Jun 8, 2026; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Cristopher Sanchez (61) pitches to the Toronto Blue Jays during the seventh inning at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images

The New York Yankees have controlled their rivalry with the Boston Red Sox this season but things could change when the teams open a four-game series at Fenway Park on Thursday night. New York is 4-1 against its most-hated foe this season.

Boston has scored just nine runs in the five games and five of them came in its lone victory. The Yankees are still without Aaron Judge so that counts as a bit of an equalizer for their American League East counterparts.

Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Nolan Arenado badly wanted out of St. Louis and now completes a four-game series against the visiting Cardinals. We will also check in on the National League East battle between the Philadelphia Phillies and Washington Nationals.

NEW YORK YANKEES AT BOSTON RED SOX

Judge has missed the past three-plus weeks with a fractured rib and isn’t expected back until August. The three-time AL MVP has hit 15 homers in 57 career games at Fenway Park so his absence will be felt. Ben Rice (22 homers, 53 RBIs) is thriving and had two hits in Wednesday’s 4-2 win over the Detroit Tigers after going hitless in three of the previous four games.

Paul Goldschmidt smacked two solo homers off Tigers ace Tarik Skubal and is looking like a younger version of himself. The 38-year-old is batting .346 with eight homers and 20 RBIs in June. Red Sox left-hander Connelly Early (6-5, 3.64 ERA) gave up three runs and five hits over 5 1/3 innings of a 4-0 loss to New York on April 21.

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Yankees right-hander Cam Schlittler (8-3, 1.71) is headed to the All-Star Game and he is 1-0 with a 1.32 ERA in two starts against Boston this season. Guys like Jarren Duran (1-for-11), Wilyer Abreu (1-for-8) and Willson Contreras (1-for-6) are due for success against Schlittler.

Red Sox money line, +143 (DraftKings)

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ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS AT ST. LOUIS CARDINALS

Next month’s three-game set in St. Louis is when the 35-year-old Arenado can expect the boo-birds but he’s not exactly having a successful June. He is 3-for-13 in the first three games of this series and batting just .173 with one homer for the month. That homer came on June 1.

Arenado hit 30 or more homers in the first two of his five seasons in St. Louis before the totals dropped to 26, 16 and 12. Cardinals right-hander Michael McGreevy (3-6, 3.35) has never previously faced the Diamondbacks, who won the past two games after losing the series opener.

Speaking of players who were once good, Arizona right-hander Zac Gallen (3-6, 6.10) has been regularly pounded this season and was torched for nine runs and 12 innings in four-plus innings against the Minnesota Twins in his last outing. Yes, the Arizona fans loudly booed him.

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Teams combine for over nine runs, -102 (DraftKings)

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PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES AT WASHINGTON NATIONALS

Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sanchez (9-3, 1.80) was the runner-up for the NL Cy Young Award last season and he’s definitely in the mix again due to his strong first half. Sanchez has struck out 121 and walked just 20 and he’s a superb 7-1 with a 1.11 ERA over his last nine turns.

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Sanchez fanned seven Nationals in a no-decision on April 1 when he gave up one run, four hits and a season-worst four walks in 5 1/3 innings. Washington won the first game of the series but gave up 19 total runs in back-to-back losses the past two days. The Nationals were one strike away from winning Wednesday before Philadelphia’s Derek Hill hit a two-run homer in the top of the ninth in a 5-4 victory.

Brandon Marsh is lighting up Washington by going 7-for-13 with two homers in the series. Marsh is 2-for-9 against Washington right-hander Cade Cavalli (4-4, 4.07), who has regularly handled Bryce Harper (1-for-9, three strikeouts).

Cristopher Sanchez to strike out seven or more batters, +111 (DraftKings)

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The 2026 World Cup group stage is winding down, and more spots in the Round of 32 will be locked up on Friday, June 26 with six more games across Groups G, H and I. The banner showdown will be between Norway and France, pitting stars Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe against one another as they battle for the Golden Boot as well as team glory.

With six games on the docket, there’s plenty of action for bettors to target for Friday’s matches. We’ve built a parlay for the day’s contests, with Norway vs. France as one of the legs, using odds from FanDuel and advice from SportsLine experts Jon Eimer, Brad Thomas and Martin Green. Anyone following their World Cup betting advice at sportsbooks and on betting apps could have seen huge returns.

World Cup parlay for Friday

• Norway-France Over 2.5 goals (-160)
• Cape Verde double chance vs. Saudi Arabia (-240)
• Uruguay-Spain Over 2.5 goals (-120)

FanDuel parlay price: +322

Norway-France Over 2.5 goals

I’m not going to stop anyone from backing more goals to get additional value, especially given how Haaland and Mbappe have been playing. However, I do think there will be a more concentrated effort against these two star forwards in this encounter. France’s back line has been solid in this World Cup, and Norway’s midfield is capable of locking down the pitch. That being said, there should still be enough fireworks in this game for the Over on 2.5 goals to hit.

Cape Verde double chance vs. Saudi Arabia

This Cape Verde team has been the best story of the World Cup, a positive result of expanding to 48 teams. They have not backed down from anyone and have two points thanks to draws against Spain and Uruguay. Saudi Arabia may have gotten lucky fending off 27 shots from Uruguay in a 1-1 draw, but they were overmatched against Spain. Cape Verde need all three points to ensure a Round of 32 berth, and a draw could put them in a precarious spot among the third-place teams. However, for this match, they are simply more invested than Saudi Arabia and have shown more determination.

Uruguay-Spain Over 2.5 goals

Spain looked out of sorts in the draw against Cape Verde but found their offensive mojo against Saudi Arabia. Uruguay had some big letdowns against Cape Verde as well, and goalkeeper Fernando Muslera will be wanting some redemption after effectively costing his team two points. Spain have more quality going forward, but Uruguay are also desperate for a win to move to the knockout round. I see goals here, and Spain can do enough on their own for this Over to connect.

Elliot Anderson will undergo a Manchester City medical around England’s plans at the World Cup as he closes in on a record-breaking move to the Etihad.

Elliot Anderson is expected to complete a medical for Manchester City in the coming days after a £116m fee was agreed with Nottingham Forest. The midfielder is free to finalise his move to the Etihad after that breakthrough in negotiations, but is also said to be focused on the World Cup.

England are expected to fly into New York on Friday ahead of their third group game against Panama, and Anderson is not scheduled for his medical before that game as he looks to play a part in Thomas Tuchel’s team topping their group. While a date for the medical has not yet been confirmed, it should take place after the completion of the first stage of the World Cup on Saturday.

City are in no rush to complete the deal having done the hard bit of agreeing a fee with Forest, and are happy to respect whatever England and Anderson think is best in order to cause the least disruption to the World Cup effort. Tuchel called for common sense recently on transfer activity when he spoke about the summer moves that some of his players could make during the tournament.

“There has to be common sense, I would say, I would not like it on a -1 and a matchday. That’s the policy,” he said. “And everything else, if it is quietly done, privately done, done efficiently, we are always happy to help to have clarity around the player.“I think the best we can have is clarity. If anyone has the chance to complete a change of club and a transfer, we will not stand in the way, but it has to align, of course, with our schedule and our goals which is to be focused and prepare for matches.”

Should England top their group, their round-of-32 match will take place on Wednesday and it will be even later if they do not, with a Thursday game if they are runners-up and Friday for a third-place finish. Anderson has started the first two matches for England and is set to be a key part of Tuchel’s plans to go all the way in the tournament.

India vs Ireland Live Score: India begin a new chapter in T20I cricket under captain Shreyas Iyer when they face an injury-hit Ireland in the first match of the two-game series at the Civil Service Cricket Ground in Stormont on Friday.

While the reigning T20 World Cup champions start as overwhelming favourites, much of the spotlight will be on teenage batting sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who is on the verge of making his international debut.

Will Sooryavanshi make his debut?

The 15-year-old has been one of the biggest talking points in world cricket after a sensational IPL 2026 campaign with Rajasthan Royals. He followed it up with a blistering 94 off just 29 balls for India A in the tri-series final against Sri Lanka A in Dambulla.

A debut against Ireland would see Sooryavanshi become India’s youngest men’s international cricketer. However, fitting him into the playing XI is not straightforward.

India already have a settled top order. Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson formed a successful opening pair during the T20 World Cup, while Ishan Kishan impressed at No. 3. The team management will have to decide whether to reshuffle a winning combination to accommodate the teenage prodigy.

A new era under Shreyas Iyer

The series also marks Iyer’s return to India’s T20I side for the first time since December 2023, and his first assignment as full-time captain after replacing Suryakumar Yadav.

Fresh from a successful IPL season as captain, Iyer will look to bring the same aggressive approach to the national side alongside head coach Gautam Gambhir. India are expected to field a power-packed middle order featuring Iyer, Kishan and vice-captain Tilak Varma.

Selection calls in the bowling attack

India also have decisions to make with the ball.

The management must decide whether to bring Harshit Rana straight back into the XI after his return to fitness or continue with recent performers Prince Yadav and Prasidh Krishna alongside pace spearhead Arshdeep Singh.

Ireland battling injury crisis

Ireland head into the series with several key players unavailable.

The hosts will be without experienced names including Paul Stirling, Mark Adair and Josh Little due to injuries. Newly appointed T20I captain Lorcan Tucker will lead a depleted side, with uncapped bowlers Matthew Hollard and Jai Moondra earning maiden call-ups.

India’s dominant record

History is firmly in India’s favour. The Men in Blue have won all eight T20Is they have played against Ireland and last met them during the 2024 T20 World Cup.

India are also enjoying an excellent run in the format, having won 12 of their 14 T20Is this year. They will also be playing an international match at Stormont for the first time since 2007.

Match details

Match: India vs Ireland, 1st T20I

Date: Friday, June 26

Time: 6:00 PM IST

Venue: Civil Service Cricket Ground, Stormont, Belfast

Live telecast: Sony Sports Ten 1 SD & HD and Sony Sports Ten 5 SD & HD

Live streaming: SonyLiv website and app

Veteran commentator Andrew Castle said he was “upset” to learn that this would be his last broadcasting Wimbledon for the BBC.

Castle will be part of the broadcasting and commentary team for this year’s tournament, which begins on Monday, but announced he would step down entirely after this Championships rather than take a different role.

The BBC, which has recently renewed its free-to-air broadcast agreement with Wimbledon until 2033, is revamping its coverage of the tournament once again.

Castle told The Telegraph: “Am I upset? Yeah, I was upset, and I will stay that way this year, knowing it’s my last. But all good things come to an end.”

Castle said he would have preferred for his final Championships to be the 2027 edition, which will be the 150th year of Wimbledon. “It would have been my 25th year. But who’s bleating?”

He said he was told in person that he would not be lead commentator for the men’s final next year. He said: “I was told in person, in a very respectful way, and I was very grateful for that – because knowing what I know about TV, you can be walking down the street one moment and the next you’ve been nobbled.”

Ex-pro Castle, who was British No 1 in 1986, will commentate on his 23rd final in 24 years as part of the BBC team this summer. He had previously told The Telegraph: “They want me to stay on the team but I will depart with gratitude.”

Castle grew up in Taunton and won a tennis scholarship to nearby Millfield School, before moving to Florida and then to Wichita State University in Kansas.

He reached the third round of the US Open in 1987, his best result at a major in singles, and reached the mixed doubles final at the Australian Open in the same year.

After retiring as a player he moved into broadcasting, presenting on Sky and ITV’s breakfast programme GMTV, before joining the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage.

The BBC’s coverage has undergone several changes in the past few years, most notably the departure of veteran presenter Sue Barker in 2022. Barker said of Castle: “As a presenter, I always loved having Andrew in the studio, because he offered something a bit different. I’m sad that this news has come as a bit of a shock to him, but it feels that way for all of us, because we love what we do so much.”

Elliot Anderson’s impending mega-money move to Manchester City will not impact the England midfielder’s focus on winning the World Cup, according to team-mate Jarell Quansah.

The 23-year-old has established himself as a key part of Thomas Tuchel’s side since making his debut last September and impressed on his major tournament bow as they overcame Croatia 4-2 in last week’s thriller.

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Anderson also started England’s 0-0 draw with Ghana and heads into Saturday’s Group L finale against Panama fresh from the life-changing news that City have struck a deal to sign him from Nottingham Forest.

The agreement is said to be worth £116m and a medical has reportedly been lined up for when the team arrives in the Tri-State Area, but Quansah does not expect his team-mate’s focus to waver.

“I see a player that’s fully focused on what he wants, and I think at the moment what he wants is to win a World Cup,” the England defender told talkSPORT. “That ultimately is the goal.

“Obviously I’m not in his head or whatnot, but I’m sure he is fully focused on winning the World Cup for England, and you can’t drift too far away from that and he knows that.

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“But he’s a proper focused young lad and he’ll go right to the top I think.”

Anderson has flourished since being moved to a deeper midfield role by England Under-21s boss Lee Carsley, who he played a starring role for in last summer’s European Championship triumph.

Quansah, another member of that victorious side, said: “I think he’s a very versatile player as well.

“This season he’s played a deeper role, played in a sort of a six and sometimes an eight, but he’s got probably everything you want as a midfielder, to be honest.

“I remember hearing about him at Bristol Rovers (when I went on loan there afterwards) and I think he was playing on the wing.

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“Knowing he can do that and what he does in training sessions as well, he’s got a lot of attributes that are really good for an England squad and exactly what the manager wants, which is good.”

Tuchel has some interesting decisions to make this weekend as he looks to balance protecting players with producing the performance needed to top Group L.

England are all but assured of a place in the round of 32 ahead of facing already-eliminated Panama but must equal or better Ghana’s result against Croatia to top the pool.

Star midfielder Declan Rice has been under assessment ahead of Saturday’s match having limped out of Gillette Stadium on Tuesday, while Reece James sounds a major doubt.

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A hamstring injury is said to have seen him miss training on Thursday and back-up Tino Livramento’s enforced departure opens the door to versatile Quansah stepping in at right-back.

“It will be cliche but it’s a dream come true, and there’s probably no better words to actually sum it up,” the Bayer Leverkusen defender said of his potential World Cup debut.

“Because when you’re younger, playing in the back garden, or whatever you’re doing, you always think about World Cups and the biggest stage of them all in my opinion.

“To be able to play with England it will be a massive, massive honour, and something I’m ready for, and something I’d look forward to.”

PA

The Minnesota Timberwolves have rattled things up ahead of the 2026-27 NBA season.

Following a hard-fought 4-2 second-round series loss in the Western Conference, many expected the Minnesota Timberwolves to make some major changes to the roster.

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Well, the Timberwolves did just that, but hardly anyone expected the franchise to trade away star center Naz Reid to the Charlotte Hornets.

Tim Walz reacts to Naz Reid’s trade to the Charlotte Hornets

Considering Reid has spent his entire NBA career in Minnesota, up until this point, it was shocking to see the T-Wolves trade him to Charlotte.

But how much Reid meant to the organization can be seen in Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s reaction to the trade.

“You’ll always have a home in Minnesota, Naz,” Walz wrote on X.

Reid averaged 11.9 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 1.5 assists per game for the Timberwolves across seven regular seasons.

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Naz Reid to Charlotte Hornets full trade

The main piece in the Timberwolves-Hornets trade wasn’t Reid, but none other than 1x NBA All-Star LaMelo Ball.

Yes, the Timberwolves gave up, Reid, 2033 first-round pick, a 2028, 2029, 2030 first-round pick swap, and 2029, 2032, 2033 second-round draft pick in exchange for Ball and Josh Green from the Hornets.

Now, that’s a massive move, and it indicates that the Timberwolves are entering win-now mode as they have already traded Julius Randle earlier in the offseason.

But can the dynamic duo of Ball and Anthony Edwards carry the T-Wolves farther than when Reid was on the roster? Only time will tell.

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CHASKA, Minn. — Nelly Korda wasted no time picking up her tee. Usually, that means two things: it’s really good, or it’s really bad.

This was the latter.

“I just overturned it,” Korda said of her tee shot on the par-4 16th hole at Hazeltine National, which hooked into the creek that runs up the left side of the course’s signature hole. “By now you just feel it when it’s bad. So the wind was off the right and I actually think I just made too fast of a swing and I was kind of in between clubs.

“It’s a pretty intimidating tee shot and I just didn’t really like the way I hit it off the start.”

Korda took a drop, wedged on and then three-putted from 35 feet for a messy double bogey. It was her only double of the day and came after she birdied three in a five-hole span.

She still shot a two-under 70 in the first round of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, which was good enough to stay in the top 10 of Thursday’s morning wave, although she’s seven back of early leader Ina Yoon, who shot 63.

There’s no shortage of pressure on Korda this week, where she’s attempting to become just the third player in LPGA history to win the first three majors of the season. A win this week would also send Korda, still just 27 years old, into the LPGA Hall of Fame.

She started early Thursday morning — with a large contingent of fans following along — and turned in one under. She added birdies on 11, 13 and 15 before she reached the 378-yard par-4 16th hole, a short par-4 played along Hazeltine Lake that has a tight driving window — the lake right, creek left — and most of the green guarded by water. During the 2016 Ryder Cup, the 16th was changed to the 5th hole to guarantee it played a role in the matches. Korda hit driver on Thursday.

“It’s between a 3-wood and driver,” Korda said. “You can’t lay it too far back because then you’re blocked out by the trees and you have a long shot into a pretty difficult green that is pretty undulated, so you got to risk it.”

Korda begins her second round at 2:42 p.m. ET on Friday.

“Honestly just made one bad swing, which ended up in a double,” Korda said. “But overall, pretty happy with my day.”

By the time Ellie-Rose Griffiths was nine, she had left school to train full-time. That was when tennis stopped being just a game and became her life.

The former top-ranked junior player would go on to compete alongside some of the top names in British tennis including Katie Boulter, Emma Raducanu and Harriet Dart before stopping playing at 19 because she was burned out and not enjoying it any more.

When the 27-year-old looks back now, it is not just the tennis she remembers. It is the pressure around it, and in particular one group of people she believes could deal with it better.

Parents.

Pushy parents are nothing new in a sport offering the potential of millions of pounds in prize money at the very top – at elite level there are well-documented incidents involving the dads of Jelena Dokic, Mary Pierce and Bernard Tomic to name a few.

It all starts at junior level.

“You see parents shouting at children all the time in tennis,” Griffiths tells BBC Sport. “There’s a lack of understanding on how they should behave… on how they could help their child to blossom into the athlete that they should become.”

And it can get out of hand.

“We’ve had situations here before where unfortunately we’ve had to call the police because the parents’ behaviour is getting that far out of control,” says Chris Johnson, head coach at Sutton Coldfield Tennis Club, where he has worked for 36 years.

“They won’t listen, they think they can get away with anything, they don’t respect the referees, it can get a bit ugly.”

Both are clear that behaviour like that does not happen in isolation and that it is the environment tennis creates that makes parents behave this way.

So, why is that and what needs to change?

Tennis can be intense for parents.

There is transport to arrange, coaching to fund, and a complicated player pathway to navigate. In some cases there’s even private tutoring to arrange if their child has left mainstream school to focus on the sport.

“You do get on a bit of a hamster wheel”, says John from Derbyshire, whose 11-year-old son Harrison is a promising player. “It’s 12 months of the year, indoor courts and outdoor courts.”

Children can start a form of tennis from the age of four on a modified court. The Lawn Tennis Association’s (LTA) performance pathway for the most promising juniors supports players from the age of seven on their journey to potentially becoming a Grand Slam champion.

Competitions are grouped according to age and start aged eight and under.

And the ratings and rankings you get from doing them are one way to get noticed.

So when does it start to get serious?

“The minute they start playing their first competition,” according to Johnson.

Does he think that is right?

“Absolutely not.

“A lot of adults can’t cope with the pressures of playing an individual sport and then they’re expecting young children to be able to do so.”

Steve Whelan, a coach working in St Albans with nearly three decades of experience, agrees that the system places too much emphasis on winning at a young age.

“It just creates this race to the bottom because parents are chasing ratings and rankings,” he says.

He tells parents: “These are not tennis players. They are kids who play tennis and there’s a big difference.”

The LTA says it undertook a “comprehensive review” of its rating and ranking system in 2018 “specifically to address the issue of putting too much pressure on children at too young an age.”

Now players can’t be ranked nationally against their peers until they reach the under-11 age group, with younger children from eight and up organised into competition based on recent form – a rating.

When it comes to parental behaviour the LTA says like any sport “there are occasions when a small minority of parents do not uphold the standards of behaviour expected”. The governing body will soon be launching a new initiative called Fair Play, to promote positive parent behaviour and support coaches.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Few could fault U.S. men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino for being as obvious as possible with his heavily-rotated team for Thursday’s game against Turkiye, even if it was a bit comical upon first glance. Then again, the concept of a dead rubber game at a World Cup, where the stakes are as high as they could ever be, is hilarious in its own right. It is fitting, then, that the USMNT’s defense was also funny in its own right, a batch of mistakes ensuring the team would come out with a 3-2 defeat in a game that offered a strange pause to the upward momentum the tournament co-hosts had otherwise experienced.

Things seemed to be off to a strong start when Auston Trusty, in his first World Cup start, notched his first World Cup goal just three minutes in. Even with nine changes to the team that started in the 2-0 win over Australia on Friday, the group seemed to be embodying Pochettino’s high-intensity ethos – they did outshoot Turkiye eight to four in the first half, dominating the early stretch of the game fully. Sebastian Berhalter’s assist on Trusty’s goal also offered further validation for Pochettino’s roster selections; the midfielder’s set-piece prowess is his greatest strength.

It all unraveled fairly quickly, though. Center back Mark McKenzie – another first-time World Cup starter – was unimpressive on Adra Guler’s goal in the 10th minute, as was goalkeeper understudy Matt Turner. About 20 minutes later, it was Joe Scally’s turn to look unfit for the job as Orkun Kokcu as he gave Turkiye a long-awaited lead.

Call It What You Want is your front-row seat as the USMNT takes center stage at the 2026 World Cup. The crew delivers live reactions, analysis, and debate before and after every game. Catch new episodes live on the Golazo America YouTube channel

That trio was far from the only unimpressive figures for the USMNT on Thursday at SoFi Stadium. Tim Weah did little to make a case for himself as a starter, nearly four years removed from being the USMNT’s starter on the left wing, almost nonexistent on the pitch along with the other starters in attack. The intensity they started with faded before the hydration break midway through the first half, both teams almost ending the first 45 minutes in listless form.

If it was a good game for anyone, though, it was for the frequent starters who took in the first half from the bench. Not a single person who replaced them bolstered their argument to enter the lineup when Wednesday’s round of 32 game comes around. The loss to Turkiye was far from entertaining, at times uninspiring but also offered a stark reminder that the USMNT are one team with their best players and an entirely different team without them, their bench perhaps not as deep as it had seemed in the wins over Paraguay and Australia.

It is not an actual surprise, either – Pochettino’s USMNT struggled in the build-up to the World Cup in large part because he was always missing a key starter or two. The U.S. can survive Christian Pulisic’s absence, much as it did against Australia, but that is because the rest of their mainstays were in place. Defender Chris Richards and midfielder Tyler Adams remain as irreplaceable as anybody but so many other players hold singular roles on this national team, it turns out. Sergino Dest’s dynamism on the wing is hard to replicate; Folarin Balogun keeps opposition defenders busy in a way few of his teammates can; even Tim Ream, the elder statesman who draws the ire of the fanbase on the regular, offers more stability than the players who usually sit on the bench in his place.

Even amidst all that mediocrity, though, there is little reason to reduce the sense of optimism that this team carried into their Group D finale. None of these players missed Thursday’s game by force. They simply got the night off, a chance to take a breather before an all-important game, and now without the burden of yellow cards that could get them suspended for a subsequent game. Some of the starters against Turkiye are also more likely to plug themselves in nicely to a full-strength team – Ricardo Pepi proved against Australia that he serves a real function as a pressing forward, while Gio Reyna’s substitute appearance and goal against Paraguay offered a reminder that he is still a talented player with a unique skillset in the U.S. player pool.

The reminder came during the game, too. Christian Pulisic’s entrance in the 58th minute was not only a welcome sight for a player who missed the Australia game with a calf issue but almost rejuvenated the U.S. team on his own. Within minutes of coming on for Weah, he sped down the left flank and created a chance that Brenden Aaronson attempted to capitalize on. Whether it was single-handedly down to his conclusion or the result of a mentality shift, the USMNT’s multi-pronged press seemed to return when Pulisic did. They had a batch of chances in the minutes after his substitution, looking more like the team that clinched top spot in the group a week ago.

It paved the way for a redemption arc of sorts in the second half, during which they went on to outshoot Turkiye 10-4 and limited the opponents two shots on target, a return to form for the team that set a World Cup record for most shots taken without scoring. Berhalter also stood out even in a mixed bag of a game for the group. He is not exactly amongst the caliber of the USMNT’s starters in midfield but he is an incredibly useful player regardless, his meteoric rise justified roughly a year after he earned his first cap. Trusty’s goal was one example in his expertise on dead-ball situations and Berhalter’s equalizer in the 49th minute another – that play also started on a set piece but he really can hit a ball expertly and did just that, all while becoming the USMNT’s first player ever to get a goal and an assist in a World Cup game.

There was one final reminder that a roared version of the USMNT were taking part in this game rather than the real deal, however. Arda Guler kicked off a play and a sustained round of pressure ensured Kaan Ayhan would score with the final kick of the game, the prospect of a cheery group stage finale already dashed for the World Cup co-hosts but officially gone with one fell swoop.

The uneven outing, though, also rings true to the USMNT’s identity under Pochettino, no matter who is in the starting lineup. This team is not known for their defensive traits but will be carried by a group of talented attackers, several who are in career-best form, all of whom are a perfect fit for a coach who has always valued an offense-first approach. It worked at times on Thursday, if not for the entirety of the 90-minute game, which is somewhat encouraging in its own right. Coupled with the team’s recent performances, both at the World Cup and their final pre-tournament friendlies, it is more than enough to remind everyone that their aim of a statement-making run is still well on track.