USA v KSA today a 1pm CDT on FS1.
Pulisic is starting after not playing vs Japan due to a “training knock”.
I fully expect England to get out of our group and then the 2nd team to be either us or Iran. No faith in Wales. I feel like England figures it out enough by then to escape.
I watched the England-Germany match here in London last night and England was pathetic until they woke up at about the 70th minute trailing by 2-0. The goalkeeper let in a soft third goal or they would have won 3-2. They seem to be able to turn it on when they need to. I think England and Iran will go through in this Group.
And Uruguay easily beat Canada tonight….
Iran’s national team covered up the Iranian logos on their warmup gear during the pre-game today in support of the protests there – so we’ll have to see if the Iranian team for the WC looks the same it would have otherwise.
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You mean, without their heads?
Iran is the top-rated Asian team at 22.
England is fifth in the world.
Wales is 19th.
USA is overrated at 14.
Let’s see if we can beat our 1998 team’s result.
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This match is so dire. I have no faith in this team doing anything in Qatar.
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I will be surprised if we score 1 goal in Qatar tbh.
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The USMNT have one win in their last seven matches against teams going to the 2022 World Cup. They haven’t scored in the other six:
0-0 vs. Saudi Arabia
0-2 vs. Japan
0-0 vs. Uruguay
3-0 vs. Morocco
0-2 vs. Costa Rica
0-0 vs. Mexico
0-2 vs. Canada
https://twitter.com/OptaAnalystUS/status/1574849610920521729?s=20&t=QplCdGQVFz2BDipBexcJtw
Better to suck at the World Cup than suck at home
USA is definitely overrated. The Guardian’s rankings below are very different than the FIFA rankings.
I am not ready to concede the World Cup just yet. Our best front lines haven’t played together for extended periods with our MF. That could go all wrong, but it might not. If we can have Weah, Pulisic, Reyna and Aronson up front we should be able to attack. Tyler and Weston should be good. Injuries hit us. We can’t assume all the others will be 100% healthy as well. Iran probably has best opportunity not to have any setbacks.
We draw Wales, beat Iran and might be able to draw England and finish second w 4-5 pts.
The Sally Yates report on the abuse of soccer players in the NWSL and in US youth soccer system is out, and it’s heartbreaking and quite damning.
Edit: Obvious – content warning on actually reading this thing.
This is a doozy of a recommendation. Paraphrasing — the organization the US olympic sports use to keep athletes safe is not capable of doing that.
The organization I work with also uses SafeSport training to prevent abuse, because USSF (I think) mandates it.
Doesn’t mean anyone is watching or listening to the training. But it allows the organization to say, “Hey, they watched the video and they know what is abuse.”
IMO, more like, the players need to recognize the abuse they are receiving, if an organization wants to stop (further) abuse.
Note: I have added the ESPN link to the NWSL Soccer thread.
This would be a great game to watch but MLB playoffs start today and timing conflicts with Jays-Mariners game.
I’ll be watching starting at about 1 Pacific.
Won’t be watching any baseball, despite my native roots.
Watched that E60 on NWSL. Surprised they got some of the bad people to talk.
Jays down 3-0 after one inning so watched the balance of the US-England match. Pteview of the World Cup Final? Good for the sport that there is a team that can challenge the US supremacy.