As the pure elation began to ebb, the feeling that overcame me toward the end of the USMNT's demolition of Paraguay in its World Cup opener last week was disbelief. I found it genuinely confusing. The United States men's soccer team simply does not play with as much overpowering quality, as much one-way domination, as much undeniable impressiveness as we saw that day.
For the better part of a decade now, as the largest and most promising cohort of American players made their way to Europe to test themselves in the sport's fiercest crucibles, fans of American soccer have put our faith in the idea that a new day was not only possible, but could even be glimpsed out on the horizon. The thinking went that some day soon, the USMNT would be capable of passages of play, game-long performances, and ultimately tournament outcomes that would've been unfathomable before. As the years wore on, the U.S. did in fact produce better players in greater numbers, who'd all proven their talent more definitively at the highest levels of the club game. And yet, material improvements on the national level were hard to come by—so much so that I at least began to doubt the future vision I'd once thought was imminent. That's what made the Paraguay game so thrilling and so dumbfounding. Just when I'd started giving up hope, the day that had been promised finally arrived.
As certain as one might've been that the Paraguay performance was no fluke, and therefore deserved to be celebrated in its own right as a new high-water mark in American men's soccer, I do have to give a (TINY) bit of credit to Defector's beloved curmudgeon Ray "The World's No. 1 Christian Pulisic Fanboy" Ratto, whose main thought in the aftermath of the USMNT's tourney debut was essentially "Eh, let's see them do it again." It is true that to really make good on the realized promise of the Paraguay match, the U.S. would have to turn it into something more. Australia would surely pose at the very least different sorts of problems than the ones the Americans solved with such aplomb against Paraguay, making it a good and important follow-up test. And while the USMNT's performance against the Aussies in Friday's match wasn't nearly as dazzling as the previous game, I do think they showed enough in the 2-0 victory to keep American fans believing that the Paraguay game was not just a blip, but the start of something.
