KICK OFF
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FIRE UP THE PARADE BUS
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So we’re all ready for the seminal World Cup, right? In 1994, the World Cup birthed MLS and soccer in the United States (sorry, hipsters who were “watching” the NASL in 1973 or somesuch). And in 2026, another World Cup will catapult it into the sporting stratosphere. Is that a fair assumption? Perhaps. But it is worth thinking about how good the host nation will actually be on the pitch. France legend Thierry Henry remarked earlier this week that he hopes the U.S.
perform well on home soil. To that end, GOAL's Ryan Tolmich projected the best squad for the U.S., nine months out.
Tolmich: “The tournament is closing in and, after a September that included more experimentation from Mauricio Pochettino, the player pool, in general, remains in a state of flux. Part of that is by design. Even after the USMNT's 2-0 win over Japan, Pochettino reminded players that the door remains open - and it's up to them to walk through. There are some locks in this player pool, for sure, but Pochettino says spots remain up for grabs, and that there's still much work to be done to finalize the roster.”
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PULISIC AND POCHETTINO ARE FRIENDS AGAIN
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So you’re Mauricio Pochettino and you’ve got a star player who’s maybe not disgruntled, but kinda obviously disgruntled. What do you do? Poch’s solution was to let Pulisic dig a hole and hope he would climb out. It worked. Pulisic was excellent against Japan, said some positive things to the media after, and now we can all find other things to get mad about next month. GOAL opined on why it’s nice that everyone learned how to just be mates.
"And so we can finally all be friends again.This summer was chaotic on so many levels. Pulisic did something entirely reasonable in sitting out of the Gold Cup, but left himself open for criticism from the largely hyperbolic masses. Yet with 70 minutes of excellent work - and one fine assist - he went a long way torward burying it all. No, it's not done yet. Yes, there might still be some residual chatter here. But the U.S. has its star man back, and for all of the hot air directed toward Pulisic, the human being, Pulisic, the footballer, makes this team infinitely better. His
return couldn't be more welcome."
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LEAVE FOOTGOLF BEFORE FOOTGOLF LEAVES YOU
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Turns out that it’s really very hard to be a soccer player. The vast majority don’t make it (and some of us really tried - one college intramural winner medal, three semifinal appearances). Most drop out of the game, resigned to pickup (most recent pickup performance - game-winning goal in 90-degree Brooklyn heat off of which we will dine out for months). Well, for those who still want to stick around at a high-ish level, there’s this thing called footgolf, which marries both soccer and golf. It’s nerdy and fun and lots of very good footballers are now playing it. It’s also bigger than Boca Juniors and Jesse Owens. Yeah,
you read that right. GOALlooked at the most wonderful of niche soccer spinoffs.
Hindle: “FootGolf is now a weird and wonderful soccer-ing subculture, one that takes those who can no longer play the beautiful game at the professional level and gives them a new platform to kick a ball around. And it’s entirely addictive.”
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NYPD SOCCER WAS THERE AT THE WORST OF TIMES
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This sport is a bit silly, and too often defined by debate, vitriol, and sometimes pointless mudslinging between people who don’t know each other. And sometimes it’s beautiful, heartwarming, and, at the worst of times, entirely tragic, and still somehow uplifting. This one is a bit of all. Ron Mejia, the manager of the NYPD soccer team - who are really rather good - was a first responder on 9/11. GOAL talked to him about soccer, his recollections of that harrowing day, and how memories are honored through the beautiful game.
Mejia, to Hindle: “An incident like that will carry forever. You don't want the guys to ever forget or like not think about what happened, or give it or minimize the incident, because we lost a lot of guys. The camaraderie just grows [over time] and bringing that to football, that's what we always think about.”
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WHO WILL WIN THE WORLD CUP?
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THE USMNT, OF COURSE! OK, that would seem admittedly unlikely. The U.S. aren’t good enough, and, historically, home nations don’t do great (a host hasn’t won it since 1998). So who are you putting your money on? Argentina are in the mix and could comfortably repeat. England, no matter how good they look, will lose in the quarterfinals. So, who will actually win the thing? GOAL’s Mark Doyle put his predictions into the universe.
Doyle: “Spain were outstanding at Euro 2024 - but it's looking like they could be even better at the 2026 World Cup. Lamine Yamal continues to go from strength to strength, the same goes for his Barcelona team-mate Pedri, while Dean Huijsen has slotted seamlessly into the back four. Spain are by no means unstoppable; Portugal proved that by edging them out on penalties in the Nations League final in June... yet Sunday's stunning 6-0 rout of Turkey in Konya suggests that La Roja are not only evolving but improving - which is a terrifying thought for all of their World Cup rivals.”
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RUBEN AMORIM’S REDEMPTION ARC
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Has anything ever reeked more clearly of a dodgy win? Man United have been truly awful this season, and needed a pretty dire refereeing decision against Burnley to avoid a winless start. Man City, meanwhile, have lost two in a row, and were undone by a Brighton side managed by an American-born teenager (OK, he’s 32). The Cityzens have a load of injury problems and a goalkeeper that can’t pass. United are plain bad. It is a simply wonderful twist of the Premier League calendar that they meet this weekend. GOAL’s Richard Martin was frighteningly optimistic in his evaluation of United’s chances.
Martin: “But Amorim cannot exactly ease himself back into work. United resume their campaign with a daunting derby against Manchester City on Sunday, followed by another tricky fixture against Chelsea six days later ahead of - theoretically - more comfortable games against Brentford and Sunderland. United's lack of European football and their early exit from the League Cup means that Amorim will have more time to prepare his players on the training ground and to properly assess how to finally get his team to click into gear.”
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PLAY GOAL8 |
So there’s this thing called GOAL8. What you do is pick a bunch of scorelines for games that are randomly generated by our very clever machine. Eight games, eight scorelines.
Eight games, eight scorelines. Get all eight correct and there’s a $100,000 on the line. Last week, I did not do very well whatsoever - a middling 90 points. Here’s this week's picks:
Crystal Palace 2-1 Sunderland
Inter 2-1 Juventus
LAFC 3-0 San Jose Earthquakes
St. Pauli 1-0 Augsburg
Bournemouth 2-2 Brighton
Nashville 1-0 FC Cincinnati
Liverpool 4-0 Burnley
Man City 2-0 Man United
And it gets BETTER, because you can join a league and COMPETE against ME (!) HERE (!!)
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WHAT THEY SAID |
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VIDEO REVIEW |
Alejandro Zendejas might not make the USMNT squad, but this was a real beaut.
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AROUND THE GROUNDS |
A few other things you need to know to impress your pals at the bar, ruin your social feed or generally be a snob about this sport:
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CHECKING THE MONITOR |
Pep Guardiola likes tennis, apparently, taking in the U.S. Open. Just international break things.
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THE RONDO TOPIC OF THE WEEK
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The Premier League is entirely unpredictable. So what can we predict? We found out.
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MATCHES NOT TO MISS |
Sept. 13: LaLiga, Real Madrid vs. Real Sociedad, 10:15 a.m. — ESPN+
Sept. 13: Serie A, Juventus vs. Inter, 12 p.m. — Paramount+
Sept. 13: MLS, Inter Miami vs. Charlotte FC, 7:30 p.m. ET — Apple TV+
- Sept. 14: Premier League, Man United vs. Man City, 11:30 a.m.— Peacock
That’s all for this edition of The Rondo. Irritate me directly with questions/comments/insights/incorrect opinions @tom_Hindle_
Cheers for reading!
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