Maybe we would have lost by 2 instead of 3. Belgium has much better skilled players than USA.
***Official 2026 World Cup Thread***
- Thread starter ISU3PtLand
- Start date
Totally agree. These are the types of games that are much more entertaining if you have a strong rooting interest. That Nebraska game was 17 years ago and it's still memorable. And it happens a lot that one team is favored and likely to win across all sports.
I don't really care whether Americans watch more soccer or not. But if you're going to watch, my advice is you've got to jump in and pick a favorite team. I find it silly the people who try to watch an occasional game as a neutral observer or only watch every 4 years and then complain that it's boring. That's just not how sports were meant to be experienced.
"The power of TV"......
Because of the show, I've watched a ton of Wrexham games the last 5 years. It was much easier last season with them being promoted to the Championship League, since just about all of those games are on Paramount+. Watching them fight for a chance at promotion has been great. I haven't even watched any of the current season of the show because I feel like I know most of what will be shown.
I actually go the other way and say that you shouldn’t pick a favorite team and instead just try to watch the league as a neutral (unless you have some kind of connection to whatever city/team you’re choosing). Because you won’t have a connection with the team you support and you may end up watching their games instead of the most entertaining ones.
Just to use this last premier league season as an example, Liverpool’s a popular team for Americans to support. But they weren’t really in it this year. But if you focused on their games, you missed the title race and the fun relegation battle.
I’d advise that you learn all of the rules and strategies. If you’re watching for goals, it isn’t going to be fun all the time. If you know what they’re trying to do and understand the strategies, then it is much more enjoyable. Watch more than every four years. Even if that’s the MLS level, you get more out of the games if you understand the nuances.
It’s like football where if you understand how the offensive coordinator runs plays early in the game to set something up later. Or route trees designed to get a defense to react to one player to get another open. If you watch only for TD’s, there’s going to be some boring games between top teams.
Once we got the ball across midfield, I was watching Belgium's defense. I don't know how they did it, but it seemed that every option to pass the ball to the center of the field was bracketed by four Belgian defenders. And we couldn't keep possession when trying to press the edges. Their defense stifled us, it's like they knew what we wanted to do before even we did.
Or…their defense purposely left the pass open that put us in a position to get bracketed. It’s what good defenses do. They make what they want you to do look like the easy play.
I think what stings most about Belgium is just how they didn’t need to care in the knockout stages. They were good enough that they knew they could play at their C level and advance. This made US fans think they had a shot against them because they didn’t look impressive to that point. Even in the game against us, they didn’t start all of their best players because they didn’t necessarily need them. They are to the point of knowing exactly what they needed to win and reserved themselves to try to win the later rounds. We had to go all out in the first two knockout games to ensure we’d even advance.
I am not saying Argentina deserved that chance. They dug their hole throughout the game by playing passively.
But until the red card, Spain wasn't on the board either. Spain clearly outplayed Argentina, but they were still level until extra time. I'm not saying the outcome would have changed (Spain was my pick to win the whole thing from the beginning) but Argentina had displayed how scary they could be when their backs were up against the wall.
From a selfish standpoint, I would have loved to have seen the chaos of the extra time if Spain were having to defend against a frenzied Argentina 11.
