The midfielders are all covering more distance than most teams do is a major reason. We press and ask our midfield and forwards to cover a lot of ground. McKennie & Dest are not at full fitness as well. If you watch the England game you’ll notice we weren’t doing the normal actions/pressing and we were fresher at the end
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One thing that’s pretty cool about the US’s situation is that if they can pull off the big upset against the Netherlands, they might be around even money in the next game. They’d get the winner of 1C/2D, which is currently in line to be Poland/Australia. I’m guessing we’d be even money or a slight dog against Poland, right? Should be a significant favorite against Australia.
Of course that’s pending the results of today’s matches, and Poland plays Argentina with a 1-point lead for the group and that spot in the bracket, and Denmark is currently underway against Australia trying to move past them.
Aussie Aussie Aussie!
Of course if that all plays out perfectly as a four-game parlay: Poland holds, Australia holds, US shocks the Netherlands, US beats Poland/Australia… That’s where the rubber meets the road, in the form of Amazonian rubber. But that would be one hell of a run for this team to build off of into the next cycle. Get a result against England, shock the Netherlands, beat a decent Euro team, then get the ultimate test against Brazil and know exactly how much better you need to get for '26 and '30 to battle the absolute best.
And as I told my girlfriend when she talked some friendly trash about the possible collision course… Sure your team has more soccer talent than ours by a mile, enough depth to field two or three teams that would be big favorites against us, more elite finishers on one team than we’ve had in our entire history, and more offensive creativity than our guys have in their most REM-filled dreams, but…
Christian Pulisic has bigger balls than all of them! Or a bigger ball, we’re not quite suire. But if Neymar had that collision, he’d be out of the entire World Cup! And that’s got to count for something!
(Aside from the opening whistle to the closing whistle of Brazil games, she hates Neymar, so my only good moves if we talk a little trash about soccer are to shit on Neymar or show her the Wambach goal. I used to needle her about Germany beating them 7-1 when she needled me about having zero World Cups, but I promised to stop on 11/1/22 since things get serious for her during the World Cup.)
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Gonna be Argentina, though.
Totally deserved that. I know its a bunch of 2nd string players but France have been awful
Oi Oi Oi!
You should do some reading or watch the documentary on Ronaldo if you think Brazil’s star players don’t have the guts to overcome serious injuries.
Where is the Ronaldo doc available?
I watched it on Sky - The Phenomenon. It’s actually pretty good and a clear cut above the usual star bio. The final scene is very poignant.
He comes across as a really level headed nice guy too.
Edit. Also on the BBC iPlayer if you can use a VPN
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So neither of these games matter right?
Not to France.
If Denmark ties it up, Tunisia advances if they hold on against France.
Very poor showing from Denmark. Liked them to win this group.
So Denmark was playing to try to get Tunisia in. Crazy.
Tunisia result ended up not mattering, but imagine if the Aussies had tied and Tunisia got knocked out by that Griezmann goal in the 8th minute of ET.
Which apparently doesn’t count now.
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Ruled out, could have been an epic swing of emotions.
Group D should be a lot of fun, with every team having a shot at advancing. Even Mexico is still 20%
It gets especially interesting if Argentina and Mexico score early.
Mexico, score a goal?
They’ll probably need to cause a Saudi own goal.