World Cup: Group D: USA vs. Turkiye, Paraguay vs. Australia, 6/25/2026

[Live in the Now]

Playing your B team against Turkey is over confidence

Didn't need a result. The game was not relevant. See when you win your first two games and win your group easily you can rest players. You don't have to send your best players out there to break their legs.

 

[Halladay]

Matched showed they need so much better depth. Especially at tbe back.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

What I have to say about this game is that it was good we rotated the team, so to some extent you weigh the result as something that doesn't matter that much. Our team was completely imbalanced towards attack and I think that's fine because it was a meaningless dead rubber. It's not meaningless for the players who played because they were all trying to prove they belong in the team. But what you learn here are a couple things.

1. The backup defenders/backup DM are no good.
2. After this WC, you can't expect those defenders to step up and replace guys like Tim Ream. We have a gaping hole at LCB. You just put them in a pressure scenario against quality and they failed. Players like Tessmann also have to be part of the team.

We didn't even really play with a 6, more two 8s and deeper lying 10. And we tend to struggle when we have to play through the middle more--Weah and Aaronson as our two outlets and neither having good matches really made things harder for us.

That said, still basically a draw with our reserve team. I'm not going to be too down on it.

 

[Live in the Now]

We already saw a game where one team was winning by a lot, and they wound up winning 6-0 in fact, and they had a player get their leg broken in half. There was no point to that, and it's not like it was on purpose, it just happened. Why would you risk that.

 

[Bozo Nicholson]

After Hours with James Corden! Remind me to skip that one.

 

[les Habs]

Country Roads as the U.S. post-match 'fight song' seems kinda weird. Does that make WVU America's Team?

Not sure it’s a “fight song” though. Either way, it’s very American to me. I could see going with something from Bruce (not “Born in the USA” either), but I suppose this is easier to sing along with.

The first game they didn't shove Yildiz on until halftime, and by that point they were already down a goal. Then it was pretty clear after that, that they don't have a 9 you can put on the field or use as a focal point. Compounding that issue the fullbacks would rarely overlap. The fans back home blamed a lack of testosterone and maybe the staff did too so they did the same thing the next game against Paraguay.

I just don’t have the time and was getting burned out early trying to watch every match. I saw a few snippets. I can understand not getting a result against Paraguay, but that Australia loss really threw me. Yildiz and Guler aren’t even close to their primes though so they should be better in the future.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

We already saw a game where one team was winning by a lot, and they wound up winning 6-0 in fact, and they had a player get their leg broken in half. There was no point to that, and it's not like it was on purpose, it just happened. Why would you risk that.

No no, you're messing with the narrative. Smug, arrogant Yanks getting their comeuppance.

 

[Live in the Now]

No no, you're messing with the narrative. Smug, arrogant Yanks getting their comeuppance.

There's too many hockey fans here who think it's great that they watched their favorite players get CTE hitting people a few games before the playoffs, develop drug addictions from injuries that came in meaningless games, and fail to stay in the NHL past age 30 (looking at you Mike Richards). There is absolutely no honor or sense to that.

 

[Live in the Now]

I just don’t have the time and was getting burned out early trying to watch every match. I saw a few snippets. I can understand not getting a result against Paraguay, but that Australia loss really threw me. Yildiz and Guler aren’t even close to their primes though so they should be better in the future.

I took the last two weeks off and I'm thinking of taking the next one off too.

The Paraguay one made even less sense to me. They scored from some miracle shot early in the game, didn't even defend that well and Turkey didn't trouble them too much

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

I still think playing backups is the smart move here. You have no guarantee your starters win this - Turkey can play football arguably at a higher level than the U.S. team - and on top of that you put injury risk and the way the narrative shifts when your starters lose this. Germany is going through this right now. Losing to Ecuador with a backup team would have been called 'arrogant' and 'needlessly ruining momentum' bla bla but instead you lost with your starters which opens up all the debates again from before the tournament and actually destroys all the credit built up with the previous Ws. Poch has entirely avoided this.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

There's too many hockey fans here who think it's great that they watched their favorite players get CTE hitting people a few games before the playoffs, develop drug addictions from injuries that came in meaningless games, and fail to stay in the NHL past age 30 (looking at you Mike Richards). There is absolutely no honor or sense to that.

Between that and fans (not necessarily here) recognizing it was our second team and still being upset that they weren't good enough to take Turkey's A team to the woodshed. And these are football fans, not casual viewers.

 

[Live in the Now]

I still think playing backups is the smart move here. You have no guarantee your starters win this - Turkey can play football arguably at a higher level than the U.S. team - and on top of that you put injury risk and the way the narrative shifts when your starters lose this. Germany is going through this right now. Losing to Ecuador with a backup team would have been called 'arrogant' and 'needlessly ruining momentum' bla bla but instead you lost with your starters which opens up all the debates again from before the tournament and actually destroys all the credit built up with the previous Ws. Poch has entirely avoided this.

Yeah, that's exactly what you don't want to happen. Now you have everyone going on about Neuer and Wirtz and etc I could keep going. It turns into 'but they only played well against Curacao.' Now on the bright side Germany won their group and gets an extra 'easier' game to recover from that.

 

[Live in the Now]

Between that and fans (not necessarily here) recognizing it was our second team and still being upset that they weren't good enough to take Turkey's A team to the woodshed. And these are football fans, not casual viewers.

There are literally people up at 4 AM in their home country gloating and thinking they got one over because they watched our B team lose. Yeah I'm sure the B team are the real losers in this case

 

[Brookbank]

Didn't need a result. The game was not relevant. See when you win your first two games and win your group easily you can rest players. You don't have to send your best players out there to break their legs.

But if you are at home. Just win the games that you can. It won't matter how many players you rest when you hit that wall of a superior team up the table. That's how I would have done it anyway

 

[Live in the Now]

But if you are at home. Just win the games that you can. It won't matter how many players you rest when you hit that wall of a superior team up the table. That's how I would have done it anyway

If one of our midfielders breaks their leg like Kone, and then we lost to Bosnia because of that, I would hope that any coach who did that is sent to the guillotine

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

But if you are at home. Just win the games that you can. It won't matter how many players you rest when you hit that wall of a superior team up the table. That's how I would have done it anyway

And if Robinson or Dest have their leg shattered in the 53rd minute when we don't need a result from the match? Worth it then?

 

[qcal1427]

The pulisic haters are obsessed with him in the same way they think the pulisic super fans are, it’s really fascinating

Anyways congrats to Arda Guler for finally not having a stinker when the game didn’t matter and he was up against the oppositions fifth best center back playing out of position

 

[Karterthadon]

This is why I won’t understand the insane conviction Lalas talks about when it comes to Pulisic as if he’s a high end star or something.

If you're going to sell US soccer for this tournament, you a need a face for it and Pulisic is the chosen one.