In honor of the USMNT’s final group stage game Thursday night, why don’t we all take a second and enjoy the iconic game-winning, group-clinching goal from their final group stage game against Algeria in 2010, which was very clearly scored by Landon Donovan, despite what some people have claimed.
“Go Go USA!” — Ian Darke
– Rodger Sherman
Today’s Lineup
The most famous people in the world are scoring a lot of goals!
The NBA Draft! And an NBA Trade!
Preparing for MULTI-VIEW
🥇👟 I’ve heard of him! 🥇👟
OK, let’s say you don’t follow a lot of soccer. You know about that one guy — the famous one! He’s a big deal. And that big weird looking guy, I’ve seen pictures of him, I think he’s a big deal. And I watched the last World Cup, and that one guy had a hat trick in the championship game! Are those guys still around? Are they doing good?
This is the World Cup for you.
The most famous soccer players in the world are going absolutely bonkers. Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, and Erling Haaland have each scored multiple goals in each of their team’s first two games. Congrats to all the soccer obsessives who know the details of which country is most natural in a 3-4-2-1 and which country has the most inventive wingers but I am just showing ujp and pointing at Lionel Messi and
The Golden Boot winner at the end of the men’s World Cup typically has about five or six goals. (It was five in 2006 and 2010; it was 6 in every tournament from 1978 to 1994 and then again in 2014 and 2018.)
Messi already has five, just two games in. Argentina’s final match in the group stage will be against Jordan, the worst team in the group.
His second goal in Argentina’s 2-0 Austria feels like a good summary of Messi magic.
Messi gets the ball around midfield and dribbles forward about 40 yards, drawing the attention of the last two Austrian defenders. He then delivers a perfect pass to set up his teammate, Julian Alvarez, for a 1-on-1 opportunity with the goalkeeper that probably should have been an assist, but the goalkeeper makes a great save. The ball drops to Argentina’s Leandro Paredes, who passes it back over to Messi. The pass is hard and behind Messi and should have been tough for him to control, but he reaches back and somehow taps it forward with the outside of his foot in such a way that it goes exactly where he wants it. Then he dribbles around the goalie and another defender, but that shot is blocked. There are three or four Austrian defenders closer to the ensuing rebound than Messi, but he’s the one who gets to the ball and scores. I think he ran more on this play than all the Austrian defenders combined. The image after the goal is classic:
Messi probably should have had a sixth goal too — he missed a penalty against Austria. It’s funny: Messi is officially the greatest World Cup goalscorer of all time, and he’s missed three penalties at the World Cup, converting just four times on seven attempts. He even cost Argentina two points by missing a second-half penalty in a tie against Iceland in 2018.
Messi has only scored on 77 percent of penalties in his career, slightly below average. It’s like Shaq with free throws, except Shaq’s inability to hit a free throw was clearly connected to his inability to do anything from farther than a few feet, while Messi is constantly scoring goals from 20 yards while running 500 miles per hour weaving between four defenders — but somehow struggles when he’s standing still and there are no defenders and he’s right in front of the goal. (Also: Shaq big, Messi small.)
Talking about “guy big, other guy small”: Erling Haaland. The massive Norwegian has four goals, adding two more in a 3-2 win over Senegal. Norway has already scored as many goals in their first two games in America as they had in their entire World Cup history combined.
Haaland has two goals in each of his first two World Cup games; in the last 50 years, only he and Harry Kane have done that.
But he’s just maintaining his standard goalscoring pace. Haaland scored 16 goals in eight World Cup qualifying matches for Norway, so 2 goals per game is just standard for him. In fact, he’s now scored multiple goals in six straight competitive games for Norway spanning more than a year. He’s scored at least one goal in 12 straight competitive matches for Norway, dating back to a loss to Austria in the UEFA Nations League in October 2024. All in all, he’s played 40 competitive matches for Norway and scored in 28 of them.
And then there’s France’s Kylian Mbappé, the Golden Boot winner from 2022. He added another two goals in a 3-0 win over Iraq.
Mbappé now has 16 career World Cup goals, which would’ve been the most in World Cup history until last week, when Messi tied that record. And again, he’s only 27, so it feels like a foregone conclusion that the record will be his, eventually.
Why is this happening? For one, this is the highest-scoring World Cup in decades. There have been 141 goals in 48 games, an average of 2.94 per game; that’s higher than every World Cup since 1970, when there were 2.97 goals per game. Through 48 group stage games at the last World Cup, there were 136 goals, and that turned out to be the highest-scoring World Cup ever in terms of total goals — and this one is even more goal-heavy.
Overall, there’s been an increase in scoring in global soccer. There were 3.47 goals per game in this year’s UEFA Champions League, the highest average ever and a full goal per game higher than 20 years ago (it was 2.47 in 2006-07.) In 2023-24, the Premier League peaked with 3.28 goals per game, the most since 1965.
These three teams in particular are also extremely set up for Messi, Haaland, and Mbappé to go off. Club teams might be a little bit more balanced — Messi and Mbappé were literally teammates at one point! — but even the best national sides don’t have that depth. They know who their superstar is and are designed to funnel them the ball.
Their job is to finish, and our job is to watch the most famous people on the planet do what they’re best at.
🇵🇹 Portugal: 5 🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan: 0
Portugal saw my posts about how Cristiano Ronaldo was ruining their chances and my post about how the new squads that made the 48-team World Cup were holding their own and decided to dunk on both of them in one game.
I don’t care. I’m doubling down. I’m saying that Ronaldo’s two-goal performance is actually going to trick Portugal into thinking he deserves to start and play every minute and eventually lead to them losing a knockout round game they should win.
🏴 England: 0
🇬🇭 Ghana: 0
The battle of Declan Rice and jollof rice was a draw, and I’ve gotta say: I’ve been unironically loving the 0-0 ties this tournament. There have been four, all featuring a clear favorite blowing huge chances — like Harry Kane blasting a shot over the crossbar in the final minutes — and an underdog bolstered by legendary goalkeeping.
Ghana’s goalie hero is Benjamin Asare, who subbed on at halftime of the team’s first game after an injury to starter Lawrence Ati-Zigi and has not allowed a goal yet; Asare, who plays for the wonderfully named Ghanaian team Hearts of Oak, worked as a bus driver and a steel-bender before he managed to make a living in soccer.
I actually felt Ghana should have gotten a penalty when England’s Ezri Konsa performed a Liu Kang flying double-leg kick on a streaking Ghanaian attacker.
🇩🇿 Algeria: 2 🇩🇿🇩🇿
🇯🇴 Jordan: 1 🇯🇴
Jordan was up 1-0 and on its way to winning its first World Cup game ever, but Algeria scored twice in the last half-hour and instead of a shocking win, they were eliminated.
🇭🇷 Croatia 1 🇭🇷
🇵🇦 Panama 0
Tough for Panama, which has allowed exactly two goals in back-to-back 1-0 losses and is eliminated. If they go scoreless against England, they’ll be the first team to have zero goals at the World Cup since the 2010 Algeria team that allowed that famous goal to that famous American player, whose name we all remember.
🇨🇴 Colombia: 1 🇨🇴
🇨🇩 DR Congo: 0
Colombia’s Daniel Muñoz blew an empty-net chance in the first half, then buried a much more difficult shot in the second half to push Colombia through to the second round.
🇺🇸⚽️ American World Cup Moment of the Day ⚽️🇺🇸
The Irish pub in Boston that gave its staff the day off after a week-plus of dealing with around-the-clock alcohol consumption of Scottish fans, noting “thankfully there’s nothing happening in Boston today” … on the day England played against Ghana in Foxboro.
🏀🧢 30 picks, no Knicks 🏀🧢
You could’ve read just about any mock draft and gotten the gist of what actually happened. A.J. Dybantsa, the leading scorer in college hoops last year, went first to the Wizards. Then Darryn Peterson, the talented-yet-risky guard out of Kansas;
But so much happened! Trust me!
Kind of an odd situation for the Jazz at #2. If they were one spot higher, they could’ve picked Dybantsa, who moved to Utah in high school and played at BYU. While he never directly received a paycheck from Jazz owner Ryan Smith — that would’ve been against NBA regulations — Smith is a big BYU booster and at one point owned the prep school where Dybantsa ended up playing.
And if they were one spot lower, they could’ve picked Cameron Boozer, the National Player of the Year in college basketball last year, whose father was a star for the Jazz and works in Utah’s front office. You have to imagine Utah is extremely confident in Peterson to pick him over Boozer, considering all the connections.
(Also, if Carlos Boozer is really working in the Jazz front office in the scouting department … was he brutally honest about his own son, or does he just have no influence with the team’s actual decision-makers? Gotta be one or the other, right?)
The most surprising pick of the night was by the Dallas Mavericks, who took Michigan’s Morez Johnson Jr. at #9, just a day after hiring Michigan’s head coach, Dusty May, to be their new head coach. Not only was Johnson a reach, he was generally considered the third-best of the three Michigan prospects expected to go in the lottery — every single mock draft compiled in the NBA.com consensus mock draft put Johnson below his teammates, Aday Mara and Yaxel Lendeborg.
I have so many questions about this! Were the Mavs already planning on drafting Johnson before they hired May? Did May demand the Mavs pick one of his guys before accepting the coaching offer? Did he get to Dallas and just immediately start banging the table for his guy? Did he show up in the office on Monday, see their draft board, and say OMG YOU GUYS HAVE IT ALL WRONG, MOREZ IS WAY BETTER THAN ADAY AND YAXEL.
The most interesting pick of the night: Allen Graves, who went 19th overall to the Raptors, who was literally a bench player at mid-major Santa Clara this year. But his analytical profile — a great shooter with size who records a lot of offensive rebounds, steals, and blocks — made him a draft darling.
The top 20 picks were all college basketball players; the first player who didn’t play NCAA ball was Karim Lopez at #21, the first Mexican-born player ever to be picked in the first round. It’s a sharp contrast to just three years ago, when only one of the top five picks played in college. For all the problems with college sports right now — and boy howdy, are there a couple of those — the whole “paying players money” thing really solved the problem of the top basketball players in the world not wanting to play college basketball!
My Knicks had the #24 pick, which they then traded for the #25 pick, which they traded for the #30 pick, which they then traded for second-round picks and cash. I don’t care at all. Winning an NBA championship rules.
Oh yeah, I probably should mention the biggest NBA news, which is that the Bucks traded Giannis Antetokounmpo, the 2-time MVP and 2021 Finals MVP, to the Heat. The Heat now have Giannis and Bam Adebayo, but also traded away most of their rotation players to get Giannis and will likely lose their 2026 All-Star, Norm Powell, in free agency.
⚾️ Baseball Boomer ⚽️
Oklahoma won its first baseball national championship since 1994, crushing North Carolina 13-2 in the winner-take-all championship game on Monday night. It was over when North Carolina brought in a star freshman reliever Caden Glauber — not because Glauber is bad, he was literally 12-0 on the year, but because he’d thrown five innings the day before. Glauber walked the bases loaded, walked in another run after that, and gave up a two-run single, turning a close 3-1 game into a 6-1 laugher. Poor kid! Why do college baseball managers love doing this so much?
🇫🇷🇳🇱 Going Dutch 🇳🇱🇫🇷
The IOC officially approved a plan to put speed skating in the Netherlands at the 2030 Winter Olympics while the rest of the events will be held in the French Alps and Lyon, France. There are no speed skating venues in France, and they decided to head to the iconic Thialf oval in Heerenveen rather than build a new one. It’s the first time an Olympics will be held in multiple countries since the 1956 games, where the equestrian events were held in Sweden while the rest were in Australia — but it feels like something we should expect to see more and more, as splitting Olympics and World Cups between multiple regions becomes the new standard.
⛳️🏌️♀️ Women’s PGA Championship ⛳️🏌️♀️
Thursday-Sunday, in Chaska, Minnesota (Final round on NBC)
Just wanted to quickly draw everybody’s attention to the fact that Nelly Korda is having one of the best golf seasons ever: She’s already won the first two majors of the year; nobody has ever won more than three.
⚽️🌎 World Cup ⚽️🌎
OK, we’re reaching a weird part of the World Cup: The third, decisive game of group play. For the only time all World Cup, there will be multiple games played at the same time, to prevent teams from getting eliminated before kickoff. There will be scoreboard watching and shenanigans.
Right now, it’s looking like teams with four points will advance to the next round, and teams with three points will have a chance to advance based on goal differential. I’m saying that up here so I don’t have to say that a bunch of times below.
I’m sorting the games into five categories: Win and in, Draw and in, Big implications, Matters to one team, and Dead rubber.
🇨🇦 Canada 🇨🇦 vs. 🇨🇭 Switzerland 🇨🇭
🚨 Big Implications! 🚨
Wednesday 3 p.m., in Vancouver (FOX/Telemundo)
Both teams are already through to the next round, But the winner of the group will play their first two knockout round games in Vancouver — which would be a huge benefit for the Canadians. Canada wins the group with a win or draw; Switzerland wins the group with a win.
🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦 vs. 🇶🇦 Qatar 🇶🇦
🤩🚨‼️ Win-and-in!!!! 🚨‼️🤩
Wednesday 3 p.m., in Seattle (FS1/Universo)
Both teams have one point, so they’ve got a shot at advancing with a win, but will be eliminated with a draw or loss. I’m rooting for Qatar, for selfish reasons: If they win, they’re basically locked into a match with the USA, which I think the Americans would win. A draw in this one would open the USMNT to playing teams like Senegal and Ecuador, which I don’t want — again, play around with The Athletic’s World Cup tracker to figure it all out.
🇧🇷 Brazil 🇧🇷 vs. 🏴 Scotland 🏴
😡🥱 Matters to one team 🥱😡
Wednesday 6 p.m., in Miami (Fox/Telemundo)
Scotland has three points, so they’re through with a draw or — can you imagine — a win against Brazil. If they lose, it comes down to goal differential against the other 3rd-place teams, and it will depend how badly they lose. Brazil can do a solid for the bars of America by taking it easy here and letting the Scottish party last a little bit longer.
🇲🇦 Morocco 🇲🇦 vs. 🇭🇹 Haiti 🇭🇹
😡🥱 Matters to one team 🥱😡
Wednesday 6 p.m., in Atlanta (FS1/Universo)
Morocco has a chance of passing Brazil for the group lead on goal differential. Haiti is eliminated, but again, this is a team that hasn’t played a home game in years due to their home nation’s civil unrest. I’m sure they’ll play hard for every moment of the World Cup, even if they’re already out.
🇲🇽 Mexico 🇲🇽 vs. 🇨🇿 Czechia 🇨🇿
😡🥱 Matters to one team 🥱😡
Wednesday 9 p.m., in Mexico City (FOX/Telemundo)
Czechia needs to win to advance; they could technically make it through on two points with a draw, but it’s not likely. Mexico has already clinched the group; this is a coronation with no effect on their World Cup.
🇰🇷 South Korea 🇰🇷 vs. 🇿🇦 South Africa 🇿🇦
🚨 Big Implications! 🚨
Wednesday, 9 p.m., in Monterrey (FS1/Universo)
Rare double-South matchup at the World Cup. South Korea is through to the next round with a win or a draw — they might be more willing to shut things down here than South Africa, which absolutely needs a win to advance.
🇩🇪 Germany 🇩🇪 vs. 🇪🇨 Ecuador 🇪🇨
😡🥱 Matters to one team 🥱😡
Thursday, 4 p.m., in New Jersey (FS1/Universo)
Ecuador needs a win to advance; Germany has already clinched the group but I could see them being jerks and shutting out Ecuador for the fun of it. They beat the USMNT in a similar scenario in 2014! Now would be a good time for the Ecuadorians to finally score a goal after Curaçao’s Eloy Room saved 15 shots over the weekend.
🇨🇼 Curacao 🇨🇼 vs. 🇨🇮 Cote D’Ivoire 🇨🇮
🚨Big Implications! 🚨
Thursday, 4 p.m., in Philadelphia (FS1/Telemundo)
Curaçao has given up seven goals in one game and zero goals in the other. I’m thinking this one could be more like the first game, as they need a win to advance and can’t just bunker down and hope for a point. If they do win, Cote D’Ivoire is in danger of getting eliminated, but they’ve got three points so they should be OK anyway.
🇳🇱 Netherlands 🇳🇱 vs. 🇹🇳 Tunisia 🇹🇳
☠️ Dead Rubber ☠️
Thursday, 7 p.m., in Kansas City (FOX/Telemundo)
The Dutch are playing for first place in the group, but they’re already through to the next round and the Tunisians have already fired their coach.
🇯🇵 Japan 🇯🇵 vs. 🇸🇪 Sweden 🇸🇪
🤔 Draw and in 🤔
Thursday, 7 p.m., in Arlington, Texas (FS1/Universo)
Sweden looked set after beating Tunisia 5-1 in the opener … and then lost 5-1 to the Netherlands, erasing that goal differential boost. Both teams are probably still through, unless Japan really kicks Sweden’s ass, but whoever loses would have to play France in the Round of 32. (You don’t want that!)
🇦🇺 Australia 🇦🇺 vs. 🇵🇾 Paraguay 🇵🇾
🤔 Draw and in 🤔
Thursday, 10 p.m., in San Jose (FS1/Universo)
Both teams are guaranteed a spot in the next round with a draw, so, shenanigans could be afoot here.
🇺🇸 USA 🇺🇸 vs. 🇹🇷Turkey 🇹🇷
☠️ Dead Rubber ☠️
Thursday, 10 p.m., in Los Angeles (Fox/Telemundo)
By far the most meaningless of any of these matches, with the Americans having already clinched first place and the Turkish already eliminated. Like I said the other day: I can’t wait.
Thank you for reading and for your support!
⚙️ I write roundups about the NFL, college football, college basketball, and the Olympics. You can turn individual sports on or off via ‘Manage Profile’ in the top-right corner.
💬 I love reading your comments! Feel free to leave one here.
😎 Enjoy this column? Become a Sports! Enthusiast for $5 a month.
🔔 Was this sent to you? Well then, here’s your link to subscribe.
