the way.

Also, they may erect a statue in Cairo to Egypt keeper Essam El-Hadary, who pretty much stood on his head with a flurry of late saves to deny the Azzurri. Twice he stoned Italy's Vincenzo Iaquinta in the final half hour with quality saves.

The play of Egypt probably will eat at a lot of American fans compared to how underwhelming the U.S. looked against Brazil and Italy. The Pharaohs showed no fear against Brazil Monday, rallying from a 3-1 deficit until being undone by a stoppage time penalty. Thursday they showed a lot of grit against Italy, not wilting from the pressure in the last half of the game.

In short, the U.S. will clearly have its work cut for on Sunday. At least the game mathematically still means something, even if there's not been a lot in the tournament to be encouraged from yet.

* Via U.S. Soccer, here's the scenario the U.S. needs to unfurl on Sunday -- "To have a chance to advance, the U.S. must defeat Egypt by at least three goals and get help from Brazil in their match against Italy. The U.S. either needs Italy to score three fewer goals than the U.S. in a loss to Brazil, or for the sum of the U.S. and Brazil's margin of victory to be seven goals or greater."