A strong start from the U.S. men’s national team wasn’t quite enough for them to get their first World Cup win since June 16, 2014.
The USMNT dominated the first half and took a deserved lead through Tim Weah, but fell under progressively more pressure and conceded a late Gareth Bale penalty kick, sealing a 1-1 draw that is neither satisfactory nor a disaster.
It’s a bit of a tough game to parse, with many players doing an adequate job, a couple being outright good, and one major mistake undoing their efforts. We’ll have deeper analysis in the future, but during the World Cup we’ll be giving a quick breakdown of each USMNT player’s performance.
Our scale:
- 1: Abysmal. Literally any member of Pro Soccer Wire’s staff would have been been able to play at this level.
- 6: Adequate. This is our base score.
- 10: Transcendent, era-defining performance. This is Maradona vs. England in 1986.