The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.Good morning! Hit nine 3-pointers today. Coming up:
World Cupdate: USMNT loses, but that’s fineLet’s get this out of the way before any context: It was gutting, in the moment as an American, to watch Turkey score a game winner in the 98th minute last night against the U.S. men’s national team. The U.S. had a ton of positive momentum in the final minutes of the match, with Christian Pulisic and plenty of other starters on the pitch. Ultimately, as we discussed yesterday, the 3-2 loss didn’t matter much. The Americans are still the Group D winner. They will still face Bosnia-Herzegovina next week in the round of 32, with a friendly path to the quarterfinals ahead. A quick summary of everything that mattered last night:
Pulisic looked good after coming on in the 58th minute. There was a visible shift when Pulisic entered, and the U.S. — after a listless end to the first half — immediately felt like a different team. That’s good for the future outlook.
Sebastian Berhalter, son of former USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter, is the real winner here. The 25-year-old subbed on in both of the early wins in this World Cup, but he played the full game last night. He looked crisp on set pieces and scored this golazo:
