Though that doesn’t mean a ton. We were the only team to take points off Italy in 2006 when they won the World Cup but it doesn’t mean anything about our team and its overall World Cup performance. Similarly Cape Verde were the only team to take points off Spain this World Cup and Saudi beat Argentina last World Cup. The fact that Belgium is the only team to score against Spain is not particularly indicative of a whole lot.
Finished 12th. Disapointing but if anyone says it was a 'disaster' then they're being purely emotional. Finished higher than Germany and Netherlands. Many of us were worried we wouldn't get out of the group. What really sucks about the Belgium game is how well we played in all the other games leading up to that one. We got our hopes up really high. If we had stumbled into that game against the Belgians like we've done in past cups the 4-1 loss wouldn't have hurt as bad. Still really pissed about Trump getting involved. Really think it got into the players' heads. That Flo personally apologized to the Belgian coach shows how much the team knew what was going on. It was a damn shame how all of it transpired. Thus, the final standings of the 2026 World Cup are as follows: 1. Spain; 2. Argentina; 3. England; 4. France; 5. Norway; 6. Belgium; 7. Morocco, Switzerland; 9. Mexico; 10. Colombia; 11. Brazil; 12. USA; 13. Portugal; 14. Canada; 15. Egypt; 16. Paraguay; 17. Netherlands; 18. Germany;
Alex freeman makes u-23 Team of the Tournament: https://www.whoscored.com/articles/...scoreds-world-cup-u-23-team-of-the-tournament
This team did not carry the sport forward much. They had the opportunity, but the flame out against Belgium was so humiliating that people began to distance themselves from the USMNT again. That’s a major drop of the ball. The 1994 team was better and did the heavy lifting that this team was unable to do. It’s hard to communicate to people who were not around soccer in the 80’s and 90’s just how different the landscape is because of the 1994 team and the people around soccer who went all in to make a professional outdoor league. 2002 team is still the gold standard. 2014 team and 2010 team were both better than this one. This one was a bit better than the 2022 team.
Here’s how the World Cup affected player legacies. Players who entered the all-timer tier: 1 Malik Tillman 2 Folarin Balogun Players who became notable World Cup performers who deserve some mention in best 11s: 1 Weston McKennie 2 Alex Freeman 3 Sebastian Berhalter Guys who dropped tiers: 1 Christian Pulisic (not at the LD/Dempsey tier) 2 Gio Reyna (not in any notable tier) 3 Antonee Robinson (not longer competitive with guys like Sanneh and Hejduk, IMO) 4 Tyler Adams (not at the Jermaine Jones or Michael Bradley tier)
Who the hell are the people who "distanced themselves" after the Belgian loss? What are you even talking about? If 1 bad game after 4 good ones "drives" them away they weren't fans in the fist place and their expectations are delusional and they would have bailed sooner than later. What drives soccer growth in the US is kids watching club teams on tv week in and week out for years at a time. NOT watching 5 games over a month every 4 years. The EPL starts August 21st. Who wants to bet there will be more Americans watching games that weekend than watched the first weekend last year?
Missed this post earlier but I think this is more than fair. The lacrosse player/wrestler multi-sport athlete I was referring to is actually a good example. I think being multi-sport from the earliest age on made him a ridiculous athlete, but in terms of maximizing potential in any one of those sports, had a diluting effect once he started to progress through high school. He was too exhausted from summer-fall soccer seasons to mentally flip the switch to wrestling with such immediacy, and ended up quitting wrestling after his freshman year. So he ended up playing soccer and lacrosse, but playing both so long definitely capped his potential in either. Which is to say: I'm never going to discourage a kid from playing multiple sports! My example is very anecdotal, and one of many. But for whatever my coaching and player development experience (a grain of sand in the larger soccer landscape!) is worth: I firmly believe this kid would have walked into a D1 scholarship and had the opportunity to be drafted by an MLS team (just basing off other players who have achieved that who I have known since youth careers), had he done the full-year soccer cycle. So yes: I think being multi-sport for childhood years is a tremendous boost for so many players. But for those ultimately wanting to go pro...I don't know that there is a set age, but there is almost certainly a decision to be made at some point. And I think the multi-sport athletes who stay multi-sport and still go pro are just of the athletic composition that they would have succeeded no matter what decision they made.
We want the USMNT to sell out stadiums. We want them to have a home field advantage. To do so, they need to draw casual fans…the same kinds of fans who go to NBA or NFL games. Those people bought in. They flew the flag, bought the tickets, went to events, made the World Cup special, and showed up in every way. The stage was set to convert the casual fans into USMNT hard-cores for a generation. Then the players went on the field with their tails tucked between their legs and embarrassed all of us. The Belgium loss was humiliating. The players dropped the ball BIG time. They simply did not have the mental make-up to move the game forward. They sat on the shoulders of previous generations, had the table set, and had everything all of us have dreamed of having…then they hid for 90 minutes and let Belgium walk all over them. That kind of performance is a huge turnoff for casuals because it’s embarrassing to be associated with. Nobody wants to be associated with spineless wimps, which is what we were.
agree with you fully .... have to really be careful about how full the glass is ... the glass is not empty but it is not full either. 1. I am just never going to get over that the combination of the Flo red and what POTUS did likely affected the squad and therefore in my mind there is always going to be an asterisk with the Belgium loss. 2. Compared to four and eight years ago I have a bunch of friends and extended family commenting on the sport that ignored it 4, 8, and 12 years ago. In fact a bunch of them have already determined which EPL team they intend to follow and watch this year. They never did that before - usually they were poking at me for being a diehard fan. I don't see any distancing occurring as a result of the Belgium match. Quite the opposite. 3. Money - MLS is pulling in more money - stadiums are getting better (the DCU review of expansion and a partial roof is just one recent example) and the Academies continue to train and develop. so yes we are FIFA rank 12 right now and wish we did better. The fact is - the sky is not falling - as a nation we continue to improve - we are having a robust discussion about pay to play and as a nation we are more discerning and analytical about our mens team. We are making progress folks - for many of you - you don't have a 50 year view - I do. We are clearly on the arc of ascendancy. It just takes time. We have the money and the youth playing the game ... we still need better coaches and a better structured youth framework. And we have to figure out the centralized/decentralized nature of youth development - hint - we have different population density/geographic dispersion that most other developed nations and it is a major impact on how we consider youth development.
What kind of a discussion might have been happening in the locker room about what POTUS did? Just before the match ... you think that would have super easy for the men to dismiss? They may not have been thinking of previous generations ... they might have been thinking about Flo and what POTUS did and whether it was right. Certainly Flo thought about it and went to Garcia and apologized. I am just going to put an asterisk next to that match. Now compare that to the positive impact national motivation had for the 1980 US mens hockey team at Lake Placid. Negative events can clearly impact our players ... don't kid yourself.
Negative events didn’t deter Argentina. They didn’t deter Kobe Bryant. They didn’t deter Michael Jordan. Controversy is part of sports. It’s what drives interest. Not being able to handle “negative events” (Europeans being pissed that the Americans were being treated like they get treated), was an absolute display of castration on the biggest stage we have ever had for the USMNT. Apologizing to Europeans after getting your red card justly rescinded is the most pathetic thing I have ever seen from the USMNT. That will be their legacy: guys who were so afraid of having Europeans mad at them that they barely showed up on the field. Pathetic. Weston, Antonee, Dest, Adams, Richards…it was a friggin joke. Richards had the single worst performance I have ever seen from a US center back in that game. The 1994 guys are vastly superior and its not even close.
I didn't like our performance,but fcvk anyone who nopes out on the US because of one bad game. I know you'll still be here.
I'm tired of listening to talk about how the USMNT had a great opportunity to grow the sport in the United States and blew it. What exactly was blown? The chance to attract legions of the sort of "fans" who would (and did) jump ship after one bad loss. So what. Good riddance. Growing the sport in the United States is a long, slow process, which has been advancing steadily for decades. This World Cup continued that process. Perhaps speeded it up a little. One game is not going to change that. I expect that others disagree with me, but I'm quite satisfied with the outcome of this World Cup for the United States (although I do wish that Trump had kept his nose out of it). Following a team any sport is a series of ups and downs. If you just want ups, and can't handle any downs, I feel sorry for you. Personally, one of the main things I've enjoyed about being a USMNT fan for the last 50 years is the roller coaster aspect.
I think the point is that the 94 world cup was huge in creating new fans of the sport and the national team. The hope was that if we could make it to the semis, for example, we would build even more buzz around the team and create more belief in our ability to punch above our weight. The way we lost against Belgium was so deflating it was worse than a gut punch loss in penalties or giving up a last second goal.
Count me as somebody who thinks the World Cup created a lot of buzz. Did it turn more Americans into USMNT fans? Who knows? People more likely to attend an MLS game or the next USMNT game? We'll see. But here in Boston, everyone had an awesome time. Created fans of Scotland and Brazil and France and Morocco and..............etc.etc. Fans of the sport and the World Cup. A rising tide lifts all boats. Boston loves Glasgow: Cities announce plans to be best buds forever - masslive.com
I feel we're still recovering here, and we're 'hardcore fans' - it would take a lot to shake us loose. Compare the main Balogun-centered thread, with 1,500+ posts, finally calming down now, with the post-match thread at 1,250 or so, including plenty of Balogun red card content. All related threads were infected, and the match was so bad, with so many poor performances - deflating is a good term for it. Still, I must say I enjoyed the first four USMNT matches, even the loss to Turkiye, in the same way passengers must have enjoyed the first four days on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.
Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan - what in the heck have they got to to do it? That is like saying Kylian Mbappe or Lamine Yamal was not affected by adverse events .... Negative events did not deter Argentina? What negative events? Re: 1994 - if Bill Clinton had interceded with head of FIFA - if he had colluded with Alan Rothenberg to intervene with Joao' Havelange over a red card that John Harkes had received in the prior game to the Brazil match (red card in match against Romania) ... yes I bet that would have affected the men and the Brazil squad - since Havelange was Brazilian ... could have been much worse than 1 - 0. We tied Switzerland, beat Colombia, and lost to Romania - 4 points this time we beat Paraguay, beat Australia, and lose to Turkiye ... - 6 points so we actually did better this time around - with the exception of the Belgium match with that asterisk. and in relative terms the quality of our squad is miles ahead of 1994 in terms of player payroll and team pedigree. We have advanced and continue to advance. fact is - the sky is not falling. Balogun likely apologized because he knew POTUS was wrong. if you can't get past one game and see the improvement in general - I don't know what else to point out to you. Now do we need better defenders and goalkeepers absolutely ... do we need better coaching - yes ... do we need a solution to pay to play - absolutely ... in spite of all those issues - we are a damn sight better these days.
based on everything I am hearing in the community I live in - soccer academies are packed this summer with kids going in and out (far more than in past summers) - and seeing kids in the lobbies of apartment buildings dribbling soccer balls. Could be just the opposite - that the effect is even more dramatic than 1994.
It was definitely an opportunity lost. How big, really, is the question. I have two friends that I think showcase it. One is not a soccer fan at all, but he'll root for the US. He got into going to bars and the whole World Cup vibe; he had a lot of fun because we scored and won. The Belgium game is a bummer, but I am pretty sure I can get him to watch games with me going forward ... but without me, he probably wouldn't. Whereas a run to the quarters might've locked him in more permanently. I have another friend who is into soccer, but he's a Chelsea fan (otherwise a good person; can't win them all) and has generally been snide about the US sucking, etc., etc. We watched several games together, but the loss to Belgium just reinforced his POV. He'll be back next World Cup, and I'm sure if I invited him to watch and nothing else was going on, he'd watch a game, but it'll be another four years before the USMNT can capture him. Now, we're all Gen Xers; we're not even the target at this point. But how many of these folks are there? I don't know. I don't think any of them are going to watch random friendlies on their own even if we won ... but there's some moving of the needle. Of course, none of the kids in these families play soccer, either.
Bottom line I think there were two things that were always an issue with this team. One, they are mentally soft. Inconsistent. Not all of them, but too many of them. Two, central defense and keeping.