Remember when the USMNT almost beat this France team?
MOSCOW – Five days before the World Cup started and five weeks ahead of its Sunday conclusion, the United States nearly beat France.
A team of American youngsters, marshaled by a makeshift coach, went to Lyon, and, in front of a 58,000-strong crowd took a second half lead before settling for a 1-1 tie.
Yes, that’s right. The same France that won the World Cup with a 4-2 cruise past Croatia. The same France that didn’t need extra time or penalties, and was the clear class of the event.
No, really, the exact same France. Including substitutes, Les Bleus used 14 players during the final. No fewer than 13 on them played in that friendly game against the U.S, which obviously means that the Americans – had they managed to complete the small matter of actually qualifying for the tournament – would have probably gone on to win it all.
Because it is a group that is emerging and no one else could cope with the French midfield and it would have grown in confidence as things went along and ... STOP IT.
In case you hadn’t noticed, that was a joke. We will never know how well the USA would have done here in Russia, but you can be absolutely certain that it wouldn’t still have been around into the final week.
It is a nice memory for the American players, to know that they faced off against a team that would soon prove itself as the best on the planet, by quite some distance.
The France result doesn’t really say much about those young Americans at all, except that it was a valiant and valid effort against a squad that was then in the final stages of its pre-World Cup warm-up program.
It says more about France, the way that it came together over the course of a month, began to believe in itself, then rode that belief all the way to the title. Everyone else was left in its shadow. The U.S. has some cheeky little bragging rights to enjoy at the end of an empty summer, but that’s about it.