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)

[Gary Cooper]

Argentina needs to win (partly to avoid embarrassment) but also I believe they'll face Australia next game as group winners. If Argentina ties and somehow finishes 2nd in their group (a big IF because of the Mexico/Saudi game) they will play France in the round of 16.

I'm sure Argentina doesn't want to play France again in the round of 16. That's what happened at the last World Cup.

[58-4ever]

Originally Posted by Gary Cooper

Argentina needs to win (partly to avoid embarrassment) but also I believe they'll face Australia next game as group winners. If Argentina ties and somehow finishes 2nd in their group (a big IF because of the Mexico/Saudi game) they will play France in the round of 16.

I'm sure Argentina doesn't want to play France again in the round of 16. That's what happened at the last World Cup.

I hope they try and win. Threw some coin down.

[POND_OF_RED]

Originally Posted by TripleThreat

Australia wins, Tunisia Wins.

World cup of upsets.

The Australia win vs Denmark is a bigger upset today. France ran a B lineup and Tunisia was playing for everything with a little colonialism incentive. Denmark really dropped the ball not getting out of the group. The Aussies will be partying hard!

[Gary Cooper]

Originally Posted by 58-4ever

I hope they try and win. Threw some coin down.

They have to win to ensure a spot. If they lose, they're out. A tie, and things get more complicated.

[POND_OF_RED]

Originally Posted by 58-4ever

I hope they try and win. Threw some coin down.

Argentina is almost in a must win mode. They will not be playing for a tie. Poland has a good defense and obviously one of the best scoring threats in the world in Lewandowski and he finally got that monkey off his back the last match. This matchup is going to be so fun. Mexico will be going balls to the wall too needing a 4 goal win more than likely. Definitely going to have both matches on this afternoon. It’s gonna be some fun soccer.

[kstater]

Yeah Argentina has to go for it. With Mexico going for broke, they'll leave themselves open to get upset.

Sent from my SM-S906U1 using Tapatalk

[Zap Rowsdower]

[jettio]

13 of France took the lead in the golden drama queen simulating punk ass bitch race for his game against Tunisia. He fell down in the box while defending acting like his face was on fire because the attacker with the ball barely touched him and then got the ball taken from him by a guy on the ground to start the buildup to the Tunisia goal. And of course, he went into crybaby ass bitch mode appealing to the referee as the attacker was beating three other defenders to get a goal.

Didier Deschamps should get a case of Triskaidekaphobia and keep 13 off the field.

[George Liquor]

Let's go whatever needs to happen for Mexico to go home

[TripleThreat]

Originally Posted by Gary Cooper

Argentina needs to win (partly to avoid embarrassment) but also I believe they'll face Australia next game as group winners. If Argentina ties and somehow finishes 2nd in their group (a big IF because of the Mexico/Saudi game) they will play France in the round of 16.

I'm sure Argentina doesn't want to play France again in the round of 16. That's what happened at the last World Cup.

Imagine if our opponents are Poland or Australia if we advance past Netherlands.....

TBH, this is one of the best draws we could have ever gotten IF Poland secures the #1 seed.

TBH I think Poland sees the Bracket/Match ups they have and want this #1 seed bad. No one wants to be in the France/Brazil/Spain areas of the bracket.

[TambaBerry]

https://sports.yahoo.com/how-the-usm...172244858.html

This still doesn't make sense to me

[Gary Cooper]

Originally Posted by TripleThreat

Imagine if our opponents are Poland or Australia if we advance past Netherlands.....

TBH, this is one of the best draws we could have ever gotten IF Poland secures the #1 seed.

TBH I think Poland sees the Bracket/Match ups they have and want this #1 seed bad. No one wants to be in the France/Brazil/Spain areas of the bracket.

That happened last World Cup and Croatia got an easy draw to the Final. They need to balance that shit better.

The United States will be the underdog versus every opponent going forward. I'm not too sure that Poland is any easier for us than Argentina. I haven't been impressed with Argentina so far. They're too reliant on Messi, who at his age is having to run more than he did in Barcelona.

[JohnnyHammersticks]

In 2002 I lived in San Pedro, a suburb of San Jose, Costa Rica. In 2002 the World Cup was co-hosted by South Korea and Japan, so the matches started in the middle of the night in Costa Rica. An interesting note about Costa Rica - unlike most other Central American and northerly South American countries, Costa Ricans have zero interest in baseball. That country is pure, 100% soccer. And partying.

In their opening match, the Ticos (nickname for the CR men's soccer team) played China. So you had the most populated nation in the world against a country smaller than the state of West Virginia. The Ticos were the ultimate underdogs. The match started at 1:30am local time and the entire country was up watching. When I say the entire country, I mean every living soul in the country was glued to their TVs and fired up af. It was electric. I lived in a conda complex and the ebbs and flows of momentum were palpable, you could hear people scream "TU PUTA!!" en masse anytime there was a questionable call by a ref, etc. Eruptions of joy beyond anything you could imagine when the Ticos scored.

Costa Rica beat China 2-0 that early morning. The match ended at about 4:30am and the people flat-out went freaking ballistic. I lived right behind Mall San Pedro, at that time the biggest mall in the country. The mall had a 6-lane boulevard in front of it with a 3-lane one-way roundabout (they called it a rotunda). Literally hundreds of thousands of people flooded into the streets shrieking with joy and singing that o-ay o-ay o-ay o-ay TICO TICO soccer song that you hear all the time. The police had to shut the entire boulevard and all the side streets down. You couldn't have fit another person into that mass of people with grease and a shoehorn.

To this day, it's the wildest, most passionate celebration I've ever witnessed personally. I'm not even doing it justice, it was that indescribable. And it went on until past sunrise. The whole city just shut down and partied.

The wildest celebrations I've ever personally witnessed are:

3. Arrowhead Stadium when Dante Hall started around the edge on his famous punt return against the Donks when both teams were 4-0 to start the season in 2003.

2. Bank One Ballpark when Gonzo hit the bloop single with 2 strikes and 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th to beat the Yankees in the 2001 World Series

1. The celebration when the Costa Rican mens soccer team defeated China in the World Cup. Puts the other two to shame. Shouldn't even be on the same list. One of the craziest things I've ever seen in my life.

[Gary Cooper]

Originally Posted by JohnnyHammersticks

In 2002 I lived in San Pedro, a suburb of San Jose, Costa Rica. In 2002 the World Cup was co-hosted by South Korea and Japan, so the matches started in the middle of the night in Costa Rica. An interesting note about Costa Rica - unlike most other Central American and northerly South American countries, Costa Ricans have zero interest in baseball. That country is pure, 100% soccer. And partying.

In their opening match, the Ticos (nickname for the CR men's soccer team) played China. So you had the most populated nation in the world against a country smaller than the state of West Virginia. The Ticos were the ultimate underdogs. The match started at 1:30am local time and the entire country was up watching. When I say the entire country, I mean every living soul in the country was glued to their TVs and fired up af. It was electric. I lived in a conda complex and the ebbs and flows of momentum were palpable, you could hear people scream "TU PUTA!!" en masse anytime there was a questionable call by a ref, etc. Eruptions of joy beyond anything you could imagine when the Ticos scored.

Costa Rica beat China 2-0 that early morning. The match ended at about 4:30am and the people flat-out went freaking ballistic. I lived right behind Mall San Pedro, at that time the biggest mall in the country. The mall had a 6-lane boulevard in front of it with a 3-lane one-way roundabout (they called it a rotunda). Literally hundreds of thousands of people flooded into the streets shrieking with joy and singing that o-ay o-ay o-ay o-ay TICO TICO soccer song that you hear all the time. The police had to shut the entire boulevard and all the side streets down. You couldn't have fit another person into that mass of people with grease and a shoehorn.

To this day, it's the wildest, most passionate celebration I've ever witnessed personally. I'm not even doing it justice, it was that indescribable. And it went on until past sunrise. The whole city just shut down and partied.

The wildest celebrations I've ever personally witnessed are:

3. Arrowhead Stadium when Dante Hall started around the edge on his famous punt return against the Donks when both teams were 4-0 to start the season in 2003.

2. Bank One Ballpark when Gonzo hit the bloop single with 2 strikes and 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th to beat the Yankees in the 2001 World Series

1. The celebration when the Costa Rican mens soccer team defeated China in the World Cup. Puts the other two to shame. Shouldn't even be on the same list. One of the craziest things I've ever seen in my life.

Great story. Costa Rica did very well in the 2014 World Cup, winning their group of death with England, Italy, and Uruguay. I can only imagine how people reacted then.

[TripleThreat]

Originally Posted by Gary Cooper

That happened last World Cup and Croatia got an easy draw to the Final. They need to balance that shit better.

The United States will be the underdog versus every opponent going forward. I'm not too sure that Poland is any easier for us than Argentina. I haven't been impressed with Argentina so far. They're too reliant on Messi, who at his age is having to run more than he did in Barcelona.

Yeah, if we make it to the semis, we probably see Spain or Brazil though tbh. I know I sound ridiculous but after seeing the possibility of the road to the Semi's being with Netherlands/Australia/Poland, It's possible, but as you said we will definitely be the underdogs of these games minus the Aussie game.