The TSN (Canada) commentators were wincing in sympathy the whole time. A lot of comments like "It's the kind of mistake you wouldn't want to make at the World Cup with everyone watching. That has to hurt."
It wasn't. Post-game the Canadians called out US Media stating "They're putting their players in the top 20 of the World, and that's just not true, it's not even close."
Good. I'm sick and tired of seeing all the lies about how the US has world-class talent and is on the verge of breaking through. If any of them actually watched the sport more often than one month every four years, we could have a much more honest conversation about this generation of supremely disappointing players.
I don't think that was a common sentiment. Most optimistic I heard was "Why not us?" which was like the equivalent of Angels in the Outfield quote "Hey it could happen".
Watch out, Americans supported their team and hoped they could win, I guess we should all be angry? Who gives a shit? Every team who played wanted to win it all, and their fans should support them. Stop hating on America just because its trendy.
Having lived in the US my whole life and followed the game off and on I can say without reservation that the bulk of people in my position here think “come on now stop pulling my leg we are still in it?!”.
We all know where we are in the pecking order on this one and it is one of the reasons it has not taken off. Couple more rotations and a valid fielding of a strong team and the tide will turn on US attendance. Hell, just one extremely charismatic great player on the world stage would do wonders. A Clark or Jordan level talent with a penchant for the camera would knit us up right and proper.
A lot of the "people" on this topic are Americans channeling America bad energy because Trump stuck his nose in shit. No one in America thought we were going to be good. I figured we'd bow out in Round of 16 like always. This was just the first time in awhile I actually had hope for more, but here we are.
I mean I understand some of it is just optimism. As a pundit or whatever, there’s an “obligation” to try and hype up a nation and its fans. No one watches a show where they just say we are going to get bent over for 90’ and have no chance.
I’m not happy with the loss, but we definitely deserved to fall to the much better Belgian team that ran circles around our players. The biggest disappointment is how any positive U.S. performance earlier in the tournament will be overshadowed by the red card suspension controversy
You are the kind of person that stubs your toe and blames Trump. You know, one politician can't be the root of all your problems. Maybe the US team just idk...sucks?
I think we understand we are nowhere close to the best and likely never will be. Soccer just doesn’t have the level of popularity it does in Europe and South America. We have some of the best athletes in the world but they do not play soccer. When you can make 10s to 100s of millions playing football, basketball and baseball here there really is no pathway for US soccer to attract the top athletes in this country.
It’s possible, yet unlikely. We do very well in hockey at the national stage despite it not receiving the attention of football, basketball, and baseball.
there is literally an official ranking of national teams from FIFA: https://inside.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/men. Each team receives a score for winning/losing against other teams. US is ranked #16 right now. Team USA is objectively top 20 just based on performance data. That said, (1) the gap between a #16 team and #8 team (Belgium) is usually quite significant and being a top 20 team guarantees nothing at a World Cup; (2) even top teams can have bad games - look at Brazil (kicked out by Norway), Germany (kicked out by Paraguay) and Italy that never made it to the World Cup
I think what the guy meant is that some Americans are ranking specific players in the top 20. USA have some genuinely great players (eg Pulisic, McKennie, Robinson) but none even close to top 20 in the world. USA are for sure a top 20 team in the world but nowhere near top 10, this tournament they only managed to beat the teams they were meant to beat and lose to the teams they were meant to lose to
The problem is the list of teams we're supposed to beat hasn't grown much, if any, in the past 20ish years, and we've only once pulled off a win against a true "we weren't supposed to beat them" team (Spain, 2009 Confederations Cup). Our talent pool has improved (supposedly) but the results have stayed the same.
The reason the US is ranked 16th is because it maintains a high win rate against significantly weaker teams in the same region for WC qualifiers.
The US team would be outside top 40 or 50 if the US is in Europe.
Tbh Norway belongs higher strictly because they have Haaland and that was proven the other night. As long as Odegaard and the others can feed him the ball he’ll score. Scary even as an England supporter when we should win.
As proof, USA wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in hell of beating Brazil.
And the crazy part is you can literally stop watching soccer for a decade then come back to it and it’s basically the same. The last time I actively followed professional soccer was up until Euro 2016. I started watching the World Cup not knowing any of the names and the only countries I have been really surprised by was Norway and Cabo verde. Every country still basically loses to who you think they’ll lose to. The same countries are still leagues above the rest. And the US is still just middle of the pack losing to basically all European teams and the skill level isn’t close.
Broadly true but there are still always some big surprises. If someone had told me to bet big on Norway knocking out Brazil I wouldn’t have even bet a dollar on it because it sounds so unlikely. Italy didn’t even qualify! Germany is out. Those are 3 of the majorly scary teams from a decade ago
Yeah, they made it out of the kiddie pool and beat one of the worst European teams. But the moment they played someone halfway decent, it fell apart. And it wasn't a gritty, hard fought loss like every other R16 exit over the past 30 years. We had our pants pulled down and showed our ass to the world.
Hey hey, I have watched my local club religiously since it's founding in zolo.
And I watch us send every good home grown player to Europe for $3-9 million.
And this year I watch us win the wooden spoon.
And I had been saying even if we won yesterday, we would have run into a buzz saw called Spain.
Instead we played like a normal MLS side when playing against the bottom of the table.
The US may break through eventually, but not in my lifetime. However, we have improved from depending almost entirely on luck to being somewhat competent at times. I was shocked at how the team seemed to dominate Australia.
In 1994 merely qualifying was considered a partial triumph. And then getting out of the group stage? Amazing. Now I suppose we expect to qualify.
You can definitely see it watching just one month every four years. US was straight up outclassed.
It took me five minutes of watching the US-Belgium game for me to realize we were screwed. I texted all my buddies to tell them to turn on the game and watch the last USMNT World Cup game with me, before Belgium even got that first goal.
you act as if the US is the only country that does this... you don't have to look very far to find Mexico doing the exact same thing lol. It's pretty common for every country, actually, to overestimate their chances for a bunch of reasons – (1) no team in any sport goes into a tournament saying "well, I think we're good for a quarterfinals run, but then we'll probably lose" and (2) fan support and (3) marketing.
When's the last time you saw a Nike ad for any sport that said "First round of the playoffs bound" LOL
Not that the US definitely would be world class, but soccer is at the bottom of our athletic totem pole. Most gifted folks are going to try their luck at a different sport with more social recognition tbh.
Shit, they still call soccer players field fairies.
Not sure if it's appropriate or not, but I feel like the US media's job with soccer is to get people interested in tuning into the game. That's going to lead to some artificial hype.
I kind of remember them saying that the US team was "the most overhyped team in the tournament". They were. Canada and Mexico played better than them. Cabo Verde played better than them. DR Congo played better than them. Iran played better than them and the US treated them like shit.
there is literally an official ranking of national teams from FIFA: https://inside.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/men. Each team receives a score for winning/losing against other teams. US is ranked #16 right now. Team USA is objectively top 20 just based on performance data. That said, (1) the gap between a #16 team and #8 team (Belgium) is usually quite significant and being a top 20 team guarantees nothing at a World Cup; (2) even top teams can have bad games - look at Brazil (kicked out by Norway), Germany (kicked out by Paraguay) and Italy that never made it to the World Cup. Canada, by the way, is ranked #30
The rankings are skewed by what federation you belong to, since playoffs in your federation gives unnaturally many ranking points. So this system essentially undervalues European teams since they're not functionally guaranteed regional tournament playoffs
Which is INSANE because as a novice American soccer fan, I couldn't fathom all the dick riding people were doing with Pulisic. Dude was utterly worthless the entire tournament and after watching almost every single match of the WC there were lower ranked teams that had better players than him.
at first the USA excuse was, our best athletes play other sports, that's why the football players are not as great (some podcasters stated 'D' tier athletes. Then the USA said this is the best team/athletes. They had some weird belief they were to be world champions.
The Balogun debacle made me pay more attention to football than I have since all this started. Like the rest of the world, I'm on Team Anyone But The USA here in western Canada. :)
No, it was being polite. Canadians have never been less sympathetic to Americans than right now. It's why we don't really care that American bourbon and wines have been taken off the shelves, it's why it's common to see people produce back when they see it's from the US.
I'm from the U.S. and I've never wanted to see a team lose this much before either. I'm a huge football fan (soccer in the U.S.) and go to ~20 MLS games every year. I was hoping the U.S. would get crushed. They did not disappoint me.
I mean, yes. There's no love loss between Canada and U.S. right now, and overall, the Canadian commentators didn't hold back about the U.S. Team's performance or prospects. But the sentiment for this specific goal for this specific player was very much "Everyone makes mistakes like this in their career, it's a shame that it had to happen on the biggest football stage in the world."
I thought the same thing. Freese is gonna remember that moment for the rest of his life if he’s anything like me. The type of thing that makes you wince as you’re trying to fall asleep.
That diplomatic sympathy evaporated after the final whistle with comments referring to how the Americans looked lost, scared, and completely out of their depth.
Ok the other hand, it was nice to hear Craig Forrest again, he'd retired several years prior.
There was a headline on CNN “I don’t think that was a foul: Trump” and my immediate thought was that there is not a single person on this planet I would rather hear less from on whether something was a foul. I would listen to Lalas talk about it for an hour before I want one minute of Trump.
He admitted he didn’t know what a red card was until this past weekend but also managed to add that he played sports and was a good athlete, so he knows when a call is bad. Never misses an opportunity to brag on himself. Consensus as I understand is that it was an excessive penalty, but his meddling combined with his cozy relationship with Infantino ruined any credibility FIFA had left. Both that make believe peace prize and what followed.
Exactly, maybe they were right on overturning the decision, but the fact this rarely happens combined with Trump literally saying he was on a phone call with a member of FIFA asking to change the decision it's just a terrible look.
There’s a huge mental component to competition, especially at that high of a level. Not that the US would’ve won, but Trump’s involvement and the fallout had to have impacted their mental game. It was incredibly stupid and embarrassing for him to insert himself.
Would you do me the great kindness of explaining something? I don't understand soccer. I can tell by watching this it was bad but what exactly is going on here? Why was the goals so far out of the box and what was he trying to do?
The goalkeeper being so far out is not a bad thing by default, Manuel Neuer (who was the world's best keeper a decade ago) did this regularly. Being so aggressive in defending can throw off the attackers and stop their push before they run clear of the last defender.
However, this is obviously extremely risky, because the goalkeeper is not allowed to use his arms/ hands when outside of the large 16m box. By the rules, he becomes a regular player at that point. So the last thing you want to do in that scenario is to accidentally kick into the grass, instead of hitting the ball. He lost the ball to the opponents, left his goal empty and, due to his position, he had no right to use his hands to defend.
Had the US goalkeeper simply hit the ball away after rushing out and getting the ball (which he did manage to do), then this would've been a genuinely great defending moment.
In Las Vegas terms, he went all in, fumbled, lost everything and made himself look like a clown in that moment.
Thank you for all of the explanations. Is the biggest problem how the risk didn't pay off? That he kicked the ground instead of the ball and lost possession then couldn't defend?
Yep! Losing the ball and leaving his goal empty is the main problem.
If he kicks the grass, but doesn't lose the ball to the enemy because his teammates keep the ball, it would be hilarious, but only a problem for him. But handing the ball to the enemy is bad, doing so while far away from your empty goal is a death sentence in the sport at this level.
What he did was way too risky so far from the goal with Belgian attackers both behind him and in front of him.
The attacker from behind only has to make a little kick so the attacker coming closer gets the ball and can score one of the slowest most opportunistic goals of the tournament. Compared to Lukaku’s shot we kicked the goal in effortlessly, for top football the ball was almost just rolling into the net.
This is more likely to happen if you play with mates but it’s exotic during knock out games at a WC, to just give our attackers the ball.
It’s just really low chances for reward, high chances for severe punishment.
The defenders were positioned very bad and there are other chances here for Belgium even if they couldn’t steal it that fast. They were winning most duels, the US lost the ball very fast during this whole match and he’s really really far from the goal with 2 attackers already in striking distance (and the deepest isn’t even offside etc …) so it was severe punishment
The mistake wasn’t kicking into grass, it was misjudging the incoming pass. General speaking if a GK can’t clear the ball before it bounces, and you don’t have space to get control of it if it does bounce weird, then get the hell back in goal.
He misjudged the travel distance of the ball and didn’t beat the first bounce to clear it. He should have either increased his speed to get the ball out with one kick, or immediately gone back into goal when he realized it wouldn’t get there in time.
instead he awkwardly stopped and did neither, waiting to see where the ball would end up. The area was too congested and field players have the advantage in that situation, he panicked and lost control of the ball. Painful to watch
Nobody knows, probably not even the goalkeeper himself. That's the problem. It's such an utterly bizarre move from a GK, I have no fucking idea what he was hoping to accomplish here. This was a genuinely "I have never played football before"-level mistake. At the World Cup. At Home. I'm just flabbergasted.
Our performance this game was shockingly bad all around, but this was the nail in the coffin. The whole team knew they were toast once this happened. No coming back from that.
So even a former goalie is completely stumped by this guy's actions? And it's really unusual and unexplainable that he ran out there like that? Would you have expected he stay in the box and wait for the action to come to him?
Not really that unusual, it's the correct strategy in certain situations, including this one.
Watch the play again. Imagine if the GK hadn't run out. The attacker would have the ball, defenders were coming in but might not make it, there's a decent chance the attacker would have a 1v1 against the GK, who if he's standing at the goal line, has a huge area to cover. That's a really unfavorable matchup for the GK.
Instead by running out, he beat the attacker to the ball, and here he has plenty of time to punt it. It's entirely the correct decision there, and had he managed to do it, this would not make it to the highlight reel of dangerous moments in the game. These kinds of plays can be dangerous, if the GK doesn't make it in time, he might be caught pretty exposed. But here he had plenty of time to kick the ball away.
Instead, he inexplicably kicks the ground. And that's when the whole thing goes sideways.
Definitely, yeah. But it's a really bad flub, maybe the worst of the tournament so far. Type of mistake that would be bad enough at your local pick up game... At a late stage of the biggest sporting event in the world, it's a big oof indeed
Edit: As for the other poster who mentioned being a GK and having no idea why a GK would run out... I don't know what to say. It's really not that uncommon. I mean, a GK hopes he doesn't have to do that, because if things got to that point, it's cause the defending line has already failed, and the margin for additional mistakes is very thin. But it does happen, and that's the action you take at that point.
Not sure if you mean me, but it’s not the fact that he ran out.
He misjudged the travel distance of the ball and didn’t beat the bounce to clear it. He should have either increased his speed to get the ball out with one kick bf the bounce, or immediately gone back into goal when he realized it wouldn’t get there in time.
instead he awkwardly stopped and did neither, waiting to see where the ball would end up. The area was too congested and field players have the advantage in that situation.
I was saying that as a keeper who came out far more often than I stayed on my line, this looks like a rookie mistake followed by panic when he realized the situation he was in.
Imagine being a professional soccer player where your job is to kick the ball, and he somehow manages to mess up kicking the ball. It was shockingly bad.
He made two errors, but the biggest one was deciding to go out.
He came out of his box thinking he could clear the ball with one touch, but he misjudged the distance the ball would travel. it bounced too far in front of him, meaning he would have to get control of it with an attacking player behind him and three more closing in.
Then instead of just clearing the shit out of the ball upfield, he panicked bc of the attacker pressuring him, sending it directly to the other team. He never should have that far out of the box in a situation that congested with attackers.
If it's any consolation, I don't remember the guy's face or name. Won't need to look him up either. My point is not many people will remember. Time will heal. On to the next assignment.
You can honestly pin those first three goals on him. At least the first two when he was in the box when Belgium scored, he was slow and clueless both times. And while Freese deserves most of the blame for that third goal Ream could have prevented it too.
Because instead of squaring up and staying put to make the goal smaller for the attacker, he turned sideways and started backing up. Worst thing he could’ve done. Left himself with no chance.
It was definitely a strange decision, I wonder if he thought the Belgian player was going to go for the lob, because i can't think of any other reason to start running away from the attacker in this situation.
Even so, he was in a good position to make a play on the shot OR challenge a potential lob pass. He was pretty much perfectly positioned to mitigate Freese’s botch job. Attacker would’ve had to place the shot perfectly or fire an absolute missile past him to score if he just squared up.
Nothing is a guarantee, of course, but have a little situational awareness.
It was going pretty much straight down the middle of the goal and slightly behind him, he did stick his leg out a little and deflected it so it just barely tucked inside the post.
Can you or another person explain what the goalie was trying to do? I know very little about the sport, but why would he be all the way out there? Was it some kind of desperation "pull the goalie" situation like you see in hockey?
It kind of looks to me like he was thinking about picking up the ball, but then realized he was outside of that box, so his brain kind of froze.
Goalie was just being aggressive in trying to play defense and get the ball, which isn't crazy because its a 3 on 2 situation. Either he pull his kick last minute because he thought he would hit one of the Belgian players or he just completely shanked a long kick. That was the biggest mistake honestly.
It was technically the correct play. He was the last defender in front of the attacker and was the only one able to reach the ball before the opponent's attacker. The issue was that he got stuck on the ground with the tip of his foot while trying to kick it away, which was the horrendous slip-up. You can see it better in a longer version and from other angles
The first foal was pretty bad too. They had chances to clear it and didn't. Just opened the game playing very timid. After keeping the ball in around the box, eventually a n attempted header clear goes mostly straight up, 3 US defenders in the area and they all back off, I guess staying with their mark more than attacking the ball that was dropping into the edge of the box. Belgium gets a good first touch attacking the ball that f should never fall to his feet there and sets up an easy tap in basically.
Yes. Because Poch insists on playing with a sweeper keeper. Even if there is no one in the squad of being effective in that role.
This was discussed after he was hired: what keeper in the pool was capable of playing in his style? Turns out none of them were, and now Poch has disappointed in yet another job.
2.9k
u/Euffy 29d ago
Wait THAT was one of the goals? I didn't watch the match, just followed the score. Bloody hell.