So… after the ridiculous peace prize trump is now even forcing FIFA to manipulate the game in their favour.
If Europe had any balls we would just go home and start a new organisation to replace the corrupt FIFA. We should have never even accepted to play in trumpistan
No, they should not.
In the initial phase of the tournament, only Canada wasn’t the top seed in their group of 4(behind the Swiss)
The US barely topped their group and in doing so guaranteed that their round of 32 match was against the third seed in Canada’s group, Bosnia which isn’t in the top 60.
Canada’s round of 32 game was against either a similarly ranked South Korea(~28 as I recall), or against the near-60th ranked South Africa. So Canada wasn’t guaranteed to get out of R32, but always had a good shot. Canada was never going to get out of R16 short of an actual miracle, the matchup was Netherlands or Morocco.
For the US, their 2nd R16 match v Belgium will be their first game against a peer-or-better opponent of the tournament where statistically they can lose.
OTOH, R16 is normally where the knockout rounds start, so the USA just got a free pass to what’s normally the real beginning of the tournament.
I’m saying this as a fan of Canada who didn’t make the round of 16 at all, but still had a wildly successful run by Canadian standards: first ever world cup goal, first ever world cup win, first ever advancement from a knockout round (but only from the round of 32 which normally doesn’t exist).
The US has a decent chance of getting past Belgium, but whoever wins that match faces either Spain or Portugal, and that will probably be the end.
I get and agree with what you’re saying here but
Is disingenuous. They won their first two games convincingly, winning the group in only two games. The third game therefore meant nothing, so they didn’t play to win and still almost came away with a draw. They could have very likely won that game if the first string played, sweeping the group.
Thats extremely disengenous to the then 22nd ranked team, Turkiye. They were the 2nd best team in that group and legitimately beat the US.
??? The US rested a bunch of players that game because they didn’t need it.
Yes, they legitimately beat the US second/third stringers, I agree.