Blame 'Ivan the Terrible' Chile beats U.S. in men's soccer

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- "Ivan the Terrible" did terrible things to the U.S. men's soccer team's hope for its first medal.

Ivan Zamorano, the type of world-class scorer the Americans need to develop if they are ever to threaten traditional powers, scored both goals in the United States' 2-0 loss to Chile in Friday night's bronze medal game.

The medal is Chile's first in the Olympics since 1988, and its first ever in Olympic soccer.

For the Americans, the defeat ended an unexpected run that showed they are starting to make ground, albeit slowly, on the rest of the world.

"People who view it as just another year of the U.S. not winning a medal should watch more soccer," coach Clive Charles said. "Because if they maybe had seen this team play, for once they would have given us a pack on the back instead of a kick in the pants."

Zamorano, the 33-year-old striker from Inter Milan of Italy's Serie A, made a penalty kick in the 70th minute and scored again in the 84th. He is the tournament's leading scorer with six goals.

The penalty was a needless one. Defender Danny Califf tackled substitute Sebastian Gonzalez from behind as both chased a long ball to the left of the net. The ball was going out of bounds when Califf clipped Gonzalez' legs.

The American players protested, but Charles said it was clearly a penalty.

"The second half, we played the best soccer we played in this tournament," Charles said. "And all of a sudden, we're giving away a penalty and the whole game changed. I feel sorry for Danny. He's played well. Maybe he should have stayed on his feet."

Zamorano easily made the spot kick, catching goalkeeper Brad Friedel moving the wrong way.

After that, the game degenerated into a series of fouls as the Americans grew desperate for the tying goal. Charles brought Landon Donovan off the bench in the 82nd to provide a spark, but Zamorano netted from 6 yards on a feed from Cladio Maldonado two minutes later.

The U.S. team finished the tournament with a 1-2-3 record, with a penalty kick victory over Japan officially counting as a tie. A victory over Kuwait advanced the Americans beyond the first round of an Olympic tournament for the first time, a byproduct of fielding a team almost exclusively consisting of professionals.

"I think that the U.S. team has a great future," Chilean coach Nelson Acosta said. "I think that in the past years, it has progressed and improved a lot. It also has the means, structure and organization to get ahead and if they work more at their football, they will do much better."

For the most part, it was an evening of third-rate soccer for a third-place game.

The teams were playing for a medal, but it didn't feel like it until the second half. The Chileans blew a late lead to lose in the semifinals to Cameroon, and their disappointment showed early in a performance that lacked the usual South American spirit.

The U.S. team had done well to get this far, but was clearly out of its league in a semifinal loss to Spain and would have been thrilled with any color medal.

The combination of a good team playing down and an emerging team playing with some motivation made the game even but uneventful until Zamarano's late heroics.

The best U.S. scoring chance came just before Zamarano's first goal. Brian Dunseth, the U.S. captain who had been sidelined the entire tournament after suffering a groin injury, put a half-volley off the crossbar after a deflected corner kick in the 66th minute.

Also, in the first minute of the second half, Conor Casey had a 17-yard drive palmed over the net by goalkeeper Nelson Tapia.

"We're not in there saying, 'Hurrah, we finished fourth.' But there's a bigger picture," Dunseth said. "There are 13 other teams that would have loved to finish fourth. We lost two games to get a medal, and that's pretty disappointing."

Cameroon and Spain play Saturday for the gold medal.