Czech Republic 3 United States 0

For all of you hard working American soccer fans who missed the game -- it was as bad as the score looks.

The Czechs grabbed control of the match in the fourth minute when 6'8 giant Jan Koller punked US defender's Eddie Pope and Oguchi Onyewu and headed in a cross from 2003 European Player of the year Pavel Nedved.

Nedved, 33, had come out of international retirement to help world number two Czech Republic go for their first World Cup title after twice finishing runner-up as Czechoslovakia.

Either his retirement had been premature or the man was really well-rested because the United States had no answer for his runs and crosses.

Nedved also linked with Tomas Rosicky for one of Rosicky's two goals.

After the Koller header, the Czech's dropped back and toyed with the Americans. Claudio Reyna almost changed the game with a spectacular shot in the 27th minute which beat the Czech goalie (conveniently named Czech) but it ricocheted the wrong way off the inside post. Even if the shot had gone in, it would have been indicative of a sterling individual effort and not a product of solving the Czech's defense.

Landon Donovan had his moments, but they were few and far between. Other than him (and Reyna's shot) there was nothing positive about the American's performance.

The good news is we still control our own destiny. The bad news is the good kind of destiny now includes defeating Italy in Europe -- where we've still never won a World Cup game.