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RAYYAN, Qatar — As American soccer players took their sadness and their hope and walked out of this World Cup on Saturday night, they passed through the mixed zone, a strange and familiar maze of padded barricades and advertising-covered walls at global sporting events where athletes sometimes stop in front of one Crowd of reporters stop by and share glimpses or non-insights of what just happened.
The Americans stopped one by one, unwittingly building up a sort of choppy chorus that spoke of their pain at their 3-1 win over the Netherlands, their feeling that they could have done more and their feeling that they could do more .
They offered a bit of what I learned at the World Cup, when goalkeeper Matt Turner said, “The greatest thing is that the margins of success or failure in this tournament are so razor-thin”, or as the youngest captain of this World Cup, Tyler Adams said, “If there’s anything this team can take away from that, it comes down to the edges,” or as veteran DeAndre Yedlin said, “The biggest thing is that the group learned what it feels like to be in a.” Losing the World Cup, and that’s a long way,” or as Christian Pulisic said: “We don’t want to feel like that again.”
USMNT’s hopeful World Cup run fizzled out with a loss to the Netherlands
First came Turner, 28, who began with, “The silence is deafening [in the locker room]; everyone’s disappointed.” He shared how Dutch appeared to have “expectation” for the cutback crosses that scored the first two goals, saying it “came on both boxes” where “they took their chances”, said it was an honor and said he hoped boys and girls would watch and strive to emulate it.
“There’s tremendous potential,” he said. “If you don’t see that, I don’t know… The potential is clear.” Not wanting this to be “our MO,” he said, “Part of that is changing the expectations of our fans, the expectations of the players in the dressing room to change and not just feel like we’ve won a trophy because we made the round of 16.”
Next was Adams, 23, who spoke about those “margins” – they’re actually everywhere in the 32-man event – and how the centre-backs “performed really well” and that he wasn’t there in 2010 and 2014 as the United States did got the same point, he doesn’t know, but that feels “special”.
Schedule of the World Cup bracket and knockout round
Walker Zimmerman, the 29-year-old centre-back, soon arrived. He analyzed the Dutch puncture of the American airtightness, which had prevailed through Group B but failed against Denzel Dumfries’ crosses in the first half. “Right,” he said, “you never know if it’s something they might have seen on tape. I mean I would have to go back in the group stage to see if those spaces were even open. Of course, those chances didn’t hurt us in the group stage. Maybe it’s something they saw. Maybe it’s just the execution at this moment, but certainly in this second we have to be able to mentally prevent this game.
He summarized. “That’s what makes it the hardest thing,” he said, “just going out there and knowing how special this team was, how hard we worked.” He thought they came with the aim of winning the whole thing and “showed that we can compete with anyone,” and listed promising attributes including “the youth of the team,” the “bond,” the “love we have for each other.” He said that World Cup was “something, on that a lot of American fans can be proud of – the way we play, the way we go about our work. So I think we’ll be back hungrier than ever, a lot of the guys in their prime, we’ve got a lot of guys coming through the pipeline that I think can contribute to that. So it’s an exciting time to be an American football fan and I just wish the legacy — it hurts is that we thought this was a group that could have done something no American team has done.
USMNT’s Walker Zimmerman is a very good soccer player. He could be a better teammate.
Andries Noppert came by. He’s not American, he’s Dutch and a goalkeeper, and he took a few questions and chimed in: “They’re playing like crazy, like hell. They work together. You don’t give up.”
Yunus Musah, somehow still only 20 years old, was close but said: “The team that we are, we could have done a lot better.”
Brenden Aaronson, 22, was a little less short and said: “Sad and a lot of emotion. It’s just tough.” And: “I mean, listen, we had just as many chances as they did.”
The Dutch won the game 3-1 on December 3, eliminating the Americans from the World Cup. (Video: The Washington Post)
Antonee Robinson, still only 25, went through and said of the two early goals: “I don’t know. I can not tell you. Maybe they’ve stretched our team a bit in terms of positioning.” Hoping coach Gregg Berhalter stays, he said: “He gave a lot of guys the chance to develop with this group. You look at the whole campaign and pretty much everyone has played their first World Cup.”
He said he felt like “I gave everything I could have” and that “a whole lot of these players can be together for years now.”
Brewer: Don’t see the loss of the USMNT as the end. It’s a down payment for the future.
Here came Weston McKennie, 24, who proactively defended Pulisic for his third-minute miss: “For anyone who might try in the future, ‘Oh if Christian had hit that’, we all saw what he did for the USA has football. We all know it’s a collective here. We all try to support each other.”
Recounting “a common goal four years ago” after missing the previous World Cup, he said: “This tournament has really restored a lot of trust, a lot of respect. We have shown that we can be giants. We may not be there yet, but we’re definitely on our way.”
“There was a lot in the tank,” he began in response to a question that wondered about tiredness.
“It’s going to hurt for a while,” he said of the early miss.
“We’ve definitely come a long way,” he said.
He said the Dutch seemed to have two real chances early on, but also two real goals. “It felt like we were 2-0 down, but it didn’t feel like it was meant to be. Good teams do that, they punish you.”
Yedlin, 29, the only player left in Brazil 2014, paused and said: ‘I mean, I think we gave hope to a lot of people. People see the talent of this team and are amazed. The camaraderie in the group is exciting.”
“Now it’s a completely different story,” he said. “You know how it feels to lose after investing so much.”
Tim Ream, USMNT’s “grandfather” at 35, has never given up on his World Cup dream
Finally came Tim Ream, the 35-year-old defender. The evening, the World Cup and his US career ended on an evening when, as he said from so much experience: “Sometimes, you know, good players get the jump on you. You have anticipated. These two players [Dumfries and Memphis], they were a little faster. It was probably something they had been working on.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I mean, I was trying to convey to the guys: You’re never guaranteed anything in this game. I’ve been in the program for 12 years and have never guaranteed anything. Many of these guys are guaranteed another World Cup. It’s not going to happen for me… I gave it my all and I hope these guys take that advice. I’ve seen them take that advice over the three weeks we’ve been together, so I hope they continue to do so.”
That was the end of the mixed zone for the night.
World Cup in Qatar
The newest: The world championship continued on Saturday with the knockout round. Argentina beat Australia 2-1 in the round of 16. Argentina, with world star Lionel Messi at what may be his last World Cup, are among the favorites to win the tournament and managed to top Group C and progress to the quarter-finals despite a shock defeat by Saudi Arabia in their first game.
USMNT: The US men’s national team lost 3-1 to the Netherlands in the opening game of the round of 16 on Saturday. The Netherlands, winners of Group A, had finished the group stage undefeated, conceding just a single goal. His winning streak continues while the US run is over.
Knockout Round Schedule: A World Cup group stage full of shocking upsets and dramatic twists is now giving way to a knockout round that promises more upsets.
Today’s world view: Ishaan Tharoor, the Post’s foreign columnist, recounts his week at the World Cup in Qatar.
What you should know about the World Cup
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