World Cup expectations and the future of soccer in the U.S.

Without further ado, let's bring in Nick Wengler, our professional soccer commentator here. How you feeling today? Feeling good. And yeah, a very exciting matchup tonight between Morocco and France. And the reality is, is that now that we're into this stage of the tournament, we see the best of the best against one another. Morocco, a team with a tournament identity, and obviously France being as deep as they are, the expectation has been set now that the French will more than likely win this World Cup. So, what are the expectations coming into this matchup? We'll talk a lot about that, I'm sure, here today and everything else that's going out around the World Cup. But yes, even though the USA is out, still a fun opportunity to watch the rest of this tournament, but also have conversations about what the future of soccer looks like in the US. Those are also important. So, yeah, let's get into it. Let's do it. Well, first of all, what did you do yesterday? Did you just sit around and twiddle your thumbs? I felt like that's what I did. There were no matches for the first time. Yeah, a little bit. I mean, I had baseball, so I had one thing to pay attention to. I've been doing, obviously, both ends of the aisle this summer, but I think yesterday was also a time for reflection, too. I think it was a time for thinking about what this World Cup has been for the US, and I've done so much consuming of news and reports and reactions from people about what that match was for the United States and what the future of soccer looks like in this country, even down to, obviously, all the hardship that Christian Pulisic is getting right now from USA fans, which is just, it seems, endless from all angles. This is a different level of disappointment, and we look at what happened in 2017 and failing to qualify for the World Cup. Some have said that game was even more painful than that loss to Trinidad, and I would partially agree. Actually, I would fully agree, because more people were paying attention. You know, it was a home World Cup, so it was time to reflect in a lot of ways, and honestly, I kind of liked it, because it gave me a second to breathe. There wasn't another match I had to keep up on or anything else like that, so it's good to have a little break in there. Absolutely. Well, speaking of the Christian Pulisic, kind of drama here to catch folks at home up a little bit. We talked about this on Good Day Detroit earlier this morning, but Christian Pulisic thought to be the face of the United States men's national team, receiving a little bit of heat regarding some of his quotes, his responses when reporter Jenny Taft asked him, what's next? You know, you were battling an injury against Belgium, and he said, yeah, you know, I twisted my ankle, and it was, I think it was this section regarding, well now, you know, I get to rest. And that, you see Tim Howard, you see Landon Donovan, they're going, and I must read this tweet from Carly Lloyd, you rest when your playing career is over, period. So Pulisic getting a lot of heat. I think it's warranted in one way, because I do think people are obviously disappointed with his performance, but Carly Lloyd actually backtracked on that a little bit. When the news broke today that he actually fractured his leg in that matchup, Carly kind of went back and said, and I don't know if she meant this initially, or if it was in direct response to what he said, but he did take off time during the 2025 international friendlies. He did take time off during the gold cup, and so to say now you have time to rest, well no, the opportunity has come and passed. So if people are upset about that, I get it, but is it warranted? To the extent that it has gone, I don't believe so. And the reason being is because if you saw Christian Pulisic and what happened this club season leading up to the world cup, you understand that his career lately has been marred by injuries. And it really has sidetracked every single thing that Christian Pulisic is. And if there's one voice in USA soccer that I always go to, that I refer to for everything, and for the most hard-hitting and honest but yet objective point of view, Taylor Twelman is someone who is really plugged into the pulse of this USA soccer federation. And Taylor Twelman talked about, and I thought it was the biggest discrepancy we've ever seen. Consider the fact that leading up to January 1st, Christian Pulisic was leading AC Milan in goal contributions, and there was a very serious conversation about whether or not he could be the golden boot winner in Serie A. You go from January 1st to world cup time outside of the Senegal match, zero contributions in goal for AC Milan. And then he had that one match against Senegal, and you thought, okay, well maybe Christian Pulisic is back, but then you look at the world cup. If you're going to say that his entire world cup was terrible, clearly you're not watching and you're not paying attention, because the first half against Paraguay, he was great. But then he goes out with that injury, and what happens mentally, I think it scared him a little bit. I think it really was eating away at him. And then what happened at Belgium, obviously, you have a fractured leg, guys. You can't play the rest of the match on it. That's not something that, well, I'll just play through it. Not necessarily. Something is going on in the mind of Christian Pulisic. Whether it be, obviously we know publicly, and Taylor Twelman talked about this, he broke up with his long-term girlfriend. Maybe he's going through something. Maybe the people around him are doing the one thing that is doing a disservice to Christian Pulisic, which is putting him in the limelight. Because Taylor Twelman said this, and I agreed, and I said this the whole time, and a lot of people agreed with this, Christian Pulisic is not a limelight player. Where Pulisic strives is where he's number two or number three on the roster, and then you allow him to just be him. But the way that we have put all of these expectations square on his shoulders, plus the injuries, plus the personal life stuff, and maybe people trying to take advantage of his popularity around him, is really time to kind of re-center and re-evaluate if I'm Christian Pulisic. No, but I mean, I was of the mindset that maybe Carly Lloyd owed him an apology. I think a lot of people owe him an apology. He fractured his leg in that game, and this is a player that's just been, again, marred by injuries, so did he play well? No. Is it all on his shoulders? Guys, also no. Our defense is terrible. Our goalkeeping is terrible. We were woefully inadequate in that match. To put it all on one man just shows a lack of understanding, and that's fine, but it's not all on him. It's not. I completely agree, and I do think that they want him to be the face, and if you're in seven of every ten commercials, that's what people think of you, and so there was a lot going on there. A lot of times, they're questioning leadership, and with these athletes, you see Josh Allen crying at the podium because they've lost, or something like that. You just don't see that too much with him. I do want to switch gears, though, because we've got to get to France and Morocco. I was just looking at the scores in which France has beaten its opponents. 3-1, 3-0, 4-1, 3-0. I mean, they are scoring high, and Morocco's nothing to scoff at, though. What are you seeing for this match? Well, this one could go one of two ways. Morocco's defensive, you know, how rigid they are on defense is obviously something that has carried them through many international competitions, including the 22 World Cup. The only issue with that, though, is they have conceded seven goals in this tournament. Morocco has not been perfect defensively, and so it could be a situation where if Paraguay is going to bunker and counter, you would expect mostly the same thing for Morocco, right? They're going to try to hit you with their blindingly fast counterattacks, but if France, who is the best team offensively speaking, again, you have Dembele and Mbappe up front. In the attacking third, I give them the edge to France. In the midfield, I give the edge to France. In the back line, it's about a split 50-50. So if France is able to score early, this could easily turn into a shootout between Morocco and France, because they're both dynamic and good goal-scoring sides, but I also think Morocco realizes, hey, if we give one up early, that's a hill, that's a mountain you don't want to climb against the French. So really, really could go either way, but again, and I took a look at this this morning just based on position groups, position by position. The only one that's kind of half and half is the back line. Everything else is advantage France. And so in terms of being structurally sound, we always mention the importance of that. I think of Switzerland in that regard and just how well they've done in that way. Morocco has to be the same exact way tonight. Clinical counterattacking, set-piece exploitation, whenever you get the opportunity to take those, you have to capitalize on them. So again, it could go either way, either a defensive matchup, but it could also very well be a shootout, and I'm expecting more of the latter in this match. We're just getting to those exciting times, well, especially exciting. France and Morocco, four o'clock in Boston. All right, now time for my favorite part, World Cup Nuggets with Ney, what do you got for us today? Well, so this was something I was going to talk about, you know, leading into the matchup against Belgium. I didn't really get the opportunity, but now I feel like it kind of has a little bit more relevance in a way because it's about a painful loss that changed USA soccer, but we just experienced another one of those. So what happens now as we move forward? But first off, let's go back to 2017, and I'll set the scene for you guys. The U.S. men's national team with Michael Bradley and Clint Dempsey and an 18-year-old up-and-coming Christian Pulisic believe that they were finally at a point to compete with some of the top-end European nations. They had a seven-match winning streak going into World Cup qualifying. Bruce Arena, I even talked about in the media, we're ready for the big dogs. This is a team that is prepared between the youth and the experience. We're ready to take on those teams. They go into World Cup qualifying, and the first step in the disappointment that was 2017 was a 2-0 shutout loss to Costa Rica. That was a shock. But going into the final match, they were playing Trinidad and Tobago, which is, by the way, a team that they should just beat in general, but the difference is that Trinidad was already eliminated from World Cup contention. The U.S. just needed a win or a draw to get into the 2018 World Cup. So what did Trinidad do? Well, they played all of their backups, including a backup goalkeeper. Essentially, they threw out a semi-pro team against the U.S. men's national team. And again, the U.S.A., believing that they had come off of all these years of progress since the 2002 World Cup, which is the last time we got to the quarters and nearly got to the semis if Germany didn't pull off one of their tricks, there was a belief that there was progress there. And then in 2017, after what, again, what we believed was a decade and a half of progress, they lost to Trinidad 2-1. They were eliminated from World Cup contention, and it led to an overhaul of USA Soccer, an executive clean sweep. They introduced a general manager. The president of the U.S. Soccer Federation retired. They completely restructured the front office. It was also the death of the lost generation and the birth of the new European and teenage generation. Many of the MLS players, up-and-coming Major League Soccer players, mid-tier players were done aside to make room for the youth movement. Weston McKinney, Tyler Adams, many of those players that we see now were born out of that youth movement. So it was the passing of the old, the coming of the new, also the acceleration of the MLS Academy pipeline. It is fascinating to me, Kelly, that we didn't have a pipeline in Major League Soccer or really any professional soccer, at least a definitive, understandable one, until 2020. But that was the reality, fully funded, free-to-play academies. Notice how I'm talking about affordability in all of these. That's the big step forward for USA Soccer. They started doing more of that. So a tactical shift, or rather a financial shift, away from, again, just going to college or going to high school, and actually creating free academies for kids to play at and develop and scout. And the last one was the dual national recruitment philosophy. Go out and get the players that were born here in the United States, but played elsewhere. The likes of Malik Tillman, the likes of Serginio Dest, who came up here and obviously could play for the Netherlands. Or maybe Flo Balogun is a really good example. I love the fact that Malik Tillman and Flo Balogun are the two best examples of this dual national push, because they were, ironically, some of the two best players in the World Cup this year for the U.S. Men's National Team. So one, two, three, four steps, and what it led to was the birth of this new generation of players. Now, have they been the golden generation of players we've expected? No. But the important part was the change in mentality for USA Soccer, which was two things. Number one, we need our players to train with the best and be with the best. Kelly, I think about the upcoming generation of players, Kevin Sullivan, and some of those other young ones that are coming up. They're going to play in the Bundesliga. Matthias Albert, Bundesliga, Premier League, Man City. They're going to compete in those places. We need that. And also, we need to make the game more affordable and more accessible to kids here in the United States. The more we continue to combine those two things, we'll find our way out of this disappointment that was 2026. But the reality is, we're not there just yet. But this is where it starts for USA Soccer. And that's a conversation I've seen talked about relentlessly as the United States gets knocked out of the World Cup. It's accessibility. It's youth development. So we're going to keep touching on that because we've got to drive it home to somebody. If we keep yapping about it, maybe eventually someone will pay attention. All right, Nate. Thank you so much for joining. We'll check back in tomorrow. It's going to be a fun one tonight. Kelly, looking forward to chatting about it. All right. And you are watching Match Day Live.