The Official 2022 FIFA World Cup Thread

[TripleThreat]

YOUNG AMERICANS
The USMNT was by far the youngest team to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, garnering valuable experience going through the rigors of World Cup qualifying. Through 14 qualifiers, the USA Starting XI came in at an average of 23.82, almost two years younger than the next closest team, Ghana at 25.67. Together, the other 31 participating teams averaged a Starting XI age of 27.5 through qualifying, nearly four full years older than the U.S. Sources say this is one of the youngest, but most talented teams the U.S. has ever fielded. While they may not win the world cup this year, they may garner the experience needed to make a serious run on home soil in the year 2026 when the World Cup comes back to North America.

2022 USA World Cup Roster

FORWARDS
Jesús Ferreira (FC Dallas)
Jordan Morris (Seattle Sounders)
Christian Pulisic (Chelsea)
Gio Reyna (Borussia Dortmund)
Josh Sargent (Norwich City)
Timothy Weah (Lille)
Haji Wright (Antalyaspor)

MIDFIELDERS
Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United)
Kellyn Acosta (LAFC)
Tyler Adams (Leeds United)
Luca de la Torre (Celta Vigo)
Weston McKennie (Juventus)
Yunus Musah (Valencia)
Cristian Roldan (Seattle Sounders)

DEFENDERS
Cameron Carter-Vickers (Celtic)
Sergiño Dest (AC Milan)
Aaron Long (New York Red Bulls)
Shaq Moore (Nashville SC)
Tim Ream (Fulham)
Antonee Robinson (Fulham)
Joe Scally (Borussia Monchengladbach)
DeAndre Yedlin (Inter Miami)
Walker Zimmerman (Nashville SC)

GOALKEEPERS
Ethan Horvath (Luton Town)
Sean Johnson (NYCFC)
Matt Turner (Arsenal)

[Womble]

Originally Posted by JPH83

Just gonna say but a perennial question among other clubs in England is which club has the most c***ish fans, West Ham or Chelsea. The answer is always Chelsea and always will be. Absolutely no surprise to me it's one of those lot coming on here acting like a massive wanker.

And all the other stuff you've all been chucking his way on England is right, sadly. Not heavyweights, contenders, sleeping giants. Been absolutely dog-s*** forever.

The answer to your question is Liverpool and it's not even close. No1 even thinks twice about West Ham fans, not even in London.

Ps. Your act ain't fooling me. You might claim to be English but it's clear you have no love for your country. Just get a tattoo of the USA flag and be done with it you treacherous bottom feeder.

[carlos3652]

1. Usa met all the goals asked of them in this World Cup. While I didn’t agree with the managers moves on the subs, or his starting lineups. If you take a step back, you can be proud of this team and what they accomplished.

2. Italy failed to qualify for a 2nd World Cup(in a row after winning the European championship *edit). Germany failed to get out of the group stage 2 WC in a row after winning it in 2014. Belgium (3rd place finisher in 18) crashed out in groups, Croatia (2nd in 2018) barely held on to qualify 2nd in their group who saw an African nation get 1st. World Cups are hard. There is a reason the same 8 teams win every time. (Brazil 5, Germany and Italy 4, France, Argentina and Uruguay 2, Spain and England with 1) and most of the time, these same teams take 2nd place. (8 of the last 10 WC)

3. 2026 will see the USA in a semifinal. Anything else in front of home fans is a failure. 2022 team can hold there head high and I do think they are 2 starters and 3-5 quality bench players away from getting there. I think they will find them in the pool. (I do think they need a better manager)

I understand you don’t want to hear about moral victories. But you need to understand the history and the quality players that the best teams have at their disposal. The Brazil B team lost to Cameroon. The France B team lost to Tunisia (even after putting their A players for 30 min). Those teams have quality bench players and they Lost to “lesser” teams. Germany has way more quality players than the US (lost to Japan) - so does Argentina (lost to SA) - so does Spain (lost to Japan) and the list goes on.

Tying to Old Wales and England and beating Iran in a game that they only needed a tie to move on was a great challenge and they passed. You can be bummed that they didn’t get passed the favorite Netherlands - but to call this a failure is a reach.

[carlos3652]

This coming from an Argentinian that has lived in KC for the past 20+ years and has watched the game evolve here in the States.

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

Nation Relieved To No Longer Have To Pretend To Like Soccerhttps://t.co/qqCNzETbZw

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 3, 2022

Lmfao

[HonestChieffan]

Glad this shit is done and over.

[TripleThreat]

Originally Posted by carlos3652

This coming from an Argentinian that has lived in KC for the past 20+ years and has watched the game evolve here in the States.

Replying to your above post, it is a failure. Just because Germany and Belgium failed doesn’t mean we didn’t. Englands manager was just on record saying how this WC showed how much soccer had progressed around the world but he sure left out the North American team on that list.

If we pretend for a moment the last World Cup was 2014, where we got out of groups with Germany, Portugal and Ghana, and then lost in the R16 to the heavy favored Belgium 2-1 you would 100% say this WC is a failure compared to that, so no we didn’t move forward overall as a country, but yes we did move forward from that atrocity of a team and manager we had qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.

Yes there is a lot to be excited for and optimistic about for 2026, but this WC was the same as all the others that we’ve qualified for. Our defense in the netherlands game was so suspect, the very few times and chances they got the ball on our 3rd of the field they were scoring, it wasn’t good.

[Red Dawg]

Soccer. Lol. USA just doesn't care because men here don't play it. It's not surprising our women's team can win on the world stage. Other countries don't have many women players but here it's the one sport women care about.

[Ocotillo]

Originally Posted by Red Dawg

Soccer. Lol. USA just doesn't care because men here don't play it. It's not surprising our women's team can win on the world stage. Other countries don't have many women players but here it's the one sport women care about.

It's because the countries that are good at soccer have their women in a kitchen.

Title IX made America a powerhouse in women's athletics.

[Red Dawg]

Originally Posted by Ocotillo

It's because the countries that are good at soccer have their women in a kitchen.

Title IX made America a powerhouse in women's athletics.

Yup. Thats my point.

[TripleThreat]

Originally Posted by Red Dawg

Soccer. Lol. USA just doesn't care because men here don't play it. It's not surprising our women's team can win on the world stage. Other countries don't have many women players but here it's the one sport women care about.

I personally don’t think guys like Stephen curry, Lebron James, Patrick mahomes, Tom Brady, Phillip rivers, Travis kelce, etc would be some superstar soccer players to be honest. It would be interesting to see if they had picked up soccer as there sport when they were 5 how they would have turned out, but I just don’t see it.

Soccer is one of the few sports you can’t just be a good athlete and become the best on the field like basketball and the NFL, you actually have to train for years and years. That’s not a knock on either of those sports but it’s just the reality of it. Imagine telling Mahomes you need to be able to throw as good with your left hand as you can with your right. Once you can, we can start the next stage of your training. That’s literally how it is.

[POND_OF_RED]

By no means am I calling this World Cup a failure. We did what we came to do, but that’s it. I understand the gap of technical ability between the Netherlands and the USA, but what countries can do is spend money on top tier management to try and get better at the technical parts of the game and better with tactics. Berhalter got us back to relevance. That’s all we can really expect of him, though. That’s all I’m really getting at.

By no means am I trying to shit on what the US did. We had no right beating the Netherlands. To give up 3 goals on terrible defensive markings is not how I wanted it to go down, though. Berhalter picked his squad with a defensive mentality in mind. To lose like that is not necessarily all on the coaching, but the lack of offensive output is so he tactically got beat the whole World Cup. The Iran win was bigger than most will give credit for-I will admit that. Iran is a good solid team that isn’t just a cakewalk in the World Cup. I still think that game could have been won more decisively with a better coaching philosophy, though.

[carlos3652]

Originally Posted by TripleThreat

Replying to your above post, it is a failure. Just because Germany and Belgium failed doesn’t mean we didn’t. Englands manager was just on record saying how this WC showed how much soccer had progressed around the world but he sure left out the North American team on that list.

If we pretend for a moment the last World Cup was 2014, where we got out of groups with Germany, Portugal and Ghana, and then lost in the R16 to the heavy favored Belgium 2-1 you would 100% say this WC is a failure compared to that, so no we didn’t move forward overall as a country, but yes we did move forward from that atrocity of a team and manager we had qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.

Yes there is a lot to be excited for and optimistic about for 2026, but this WC was the same as all the others that we’ve qualified for. Our defense in the netherlands game was so suspect, the very few times and chances they got the ball on our 3rd of the field they were scoring, it wasn’t good.

So in 2014, the USA squeezed a tie out of Portugal (who lost 4-0 to Germany in their opener) beat a Ghana team in the 86th min (who finished dead last in the group) and then lost to Germany. They got in with 4 points and Goal difference. Then lost to Belgium.

This year they tied and had a chance vs England who statistically were the best team in groups. They allowed a PK (because one player was an idiot) and allowed the tie to wales.

I hate comparing world cups that were 8 years ago because the talent pool isn’t even the same anymore for most teams.

And I’m not saying that because all those other teams failed - that the us failed. I’m saying that WC are hard and I was giving examples of major countries with way better talent pools also struggling because this tournament is hard.

Argentina is a perfect example - it’s not a failure if we make it to semis - if I compre every World Cup to 78 or 86 or 90 or 14 I would be super depressed all the time.

[POND_OF_RED]

Originally Posted by Red Dawg

Soccer. Lol. USA just doesn't care because men here don't play it. It's not surprising our women's team can win on the world stage. Other countries don't have many women players but here it's the one sport women care about.

Originally Posted by Ocotillo

It's because the countries that are good at soccer have their women in a kitchen.

Title IX made America a powerhouse in women's athletics.

The US is quickly losing their status as the women’s powerhouse. That era is over. Women’s soccer is taking off all over the world. Spain just set a women’s attendance record last year with over 91,000 spectators.

[dlphg9]

Who is Ricardo Pepi? Should he have made the team?

[TripleThreat]

Originally Posted by carlos3652

So in 2014, the USA squeezed a tie out of Portugal (who lost 4-0 to Germany in their opener) beat a Ghana team in the 86th min (who finished dead last in the group) and then lost to Germany. They got in with 4 points and Goal difference. Then lost to Belgium.

This year they tied and had a chance vs England who statistically were the best team in groups. They allowed a PK (because one player was an idiot) and allowed the tie to wales.

I hate comparing world cups that were 8 years ago because the talent pool isn’t even the same anymore for most teams.

And I’m not saying that because all those other teams failed - that the us failed. I’m saying that WC are hard and I was giving examples of major countries with way better talent pools also struggling because this tournament is hard.

Argentina is a perfect example - it’s not a failure if we make it to semis - if I compre every World Cup to 78 or 86 or 90 or 14 I would be super depressed all the time.

Hold up, if you want to go into specifics such as “minutes” vs Ghana, I lost $200. Because 20 something old Ronaldo tied the game in the 90th+ minute. We should have finished 2 wins and 1 loss, but we didn’t, but we damn near should have if we are debating minute by minute garbage. I digress.

You’re right, the World Cup is hard, but us as fans, us as a nation, we have a level of accountability and expectation just like all these other countries do. If Brazil spent 50 years going to the R16 to get knocked out every time, they wouldn’t be very happy, that’s the bottom line. We as a nation are sick of being the weakest team that qualifies into the R16. We want to be a team that coming into the tournament is feared.

Think of it this way, would you rather spend 50 years qualifying every year to be knocked out in the R16, or would you rather spend 50 years winning 3 world cups while being eliminated time to time in the group stage? It doesn’t matter if Germany got eliminated in the group stage, if they had qualified, they would be feared by every team in the R16, whereas we qualified yet every team would prefe to play us over Germany. That’s what needs to change.