Preview

Have you seen the potential Paris Saint-Germain starting lineups for the 2021-22 season? They all share two qualities: (1) they’ve got more boom boom than Charo and (2) they’re all wildly different.

All we know is that Mauricio Pochettino — previously a Marcelo Bielsa disciple whose high-press hit vertically, horizontally and everywhere in between — is now a protégé of FIFA Ultimate Team champion Fnatic Tekkz.

What will the tactics board look like at the Parc des Princes?

Messi moving centrally to shoehorn Ángel Di María into the starting lineup?

Nearly four years after ignominiously bowing out of 2018 World Cup qualifying, the USMNT is ready to begin qualifying for the 2022 World Cup. The last four years have felt like a lifetime on and off the pitch in the U.S., but Sept. 2 marks the start of an opportunity to rewrite the script, a chance to cast off the miserable low of 2017 and show the country how much the team has improved.

Or not — we’ll see. 

Concacaf World Cup qualifying begins for the USMNT on Sept. 2 against El Salvador. After the match in El Salvador, the U.S. hosts Canada on Sept. 5 and then travels to Honduras to play on Sept. 8. The last game of this first WCQ window is the one that has me concerned.

I predict the USMNT to get seven points from these first three qualifying games in the form of victories against El Salvador and Canada, but a hard-fought draw in Honduras. Why is that? The Olímpico Metropolitano, and really anywhere in Honduras, is a fortress.

The USWNT will face Concacaf rival Canada in the semifinals at the 2020 Olympics on Monday. It’s a rematch of a 2012 semifinal that may just have been the greatest Olympic soccer game of all time. As we get ready for USWNT vs Canada, let’s look back at that thriller from nine years earlier.