\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe U.S. national soccer team not only advanced to the knockout round with Friday\u2019s 2-0 win over Australia, but later officially clinched first place in Group D after Paraguay defeated Turkey.That result locks the Americans into the top spot in the group and confirms they will open the Round of 32 on July 1 in Santa Clara. Their group win ensures they will play a 3rd place team from either groups B, E, F, I or J. A deep U.S. roster overcame Pulisic’s absence to clinch a knockout berth after only two matches for the first time. The last time the Americans served as World Cup hosts in 1994, they advanced by being one of the best third-place teams.Video above: Explaining the beautiful game to NFL fansThey then lost to eventual champion Brazil in their next match, which was in the round of 16.Pulisic, who plays for AC Milan and has 33 goals in 87 international appearances, missed Friday’s match because of a calf injury.Alex Freeman, the youngest player on the team at 21 and son of Super Bowl champion Antonio Freeman, gave the Americans a 2-0 lead in the 43rd minute off a set piece. Freeman headed in a deflected shot by Sergi\u00f1o Dest for his first career World Cup goal. The goal was confirmed after a video review.The U.S. took a 1-0 lead in the 11th minute after a run down the left sideline by Folarin Balogun, who scored two goals in the 4-1 victory over Paraguay on June 12.Balogun directed a centering pass towards striker Ricardo Pepi, who started in place of Pulisic. The ball never reached Pepi, deflecting off Australia defender Cameron Burgess and into the Socceroos’ net for an own-goal.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tSANTA CLARA, Calif. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The U.S. national soccer team not only advanced to the knockout round with Friday\u2019s 2-0 win over Australia, but later officially clinched first place in Group D after Paraguay defeated Turkey.<\/p>\n
That result locks the Americans into the top spot in the group and confirms they will open the Round of 32 on July 1 in Santa Clara. Their group win ensures they will play a 3rd place team from either groups B, E, F, I or J. <\/p>\n
A deep U.S. roster overcame Pulisic’s absence to clinch a knockout berth after only two matches for the first time. The last time the Americans served as World Cup hosts in 1994, they advanced by being one of the best third-place teams.<\/p>\n
Video above: Explaining the beautiful game to NFL fans<\/p>\n
They then lost to eventual champion Brazil in their next match, which was in the round of 16.<\/p>\n
Pulisic, who plays for AC Milan and has 33 goals in 87 international appearances, missed Friday’s match because of a calf injury.<\/p>\n
Alex Freeman, the youngest player on the team at 21 and son of Super Bowl champion Antonio Freeman, gave the Americans a 2-0 lead in the 43rd minute off a set piece. Freeman headed in a deflected shot by Sergi\u00f1o Dest for his first career World Cup goal. The goal was confirmed after a video review.<\/p>\n
The U.S. took a 1-0 lead in the 11th minute after a run down the left sideline by Folarin Balogun, who scored two goals in the 4-1 victory over Paraguay on June 12.<\/p>\n
Balogun directed a centering pass towards striker Ricardo Pepi, who started in place of Pulisic. The ball never reached Pepi, deflecting off Australia defender Cameron Burgess and into the Socceroos’ net for an own-goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. national soccer team not only advanced to the knockout round with Friday\u2019s 2-0 win over Australia,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-368204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}