As a fire alarm echoed throughout Eden Park on Tuesday night and the public-address system asked everyone to evacuate, most of the crowd of 42,000 stayed in their seats in confusion. It turned out to be a false alarm, and almost too fitting a metaphor for a night to forget for the United States.
A scoreless draw with Portugal secured the defending champions a place in the knockout rounds. That was an outcome widely expected by most of the world prior to the tournament. How the US got there, however, could be generously described as a grind.
