Inspired guess helped Friedel save penalty

By Justin Palmer

Daegu, South Korea - An inspired guess helped American Brad Friedel to become the first goalkeeper in this year's World Cup finals to save a penalty.

The Fifa man of the match dived to his right to keep out Lee Eul-yong's 40th minute penalty and made a string of superb saves as the US drew 1-1 with co-hosts South Korea on Monday to leave both sides with four points from two games in group D.

"When he was stepping up to the ball I felt he was just going to go to that side," said Friedel. "I gave a little bit of a fake, like I was going that way, then went back to the middle and I was fortunate enough that he put it within my reach."

It was the first time a penalty had not been converted in this year's tournament after 10 previous successful attempts.

Friedel said justice had been done as he did not think the spot kick should have been awarded by Swiss referee Urs Meier.

Meier pointed to the spot after U.S. defender Jeff Agoos, who scored a spectacular own goal in the 3-2 victory over Portugal in their first match, was judged to have pushed over Hwang Sun-hong.

"I didn't think it was a penalty. I don't want to have a go at the referee because I thought he did a good job, but I thought it was the other way around - the Korean player had hold of Jeff's jersey. The referee saw a lot of legs tangled up and gave a penalty."

Friedel was eventually beaten by substitute Ahn Jung-hwan's 79th minute glancing header, which cancelled out a 24th minute strike from Clint Mathis that had briefly stunned a raucous Korean crowd into silence.

"Both teams were tired at the end and we lost concentration for a split second," Friedel said.

"But we are very happy with four points. If you had said before the finals that we would have four points from two games we wouldn't have believed it.

"We now have a hard game against Poland but we'll have our heads screwed on straight and be ready."

The US meet Poland on Friday, after the Poles face Portugal in their second match later on Monday with both those teams looking for their first point of the tournament.