At 10:43 a.m. Beverly time, joy filled the room.

On a soccer pitch in Nuremberg, Germany, DaMarcus Beasley of the United States national team made a long and beautifully precise cross-field pass that Clint Dempsey drilled into the net.

The fans in Kitty O'Sheas erupted. Dempsey did a little dance. U.S. 1, Ghana 1.

At 10:47 a.m., the wheels started coming off.

"What, are you kidding me?" yelled Eric Slack of Beverly, while standing at the corner of the bar closest to the flat-screen television showing the first-round World Cup match. A referee's dubious decision had just given Ghana a penalty kick.

"That is not justice," Slack said. "That is a horrible call."

One kick later, it was Ghana 2, U.S. 1. And the nearly 30 people in the Cabot Street pub went quiet. The score stayed the same throughout the second half, and the U.S. team's hopes of moving on to the second round of the tournament were dashed.

So were those of Beverly resident and avid soccer fan Matt Pruitt.

"It's once every four years, man," Pruitt, 26, said of what makes the World Cup so special. "It's not like anything else we experience in American sports."

For American soccer fans, the World Cup is their brief moment in the sun. "Most people, at best, don't like (soccer) and, at worst, they never stop ripping on you for liking it," Pruitt said.

He was grateful that the event brought him and other soccer enthusiasts out of the shadows and into the pub, a locale where much of the rest of the world enjoys the sport. Kitty O'Shea's was charged yesterday with the same sort of nervous and excited energy that is typically present during viewings of Red Sox playoff games.

Pruitt's passion for soccer was sparked by the U.S. team's unexpected run to the quarterfinals in 2002. When the 2006 World Cup schedule was finalized, he scheduled days off from his job at a Lynnfield investment firm when the United States was playing. He admitted yesterday he wasn't confident enough to presume he would be missing any work in the tournament's second round.

Pruitt was sitting at the bar at 10 a.m. when the match kicked off. By then, bartender John Strohmeier was busy pouring mugs of coffee and pints of beer for patrons.

Strohmeier served an Irish breakfast of eggs, bangers, rashers, Irish pudding and baked beans. Yesterday's crowd was light compared to the 85 people who showed up at noon on a Monday to watch the U.S. against the Czech Republic, the bartender said.

One stool down from Pruitt sat Constance Lapite of Beverly. She wore a long-sleeved American flag shirt, which she actually purchased in Canada. She didn't take the whole day off from her job at a Wakefield engineering firm.

"I told my staff I was watching the game, and I'd be in after lunch," Lapite said.

Scott Ferguson, 52, of Beverly said he enjoys soccer's mix of individual and team play.

"It's not one-dimensional," he said. "What's great about this game is that it can turn on one play."

That play never came for the U.S. in the second half, when the team had its share of missed opportunities. Italy, who the U.S. needed to win to advance, did its part by beating the Czech Republic, 2-0.

"You can comment all you want on the referee, but what it comes down do is that we weren't ready to play (against the Czech team)," said Slack, a youth soccer coach and member of the Aztec Soccer Club men's team. Slack wore a handkerchief-sized American flag around his neck like a cape yesterday, along with an Italy shirt.

"It's pretty heartbreaking, to be honest," Pruitt said of the outcome. "(The U.S.) just didn't get it done. The toughest thing is they didn't play to their full potential."

Pruitt has four years to overcome his disappointment. While Red Sox fans say, "wait 'til next year," for World Cup fans, it's "wait 'til 2010."