2026 World Cup, Day 21: Uphill both ways

Maybe it's for the best that the USA's 2-0 win against Bosnia-Herzegovina happened the way it did. It is, after all, the way we like it.

The Americans were up 1-0 at halftime and it pretty easily could have been 3-0; Bosnia had created a decent chance from a goal kick, and that was about it for offense, for the visitors. The most likely scenario, as Folarin Balogun and Tarik Muharemovic both hit the ground in midfield, after Muharemovic had challenged Balogun while the latter was trying to receive a pass, was that the USA was going to get another goal or two and coast into the Round of 16.

It had been a physical match. In the first half, the ancient Edin Džeko had nearly cold-cocked Tyler Adams by throwing a shoulder into him as Adams tried to race past Džeko to make a challenge, a cynical, dirty play that went unpunished by referee Raphael Claus (and unremarked by Juan Soto, Nicolas Gallo, and Jerome Brisard in the VAR room).

Claus had thus far declined to use his cards, including about four times in the first half when Bosnia defenders had grabbed the jerseys of USA players as they sped by, challenges that are often punished with yellow cards for stopping promising attacks. So the reaction was, mostly, confusion when the screen flashed up the "VAR CHECK" graphic, with the upstairs officials calling Claus to the monitor to re-watch the play.

At worst, Balogun was simply unlucky, as his foot had landed on Muharemovic's ankle as he tried to get his body in between the oncoming pass and the defender. It was like he'd stepped on Muharemovic's foot while posting up in a basketball game, the very definition of "accidental."

But that's not how they show it on VAR. They don't show Balogun focused on the ball, trying to receive a pass, Muharemovic coming around the back of Balogun and clattering through, another wild, physical moment in a game that's been full of them. All that gets shown on the monitor is the final quarter-second, where Balogun's foot lands on Muharemovic's ankle, in super-slow-motion, where the only legitimate reaction is "Ow, that looks like it hurt."

Claus himself, by no means out of position, had originally awarded a free kick for the USA, since Muharemovic had caused the contact and Balogun had gone down in a heap. So you'd think that he'd have been wise enough to reason that the only thing Balogun was guilty of, in terms of dangerous play, was "having feet."

But that's not what happened.

As Claus raised the red card, as the crowd howled and unfairness of the whole thing sank in, the one saving grace was that the USA not only led, but had been the better team. They already were going to spend the final quarter of the match defending; the red card just gave them one fewer player to press with.

And the other thing that sank in, at least for me, was how familiar the whole thing felt. The thing about the wins against Paraguay, and Australia, was that we had simply never seen this sort of thing from the USA at the World Cup, playing as the favorite and playing like the favorite, reasonably dominant performances and reasonably comfortable victories.

Playing with 10, against 11 and possibly somewhere between one and seven officials? Well, that's the kind of uphill battle that the USA has always loved.

For as long as I've been alive, that's been the narrative about the USA men, about us, the first-person plural collective American soccer community. Nobody thinks we're any good. Nobody takes us seriously. Nobody wants us here. The field is tilted against us. We are forever battling uphill. (The USA women have continuously ruined this narrative by being better than everyone else and more popular too, but never mind that now.)

It's too much to say the USA was the better team, after the red card. They were the only team to get the ball in the net, true, but Bosnia hit a couple of shots straight at Matt Freese and fizzed a couple others just wide of the posts.

I will, of course, remember none of that. I will instead remember the moment when Sergiño Dest was grabbed by a defender at the top of the area and the referee, finally, gave not only a foul but a yellow card. And I will remember Malik Tillman stepping up and measuring the free kick. And I will remember, more than any other moment of this tournament so far, I will remember the feeling when Tillman's free kick found the back corner of the net.

To say that I punched the air is wrong, because that would imply that I only did it once.

The Round of 32 is kind of a strange outlier. Yes, this is just the second time that the USA men have won a knockout-round game, ever, but in doing so, all they've done is reached the Round of 16, which is in any year accepted as the minimum baseline for the World Cup. To be tied with the 1994,2010,2014, and 2022 teams does not feel like much of an accomplishment.

And yet, by any measure, last night goes down as one of the most famous nights in USMNT history. To win a knockout-round game, especially in front of an enormous and partisan crowd (still a rare thing for the USA) - truly a special evening.

It's almost nice that, for a half-hour at least, the USA got to feel like underdogs, too.