Trust me I know.
That's why I detest Soccer.
That and a 1-1 game is both "high-scoring" and "exciting" when it's neither.
It was the most exciting match I've seen in a while. I watched it with one of my best mates in an outdoor beer garden with big screen telly. He's Italian. There was a big crowd of Americans there (didn't know that were that many here in Edinburgh) and loads of Italians as well. Awesome theatre it was. I've watched almost all the matches so far and most in that same venue and that was the match that got the crowd at the pub stirred up the most. It was a total nail-biter and I was almost physically ill from the stress.
Scores of 7- 7 and 14-7 in American style rugby (aka NFL football) are common. That is the same amount of scoring you see in the average football match (2-1 or 1-1). The excitement came from knowing we could not lose this match or we would be out. We had to pull at least a draw against Italy and we did. It was a pretty difficult feat too considering we were one man short against a side that has superior skill and greater tradition in the sport than we do. I thought it was a fairly amazing result.
We have to rely on the Italians now to beat the Czechs while we need to beat Ghana in order to advance out of the group stages into the knock-out rounds. It won't get any easier if we do this because earning a second in our group will see us facing Brazil for elimination.