The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning! Put on a show for your home crowd today. Inside:
World Cupdate: USMNT’s (mostly) dream startIf you were drawing up a dream first two World Cup matches for the U.S. men’s national team, you’d leave out the calf injury to the team’s best player. But other than that, things could hardly be going better. A 2-0 win against Australia yesterday in Seattle ensures the Americans’ spot in the knockout stage and buys more time for Christian Pulisic to heal.Unless you were alert in 1930, this is the first time you’ve seen the USMNT win back-to-back World Cup Games. Here’s the big “how they did it” breakdown from a trio of our soccer writers. With Pulisic out of the lineup, U.S. manager Mauricio Pochettino opted to play with two strikers for the first time since taking over the USMNT in 2024. Folarin Balogun, star of last week’s 4-1 win against Paraguay, made a nice run and lobbed in a cross that led to an Aussie own goal to put the U.S. on the board. Fellow striker Ricardo Pepi tired out the Australian back line all day. The USMNT got an insurance marker when its youngest player, 21-year-old Alex Freeman, scored on a header that took VAR a few moments to validate.Late last night, Paraguay beat Turkey 1-0 despite being down to 10 men (following the first-ever World Cup red card for covering one’s mouth), eliminating Turkey and crowning the U.S. as Group D winners with a game to spare. The Americans will face a third-place team from the group stages in the first knockout round.
