Two goals by Carlos Tevez – one hugely-controversial and the other a wonderful strike – sent Argentina through to the World Cup quarter-finals with a 3-1 victory over Mexico.

The offside rule states there should be two players between the striker and the goal – there was not even one when Lionel Messi’s ball found Tevez’s head, and then the net to put Diego Maradona’s side in front.

Mexico went into meltdown and a defensive howler by Ricardo Osorio allowed Gonzalo Higuain to make it 2-0. It was Tevez who sewed the match up in brilliant fashion – and legitimately this time – early in the second half with Mexico left only to savour a stunning reply by Manchester United’s new signing Javier Hernandez.

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The call that drove a stake through the heart of one nation and gave another sweet revenge after 44 years was this World Cup’s most dramatic moment.

And also its most disappointing.

It wasn’t just Frank Lampard and England that deserved better than the outrageous blown call that denied them a valid goal and sent Germany to a 4-1 victory and a place in the quarterfinals.

Soccer deserves better.

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I am still in shock that Frank Lampard’s obvious goal was not allowed. Very good to hear Jurgen Klinsman on ESPN say “it’s a disgrace.”

In fact, the Americans were at a deficit from the start of the tournament. They gave up the two quickest goals of this World Cup ”” in the fourth minute against England in their first match and in the fifth minute Saturday against Ghana in their last. Over 4 games and almost 400 minutes of soccer, the United States led for only three minutes, the final ticks of the clock against Algeria, in its only win.

The Americans had to come from behind in three of their four games, often playing better when their fortunes appeared most dire.

Early deficits against England and Slovenia forced Coach Bob Bradley’s team to play with more urgency, pressing forward in the attack rather than waiting for opportunities to counterattack. Throughout the tournament, Bradley encouraged his players to draw strength from what he called the “difficult moments” they encountered in the past. But like adrenaline junkies, they seemed unable to perform without them.

“The warning signs were there,” Landon Donovan said. “Getting scored on early, and it came back to bite us.”

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Where was this team in the first half?

Ugh.

The United States team bus, emblazoned with the slogan “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Victory,” was mobbed when it rolled through Pretoria on Wednesday.

The rowdy crowds that lined the streets did not pelt the bus with balloons filled with goat urine or bombard the team with slurs and deafening music, as they sometimes do when the Americans play a World Cup qualifier in Central America. Instead, the red-white-and-blue-clad supporters showered the team with chants of “U.S.A.” and serenaded it with toots from their vuvuzelas.

“It is not often you see them lining up on the road before the game, all dressed up and chanting and banging on the bus,” Coach Bob Bradley said after the Americans beat Algeria, 1-0, on Wednesday. “That was a really special moment for the team.”

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Oscar Tabarez admitted luck was on Uruguay’s side as they beat South Korea 2-1 to progress to the quarter-finals.

South Korea hit the post with a Park Cho-Young free-kick early on, but Uruguay were soon ahead through Luis Suarez after some poor defending.

Lee Chung-Yong then scored a deserved equaliser as South Korea dominated the second half, but that sparked a reaction that led to a stunning 80th-minute winner from Suarez.

“It was a difficult game to play and I think our win means more because of this,” Tabarez said. “We were surprised by their play. We wanted to finish the game in the second half. Their goal was key to our win because we improved after that. We showed class in the final minutes and Suarez scored two spectacular goals for us.”

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For other countries, a second-round World Cup match is a big step. For the United States, Saturday’s game against Ghana is so much more.

The television audience back home could top the U.S. national team record of 13.7 million, set during the 1994 World Cup loss to Brazil.

With a victory, the Americans would advance to a quarterfinal matchup versus Uruguay or South Korea on July 2 and match the farthest the U.S. team has advanced since the first World Cup in 1930. Confidence is soaring.

“If we continue to build on the successes so far, we can go to the end,” coach Bob Bradley said Friday.

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Manute Bol, who died last week at the age of 47, is one player who never achieved redemption in the eyes of sports journalists. His life embodied an older, Christian conception of redemption that has been badly obscured by its current usage.

Bol, a Christian Sudanese immigrant, believed his life was a gift from God to be used in the service of others. As he put it to Sports Illustrated in 2004: “God guided me to America and gave me a good job. But he also gave me a heart so I would look back.”

He was not blessed, however, with great athletic gifts. As a center for the Washington Bullets, Bol was more spectacle than superstar. At 7 feet, 7 inches tall and 225 pounds, he was both the tallest and thinnest player in the league. He averaged a mere 2.6 points per game over the course of his career, though he was a successful shot blocker given that he towered over most NBA players.

Bol reportedly gave most of his fortune, estimated at $6 million, to aid Sudanese refugees. As one twitter feed aptly put it: “Most NBA cats go broke on cars, jewelry & groupies. Manute Bol went broke building hospitals.”

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World Cup winning…[Italian coach Marcello] Lippi made no excuses.

“I take all responsibility, there are no excuses because when a team comes to a match as important as tonight’s with terror in their legs, their heads and their hearts, and don’t manage to express themselves, it means that the coach hasn’t prepared them in the right way,” an ashen-faced Lippi told a news conference without even being prompted by a question.

“I didn’t think we could win the World Cup but I thought we would do better.”

In a strikingly honest assessment of what went wrong, Lippi pummelled himself verbally for 15 minutes.

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Guess before you look for the answer.

You only needed to watch Fabio Capello’s post-match interview on the BBC to realise just how much England’s 1-0 victory over Slovenia meant to the Italian coach.

His impassioned performance in front of the cameras matched his players’ increased intensity on the Port Elizabeth pitch. Make no mistake about it, the stakes were very high not just for Capello but for the whole of English football.

Read it all and make sure to watch the interview as well (if you can, it is sadly unavailable in the U.S).

Watch it all.

Over and over, everything seemed to go against them.

A referee took away a win last week, and a linesman disallowed another goal Wednesday.

Now there was just 3 1/2 minutes left in their World Cup, just that much remaining until all the doubts about American soccer would rise again.

But then, in one of the most stunning turnarounds in World Cup history, Landon Donovan scored on a lightning fast counterattack 45 seconds into 4 minutes of injury time. With the most amazing late-game moment in American soccer, the United States beat Algeria, 1-0, and reached the World Cup’s second round.

“This team embodies what the American spirit is about,” Donovan said. “We had a goal disallowed the other night, We had another good goal disallowed tonight. But we just keep going. And I think that’s what people admire so much about Americans. And I’m damn proud.”

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Update: Sally Jenkins (Washington Post): U.S. soccer victory unleashes the happiest fans, bar none

Money line:

Nevada Smith’s pub on Third Avenue is such a home for devout fans from all over the world that its nickname among the hard core is “The Church.”

The Wimbledon match between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut is so improbable, so thoroughly preposterous, one searches for comparisons. Suffice it to say that the fifth set of last year’s classic Wimbledon final — Roger Federer over Andy Roddick, 16-14 — looks rather paltry just now.

Try 59-59 in the fifth — and that’s right, it’s still not over.

Isner and Mahut strolled onto Court 18 this afternoon at the All England Club to resume a first-round match that had been suspended by darkness Tuesday evening, tied at two sets apiece. They spent seven hours and six minutes trying to finish — and failed. Around 9:10 p.m., pretty much the cutoff point for any Wimbledon match, it was suspended once again — tied at two sets apiece.

In case your eyes glazed over the first time, you read it correctly: 59-59. That doesn’t even register in tennis; it sounds like halftime of an NBA game.

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Fabulous goal in stoppage time.

Captain Steven Gerrard has vowed that England will adopt a “do-or-die” mentality as they bid to avoid crashing out of the World Cup on Wednesday.

Fabio Capello’s stuttering team must beat Slovenia to guarantee a place in the last-16 knockout stage.

“It is a do-or-die situation,” conceded Liverpool midfielder Gerrard, 30.

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One more game, one last chance to make their reputation. When the Americans play Algeria at the World Cup on Wednesday they’ll either live up to all the hype and earn a spot among the final 16 teams ”” or fall painfully short of their long-stated goal and lose a watershed opportunity.

“We have a great chance tomorrow night to get a win and advance on to the second round,” captain Carlos Bocanegra said Tuesday. “It’s important for us because we had that disappointment in ’06. It’s not really extra motivation, but it’s just in the back of our minds. You work so hard and you train for so long for the World Cup, and it can be over so quickly if you don’t advance.”

A victory or possibly a tie would move the United States into the knockout rounds on a high that will set off midday celebrations back home. Replicate the loss to Ghana that knocked the U.S. out in 2006, and it will start a new round of soul-searching for that could cost coach Bob Bradley his job ”” not to mention dampening the burgeoning enthusiasm for soccer in America.

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France exited in disgrace from the World Cup on Tuesday with no victories and little sympathy for a team that infamously used an intentional handball to get into the tournament and self-destructed on the way out.

France’s petulant image did not gain much redemption in its final match, a 2-1 defeat to host South Africa in Bloemfontein, south of here. Les Bleus, as the team is known, played the final 65-plus minutes a man short after midfielder Yoann Gourcuff was ejected for elbowing an opponent in the head.

Afterward, the eccentric and departing French coach, Raymond Domenech, declined to shake hands with his South African counterpart, Carlos Alberto Parreira. Apparently, Parreira said, the snub was related to his criticism of the way France had qualified for the World Cup: the illegal handling of the ball by forward Thierry Henry, which was unseen by the referee and led to the decisive goal in a cumulative playoff victory against Ireland in November.

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CHARLIE ROSE: And soccer’s popularity or football as they say everywhere else, grows like crazy?

TOMMY SMYTH: Yes, it’s continuing to grow, there is no question about it. I mean, you travel the streets of any major city in the United States now and you will find kids wearing the jerseys of Barcelona–

CHARLIE ROSE: And every bar’s got it turned on along with baseball.

TOMMY SMYTH: Yeah, everybody’s watching it now, and the ratings on ESPN have been tremendous, through the roof.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, and high-definition television, unbelievable.

TOMMY SMYTH: It’s almost like you were on the field, Charlie. You have to look out or somebody will kick you.

Read or watch it all (click on the picture to start the video).

Ever since the 1994 World Cup was played in the United States, we have been reading reports that Americans are no longer thinking of soccer as an amateur game for women and children ”” there are more than three million kids registered with the U.S. Youth Soccer Association ”” but are joining the rest of the world as big-time fans of men’s soccer. And yet, the day when Americans massively embrace the most global sport has yet to come.

But there are signs that, at long last, soccer is catching on in America. Shortly before the start of the World Cup, the Fox network pushed back its usual Saturday afternoon major league baseball coverage for three hours to broadcast the European Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Inter Milan. It may have been the first time in American TV history that a soccer match not involving the U.S. team or outside the World Cup displaced a baseball game.

Simultaneously, Vanity Fair magazine’s May cover featured Portugal’s national team star Cristiano Ronaldo and Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba in underpants, and shortly thereafter, Sports Illustrated carried a World Cup cover story under the title, “The beautiful game.”

As the World Cup started in South Africa last Friday, FIFA ”” the tournament’s organizers ”” said that 130,000 U.S. residents had flown to Johannesburg to watch the games, more than had come from any other country.

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Defending champion Italy was held to a second 1-1 draw, this time by lowly New Zealand in the latest World Cup stunner.

The 78th-ranked All Whites took the lead after only seven minutes of Sunday’s Group F match when Italy’s 36-year-old captain Fabio Cannavaro made a horrendous error, handing a goal to Shane Smeltz. A long free kick from Simon Elliott sailed deep into Italy’s area, off Cannavaro’s hip as he fell and directly toward the waiting Smeltz for the tap-in.

It was New Zealand’s only shot on goal the entire match.

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The overcast streets of South Kensington were oddly, creepily silent Friday evening. This neighborhood resembled the quaintest of ghost towns, with few cars and fewer pedestrians traveling Cromwell Road, save for the occasional tourist.

So empty were London’s streets that the American tennis player Andy Roddick took a rare trip into town for dinner.

“I decided to take advantage of no traffic,” he said. “You’d be amazed how quickly you can get down there when an England game is on.”

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The World Cup isn’t supposed to be like this.

For all that soccer is known as the “beautiful game,” this tournament has typically offered little for romantics: In this sport, the favorites usually win””and when it comes to the world’s most coveted trophy, that means Europe.

Home to the best professional leagues and the biggest superstars, half of the 18 World Cups have been won by European countries. You’ve got to go back to 1950 to find the last time a team from this continent failed to make the final. But as the 2010 World Cup entered its second week, England was held to a 0-0 draw by lowly Algeria””one of the country’s most embarrassing results in this tournament since its defeat by the United States in 1950. “We are not in a good moment,” said England coach Fabio Capello. “I don’t know if it’s the pressure but it’s not the team I know.”

The long list of underachievers from the old world already comprises France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and””after its shock defeat by Serbia early Friday””Germany.

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Somewhere along the road from Andorra to Croatia, Ukraine and all places in between, Fabio Capello has lost the team that qualified for this World Cup in such decisive style and has in their place the insipid side of England past: the team of Euro 2008 failure, of big tournament paralysis and of the wasted golden generation.

Last night England were the nation’s collective worst nightmare, a sleepwalking shambles who are now third in group C and must face up to the prospect of World Cup elimination. They must beat Slovenia on Wednesday in Port Elizabeth to be sure of reaching the second round and to retain a chance of finishing top of the group. All we know of that is that nothing is certain any longer.

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Mr. Coulibaly’s call, made in the 85th minute after the U.S. had recovered from a 2-0 deficit to draw even, remains a mystery. After Landon Donovan’s free kick from the right side and Maurice Edu’s deflection into the net for the apparent winning score, he refused to explain why he blew his whistle and disallowed the goal.

Slow-motion instant replays show Mr. Coulibaly starting to raise his hand and blow his whistle as Mr. Donovan approaches the ball. Mr. Coulibaly’s eyes are focused on the center of the penalty area where U.S. players Jozy Altidore, Clint Dempsey, and Michael Bradley are all in contact with Slovenian defenders. Mr. Dempsey is closest to Mr. Coulibaly and appears to try to shove his defender aside as he begins a run for the goal, though such a move is typical on free kicks that are sent into the penalty area.

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Oh my. To me the English team had no electricity. Ugh–KSH.

I am beyond speechless about the referee–KSH.