SEATTLE — If Zlatan says it, that must mean it’s true.
Well, probably not. Anyone who has followed the legendary striker’s career knows that he does tend to exaggerate the truth a little bit, particularly when speaking about himself. But on Friday, he wasn’t speaking about himself; he was speaking about the U.S. men’s national team fresh off their most recent World Cup win, a 2-0 triumph over Australia.
With that win, the USMNT has now won back-to-back World Cup games for the first time since 1930. If the tournament-opening 4-1 win over Paraguay raised spirits, this win, one sealed by a Folarin Balogun-created own goal and an Alex Freeman header, sent those spirits into overdrive, even for Sweden’s most legendary soccer star.
The question was simple: Does he, the great Zlatan Ibrahimovic, believe that the USMNT can win the World Cup? The answer, from one of the sport’s most complicated figures, was simple, too: “Yes.”
That, of course, is what USMNT manager Mauricio Pochettino has been trying to create for over a year and a half now. He’s been working to build that belief, both in his team and in the fanbase that supports it. For weeks, the USMNT’s players have been saying they believe, because why play in a World Cup if you don’t? On Friday, though, it felt like they weren’t alone; it felt like the country was starting to believe, too.
“Every game, every time that we play, we want to win,” defender Chris Richards said. “I don’t think it’s ridiculous to say that we want to win it. Obviously, we’ve got a lot more games before we get to that moment, and we take it one game at a time. We want to lift a trophy at the end of this.”
Is that possible? No one really knows. The World Cup is long and, even with Friday’s win, there’s still so much work to do. The three points against Australia have the team in the knockout rounds, for sure, but there still could be some work to do to top the group. Then, from there, the knockout rounds are where things really get difficult, where you really start to play the world’s best with that trophy Richards alluded to on the line.
There are no guarantees at World Cups, and none that the USMNT can go all the way. There’s also the flip side of that: there’s no reason why they can’t. That’s what the players in the group believe, and that’s what those who follow the team are starting to believe, too. Heck, even Zlatan believes, and the more that belief builds, the more room there will be on the bandwagon this team has constructed with two big results to start a home World Cup.
“We’ve had (this belief) since a while ago,” midfielder Sebastian Berhalter said. “It’s not just right now; we’ve had this belief. It’s been something that’s been growing ever since Mauricio took over, and we’re just trying to keep it going.”
He added: “I think right now people want to say we’re gonna do great, but then three weeks ago everyone said we have nothing and we don’t got a chance. For us, we have to just keep doing what we’re doing.”
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