Even if it feels a little staged, it makes for a fun and uniquely American angle to this World Cup.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m referring to the \u201cMiracle on Ice,\u201d said to inspire the folks who now aim to work a \u201cMiracle on Grass.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not us?\u201d asks United States soccer coach Mauricio Pochettino, evoking 1980, Lake Placid and Olympic gold.<\/p>\n
Pochettino chose well in adopting the mantra of United States hockey coach Herb Brooks and his team.<\/p>\n
The question injects confidence in players, yet its suggestive nature keeps things light.<\/p>\n
The Argentine soccer man took the U.S. job in September 2024, bringing high credentials to a team that hadn\u2019t won much of anything. He\u2019d played for Argentina, a powerhouse, and in Europe, he\u2019d captained or coached a number of crown-jewel clubs.<\/p>\n
Much tactical work needed to be done with the U.S. program. But, as we\u2019ve seen in the past two weeks, Pochettino inherited a talent pool that was more athletic than any of its group stage opponents.<\/p>\n
In dropping the \u201cwhy not us?\u201d line into a May 26 interview with Fox Sports, two weeks ahead of his team\u2019s Cup opener, the coach introduced a bold way of looking at American men\u2019s soccer. Although he isn\u2019t a Yankee, he knew he was invoking the American hockey upstarts who\u2019ve inspired movies, documentaries and books.<\/p>\n
Pochettino asked the same question of his players.<\/p>\n
Why not us?<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of the U.S. playing more like the Europeans do the past two weeks, a related question now arises:<\/p>\n
Do you believe in miracles?<\/p>\n
The United States has won back-to-back group stage games in a World Cup for the first time in 96 years. The reward: a July 1 Round of 32 match in Santa Clara. That\u2019s regardless of what happens Thursday in Inglewood, when the U.S. faces Turkey in its group stage finale.<\/p>\n
Miracles is aptly plural as we briefly ponder the U.S. actually raising the trophy July 19 in New Jersey.<\/p>\n
At some point, the U.S. would encounter teams that boast advantages in more than one key aspect. Prominent on that list are France, Argentina, England and Spain.<\/p>\n
So, let\u2019s take a long hydration break for now.<\/p>\n
While a soccer medal goes to the creators of the \u201cMiracle on Ice\u201d commercials we\u2019re seeing in World Cup telecasts, it is overly ambitious to map out that surreal journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo early,\u201d said Brian Quinn, local soccer expert.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeams start well and then fall away; teams start slow and get better,\u201d added Quinn, a former San Diego Sockers midfielder who appeared in 48 matches with the U.S national team and coaches the University of San Diego men.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut,\u201d the Belfast native added, cracking the door open, \u201cone of the keys to winning the Cup is to control the game. So, if they can (continue to) do that, then who knows? Got to stay healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rather than the \u201cMiracle on Grass,\u201d here\u2019s a different bright scenario to latch onto:<\/p>\n
The Americans win the elimination game in Santa Clara and another one in Seattle, booking their first quarterfinals since 2002 and making it four wins in four high-stakes games on the West Coast, one of the planet\u2019s spectacular regions.<\/p>\n
The \u201chow\u201d has been impressive.<\/p>\n
Before enthusiastic crowds that filled NFL venues in Inglewood and Seattle, the U.S. showed off superior speed and quickness, supplemented by contact balance and play strength. It built halftime leads of three and two goals, defeating Paraguay 4-1 and Australia 2-0.<\/p>\n
Quinn, attending Friday\u2019s match, saw that the blitz against Paraguay wasn\u2019t a one-off.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U.S. again started with intensity and got their reward early by being aggressive and sharp,\u201d he said of the 11th-minute own goal that, coupled with a similar play in the opener, made the Americans the first World Cup team to get own goals in its first two matches.<\/p>\n
The former midfielder singled out midfielders Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie for \u201cruling the roost\u201d and winning \u201cpractically every individual duel.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralia struggled the whole half as they could not connect any sequences of passes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In Santa Clara, the Americans will be favored against either No. 55 Qatar or No. 64 Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the analytics models project.<\/p>\n
Belgium, ranked ninth, would be the most probable opponent if the U.S. makes it back to Seattle for the Round of 16.<\/p>\n
Presumably, Pochettino wouldn\u2019t start a lineup anything like the one he sent out for the March exhibition that Belgium won in Atlanta, 5-2.\u00a0U.S. stars Folarin Balogun and Christian Pulisic didn\u2019t enter until the 71st minute,\u00a0and other mainstays also began the match on the bench.<\/p>\n
If the West Coast thrill ride continues for two more matches beyond Thursday\u2019s tune-up, the U.S. would be within two wins of the trophy match. It would be played some 275 miles from the \u201cMiracle On Ice.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, the ice stays in the lemonade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even if it feels a little staged, it makes for a fun and uniquely American angle to this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,2558,3,403,99,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-716601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}