The United States men’s national team’s World Cup hopes are on the line when it faces Iran on Tuesday at 2 p.m. You can watch the game live on Fox.
It’s a huge game for Gregg Berhalter’s team, far and away the biggest of his career and the most important USMNT game in eight years. It’s the third and final group stage game, and the U.S. enters with two points, one behind Iran, two behind England and one above Wales. The Americans must win to advance, while a draw or loss will see their tournament come to an end.
And while on paper some may assume this is an easy win for the U.S., it likely won’t be.
Where Iran excels, the U.S. struggles. The Americans have just one goal scored in two games, and it was from Timothy Weah, not from the expected position of striker. On the other hand, Iran has four goals and has shown an ability to create in attack when needed, scoring a huge win over Wales last time out to position themselves to escape a group for the first time in their history.
For the United States, we’ve seen Josh Sargent and Haji Wright both get minutes, but neither looked impressive. It’s unclear if this will be Jesus Ferreira’s chance to start up top, but the U.S. is obligated to score to have any chance of going through. Not a lot of changes are expected for Berhalter, and that certainly makes sense considering the Americans looked dangerous against England. But they enter Tuesday’s contest with no margin for error – fail to advance, and the World Cup was a failure. Win to advance, and it’s considered a success. A lot will ride on the 90 minutes of action in Qatar, and the U.S. will need its most complete performance of the year to advance.
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