In briefThe USA has got off to a flying start at the World Cup, battering Paraguay 4-1.Canada and Bosnia and Herzegovina finished level after a beautiful goal from Cyle Larin. <\/p>\n
The United States launched their World Cup challenge on Saturday in style, battering Paraguay in the first game in the tournament on US soil for 32 years.<\/p>\n
The World Cup co-hosts said they were determined<\/a> to avoid slipping up against the savvy South Americans at the futuristic Los Angeles Stadium. On Saturday afternoon, they proved it beyond doubt.<\/p>\n “The world of football has come to the nation of soccer,” intoned veteran commentator Kevin Keatings, as the match began and the home crowd roared.<\/p>\n Both teams sprang into action early, the Paraguayans surprising the US with an early, high-tempo push. The home side responded in kind moments later to lift spirits in the stands. <\/p>\n The first goal came in only the sixth minute \u2014 to the sound of rapture from American fans, USA went 1-0 up thanks to a clumsy own goal by Paraguayan midfielder Damian Bobadilla.<\/p>\n Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n The mistake took the wind out of Paraguay’s sails immediately. Having momentarily looked the better side until the error, the Paraguayan squad seemed to take their collective foot off the accelerator afterwards. <\/p>\n Attacking midfielders Malik Tillman and Weston McKennie proved a handful for Paraguay’s defenders in the opening 20 minutes, their rapid and aggressive movement making life quite challenging. <\/p>\n Indeed, before the first hydration break in the 25th minute, Paraguay seemed to be getting shoved along in one-way traffic.<\/p>\n When the drinks break arrived, Paraguay seemed grateful to have a moment to regroup, the match getting away from them in a way they plainly had not anticipated.<\/p>\n The moment the break was over, Christian Pulisic hammered the ball into the net and began to celebrate, having failed to notice a fairly obvious offside in the build-up. <\/p>\n It didn’t matter \u2014 he powered back to the goal in the 30th minute to properly put the goal away and make it 2-0 for the USA.<\/p>\n Folarin Balogun took advantage of a major slip from the Paraguayan defence to smash home the US’ third goal right before half-time.<\/p>\n A shell-shocked Paraguay trooped back to the dressing room aware that they were in deep trouble.<\/p>\n The USA exchanged Christian Pulisic for Sebastian Berhalter during the break, and Paraguay subbed in Mauricio for Damian Bobadilla.<\/p>\n In the 52nd minute, the VAR officials reviewed a rather unusual case of “mistaken identity”. The result: Tim Ream’s yellow was rescinded and instead Miguel Almiron was booked for diving.<\/p>\n Paraguay’s level of aggression lifted significantly in the second half, with hard challenges aplenty, but only occasionally in a way that allowed to them to attack the goal, or get their better players in the front line involved. <\/p>\n But in the 72nd minute, it all went Paraguay’s way at last. Mauricio scythed around the US defence to finally, formally open his team’s account. <\/p>\n But even then, their delight was short-lived. With seconds left in stoppage time, Giovanni Reyna hammered the USA’s fourth and final goal home to put an exclamation point on the entire match.<\/p>\n As the final whistle blows, one thing is very clear: this is a USA squad that looks considerably stronger than many expected.<\/p>\n The rest of their Group D cohort, Australia and T\u00fcrkiye, will have no doubt watched with interest ahead of their own clash on Sunday. To be a fly on the wall in their group chats tonight.<\/p>\n Bosnia and Herzegovina draw hands Canada historic, first-ever World Cup point<\/p>\n Canada’s World Cup campaign began on home soil on Saturday against a stiff Bosnia and Herzegovina defence.<\/p>\n Energised by a rendition of their anthem by Canadian legend Alanis Morissette (and a boisterous Toronto Stadium packed to rafters in red and white), the Canadian squad looked fiery early doors<\/a>. Defender Alastair Johson drew a yellow card for a hard clash in just the 11th minute.<\/p>\n The stadium erupted in the 17th minute when forward Jonathan David had a clear shot on goal, but it was easily handled by Bosnian keeper Nikola Vasilj.<\/p>\n Ten minutes later, a razor sharp header from Bosnia and Herzegovina forward Jovo Luki\u0107 found the back of the net in the 21st minute. It was a goal that Canada would find difficult to answer. <\/p>\n Canada’s Ismael Kone had a golden opportunity in the 30th minute, but sailed his strike well over the net, prompting groans from tens of thousands of Canadians who blanketed the stadium in a sea of red.<\/p>\n Luki\u0107 and defender Ermedin Demirovi\u0107 would both draw yellow cards in the 47th minute, followed by Canadian defender Luc Rollet de Fougerolles in the 53rd.<\/p>\n The Canadian attack was relentless, but despite creating plenty of chances they lacked precision in their finishing as the Bosnians dealt with a succession of crosses and looked to be heading for a narrow win.<\/p>\n Bosnia’s veteran defender Sead Kolasinac saved a certain goal when he diverted a strike from David onto the crossbar, extending Canada’s agony.<\/p>\n The first substitutions came in the 61st minute. Canada made three changes, replacing Liam Millar, Jonathan David and Tajon Buchanan with Jacob Shaffelburg, Promise Akinpelu and Ali Ahmed respectively. <\/p>\n A minute later, Bosnia and Herzegovina would follow with two of its own \u2014 Ivan Ba\u0161i\u0107 and Jovo Luki\u0107 exchanged for Armin Gigovi\u0107 and Samed Ba\u017edar.<\/p>\n But it was Canada’s decision to substitute forward Tani Oluwaseyi for Cyle Larin in the 76th minute that made all the difference.<\/p>\n Fresh off the bench, it took Larin just two minutes to create the breakthrough Canada had been looking for. A precision strike off an assist from Akinpelu sailed past keeper Nikola Vasilj to tie the game up and send the home crowd into raptures.<\/p>\n READ MORE<\/p>\n Canadian sides have endured a perfect record of futility at two previous tournament appearances in 1986 and 2022, with six losses.<\/p>\n The result, borne on the back of Larin’s screamer, gave Canada its first point in World Cup history.<\/p>\n Given seven minutes of stoppage time to burn, and both squads showing signs of serious fatigue, neither was able to come up with a tiebreaker and a bruising but nevertheless very entertaining match ended level<\/a>.<\/p>\n With reporting from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.<\/p>\n You can watch all 104 matches of the FIFA World Cup 2026\u2122 live, free and exclusive on\u00a0SBS<\/a>, SBS VICELAND and\u00a0SBS On Demand<\/a>.<\/p>\n FIFA World Cup 2026\u2122 at SBS On Demand: get match ready<\/a>.<\/p>\n For the latest from SBS News, download our app<\/a> and subscribe to our newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In briefThe USA has got off to a flying start at the World Cup, battering Paraguay 4-1.Canada and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":736497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-736496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/736497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}