Especially if Egypt ends up winning their group. That path to the quarterfinals would be about as favorable as it gets
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And then if somehow Cape Verde beats Saudi Arabia by more than Uruguay beats Spain? Can you imagine Spain being the 3rd place team you’re facing as a reward for winning your group?
But that would also take Spain out of our quadrant of the bracket as a potential quarterfinal matchup.
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I liked Poch’s response. It was a meaningless game. Wish our media was smarter. Soccer egos are fragile even though these are pros.
I think we learned last night that our back line depth is poor. And that we really need Balogun up top - he needs to stay out of card trouble in the knockouts. Pulisic looked great. Reyna and Berhalter are in the right role as subs - both have upside but only see it in spurts. Maybe I’ll give Turner an incomplete, but I’m glad he’s not our starting keeper.
We would have beat Australia in similar fashion as Paraguay had Pulisic been on the pitch. I’m not naive to think we aren’t still a bit shaky at the back, but we will convincingly win our first round game.
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I think it’s a mixture of this going on as well as “well I guess we need to have some sort of story about this meaningless game”
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When all fully healthy and in form, this starting XI is better than any we’ve ever fielded for a WC.
Pulisic and A Robinson are the best ever Americans at their positions. Balogun, Adams, McKennie, Dest and Richards are in the top tier of all time Americans in those positions, if they aren’t at the top. Freeman has a chance to get there too. Ream 4 years ago was among the best.
Cardoso’s injury and Musah’s falling off the face of the earth really hurt the midfield depth.
Getting Banks to commit would’ve been great, but I’m not sure he would’ve even made the squad this year even with how poor our CM depth is.
We’ve had some great goalies over the years too, but I’m not sure they’d do as well in the modern game with goalies doing more distribution now instead of just long kicks. I wish Japan had a better keeper so maybe we could’ve gotten their current guy to switch instead of being a backup (he’s half American, born in the US but grew up in Japan, plays in the Italian league).
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Norway resting its starters against France when they could win the group since there is little difference between playing Sweden/Ivory Coast.
Between this and the Paraguay-Australia ‘game’ yesterday my casual brain thinks tournament expansion to 64 would actually make more games matter since only top 2 go through and if you’re 2nd you are guaranteed to face a group winner, but my uneducated read is that would be unpopular outside the US.
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I think Norway might want to finish 2nd to avoid a Germany round of 16 match that the group winner would have.
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Oh this is 100% a halfway measure to expand to 64. Make people get annoyed with the 3rd place stupidity so they can offer 64 as a solution
Hell, it’s for a different reason, but South America is already trying to make 2030 64 teams as a 100th anniversary celebration. They are proposing it as a one off but everyone knows once the tournament is 64 teams they aren’t ever going to back to 48. My prediction is they get through Saudi Arabia in 2034 at 48 teams then give 2038 to China as the first 64 team tournament
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Possible solution for the 48 team field is to give some (8?) group winners byes to the R16.
Or reseeding 1-32 after the group stage (minor nightmare logistically)
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The 24 team version lasted 4 tournaments.
The original 16 groups of 3 with the 1st and 2nd place team advancing would’ve been cleaner, but the lack of ability to do simultaneous last matches could’ve led to shenanigans. And then 8 groups of 6 would’ve required 5 group games which the club teams probably objected to since it’d be a 2 month tournament with guys playing lots of games.
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Cleanest version would’ve been 24 teams advance and the top 8 teams get a bye. Like the champions league format. But why have fewer games when there is money to be made?
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Well besides the 8 fewer games, picking which 8 of 12 group winners get a bye seems just as messy as picking which 8 of 12 3rd place teams advance to the knockout rounds. And the teams player later have an advantage over the teams playing earlier. And maybe makes it harder for fans of the teams to actually attend their games.
I guess it depends on whether you value giving 8 teams a rest advantage at the expense of the 9-12 ranked teams or maybe pissing off the 33-36th ranked teams for excluding them from the knockout.
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The cleanest way to do 48 is have 8 groups of 6 with the top 3 advancing to knockouts with the group winners getting a bye. But that means playing 8 or 9 matches for the winning team and probably stretching the whole thing to 2 months, which is likely not doable for multiple reasons.
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Just think a full group stage to eliminate only 1/3 of teams is a bit silly. At least the complications in a 24 team knockout would incentivize going for goals to get a top 8 seed rather than resting players and/or holding on for a 0-0 draw so you both advance
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USA path now: Bosnia, Belgium, Spain
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I think Belgium may be tougher than Spain. The latter has not looked impressive and Belgium appears to have awakened in match versus NZ. Of course, first things first … BH.
Well, that’s a take. Spain hasn’t lost in over 2 years. Belgium roughed up the lowest rated team in the tournament. New Zealand are terrible, as evidenced by a 0-4 walloping vs Haiti 3 weeks ago.
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Only reason Belgium concerns me is because of the game in March. Just based off how they’ve looked this tournament I think there’s probably a 40-45% chance they lose if they play Senegal
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Completely Agree, especially with the Senegal take. Belgium are very inconsistent, and their A+ performance against the USA in March was anomalous. Of course I’d prefer Egypt, but all things considered there are much worse potential opponents in the R16. Like Germany getting France, or England drawing Spain (if they beat Portugal) or Mexico at Azteca depending on their finish in Group L. Ouch!
Random off topic but I saw the US might host a joint CONCACAF/CONEMBOL Copa América again in two years.
This is very wishcasty but if the world cup expanded again South America would probably get at least 8 of their 10 teams into the tournament/playin (already at 7) which kind of defeats the purpose. I wonder if there is any desire to merge the two confederations. Would definitely help the US to get some real games against serious competition more frequently and clearly there is some desire from the South American federations to play in the US and it would probably make qualification for the bottom tier South American teams easier since they will be competing with Caribbean/LATAM countries