Apparently, in a game of soccer, a tie with the Americans is considered a loss to the English. They really can't accept what happened on Saturday. Immediately after the match I overheard an English teenager talking to his friends, “The Americans did nothing! They had like two shots on goal. They did nothing to earn a draw!”
On the drive home I heard a radio interview with an Englishman who was likewise disgusted, blaming the “loss” on the English goalkeeper: “Green is pathetic. My mother could have stopped that goal.”
And the last night I met an Englishman at the hostel here in Johannesburg whose first words to me were, “You alright, yeah?” I said I was, however he meant it. “Where are you from?” I'm from the States. California. “Ah. Our goalie gave you one, yeah?”
Then he took a swig of his quart of Black Label beer and tried to sell me some pins he had made showing the US and England flags and the date of Saturday's match.
draw
A friend who is very much into soccer described the US draw with England as a good, but not great thing. As he put it, "it's like kissing your sister... maybe more like your step sister, but a really hot one. It's still good, but it's still your sister." Thought that was an interesting analogy.