U.S. looks to make more World Cup history in round

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Mauricio Pochettino’s group continues to do issues in this summer season’s World Cup that no U.S. group has ever executed before.

Its three wins are the most in a single event. So are the ten objectives in 4 video games. It has the best objective differential ever and its two shutouts ties a report.

Yet all that means completely nothing to the gamers.

“They’re great milestones,” captain Tim Ream said. “But I don’t think anybody’s even once mentioned the different things that we’re doing. We’re focused on what we’re doing daily on the training ground, because that puts us in the best possible position to to put these performances.

“So yeah, not aware or even worried about records that we’re breaking.”

Well, besides for possibly one.

With Wednesday’s gritty 2-0 over Bosnia and Herzegovina, a recreation the U.S. completed with just 10 males, the Americans received a recreation in the World Cup knockout stage for just the second time. That sends them on to a round-of-16 assembly with Belgium on Monday in Seattle where a win can be — you guessed it — historic.

“It’s cool and it’s great and it’s an accomplishment,” midfielder Weston McKennie said of the data. “But at the same time, we have high expectations for ourselves. That’s what we expect of ourselves, what we expect of our team.

“We just want to focus on Belgium now and continue to try to make history.”

That chore obtained a good deal more troublesome because of an undesirable group report that was also set Wednesday. When Folarin Balogun scored a objective late in the first half then drew a pink card early in the second, he turned the first American — and third participant ever — to get one of each in the same World Cup knockout recreation.

“Cool record,” defender Chris Richards said.

But while the objective, Balogun’s third of the event, proved to be all the U.S. needed to beat Bosnia, the pink card — which can’t be appealed according to U.S. Soccer — means he’s suspended for the sport with Belgium.

“It’s just so unfortunate, honestly,” Christian Pulisic said. “Looking back at it, it seems so harsh. I just told him he’s done so much for us, and now we’ve got his back.”

The pink card got here in the 64^th minute with the U.S. defending a 1-0 lead constructed on Balogun’s objective just before the intermission. The American striker was battling hulking Bosnia defender Tarik Muharemovic for a free ball when he inadvertently raked Muharemovic’s proper calf with his studs up, then landed on his ankle, twisting it awkwardly.

Brazilian referee Raphael Claus didn’t flash either card before stopping play at the behest of the video assistant referee. But after consulting a slow-motion reply, Claus gave Balogun a pink card for a harmful problem.

The U.S. argued, among other issues, that Claus mustn’t have reviewed the play at something other than regular pace. But Christina Unkel, a former FIFA referee and guidelines of the sport analyst, said that shouldn’t be adequate grounds for an appeal.

“For me, never is this a red card,” said Pochettino, now the winningest U.S. coach in World Cup history. “Watching after on TV, never was [it his] intention to step up on the player. That was a normal action in football.”

Maybe. But Claus despatched Balogun off just the same, leaving the U.S. to shield a one-goal benefit for the ultimate half-hour while taking part in a man down. It was in all probability the sternest check the Americans have confronted in the event.

“It would be easy to have an excuse if they did score,” McKennie said. “But that’s not the type of team we are.”

For Ream, the problem was really no problem at all.

“Would it be weird if I downplayed this and said [I] wasn’t even fazed by it?” he said. “It didn’t feel like we were down a man. We were still able to carve out chances and we were still able to keep hold of the ball. Everybody knew their roles.

“It felt really calm and felt really, really easy and simple for us in that moment.”

And that allowed another hero to shrug off the pain of his own wounds and step up big.

Early in the second half a Bosnian participant stomped on Malik Tillman, shredding his boot and cutting his proper foot (but not drawing a pink card). During the hydration break, Tillman was ready to change footwear and in the 82^nd minute, his white sock turning pink with blood, he discovered himself standing over a free kick just outdoors the Bosnian penalty space.

“I’ve been dreaming about this game. I’ve been dreaming about, yeah, maybe taking a free kick and scoring,” said Tillman, who bent the ball off the gloved proper hand of Bosnian keeper Nikola Vasilj and into the web for his first World Cup objective. “I trained for this in our practices and then it actually came true.”

So did the group’s goals of reaching the round of 16, only now they’re arriving without their main scorer, who can have to watch the Belgium recreation from the stands. Balogun’s absence, however, creates alternative for others, with Haji Wright and Ricardo Pepi the most possible candidates to take his place.

And if this U.S. group has confirmed something, it’s confirmed that it loves nothing more than embracing alternatives to show people fallacious.

“We’re going to miss him for the next game but we know that if it’s Pepi or Haji, whoever, is going to step up next and they’re going to do the job just as well as he did,” Richards said of Balogun. “One thing about this team is we’re really a big family and we’re shown it this whole tournament.

“Coming in, there was a lot of question marks about our whole team in general. Game by game we started to put ourselves right. Because we knew we had it the whole time.”