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As World Cup draws go, the United States men’s national team didn’t get the toughest assignment for the 2022 World Cup, but it’s also far from easy.
The U.S. finds itself in Group B with England, Iran and the winner of the playoff in UEFA that involves Wales taking on the winner of the semifinal in that pod between Scotland and Ukraine. Could the draw have been worse for the U.S.? Definitely. The doomsday scenario was avoided, but one could argue that if Wales — the highest-ranked of those playoff teams — gets through, the U.S. has one of the tougher groups.
Sure, Groups E and G have higher average ELO scores, but no other group would have the kind of depth of competition that Group B has. Based on FIFA’s rankings — which admittedly should be taken with a grain of salt — Iran is the lowest-ranked team in Group B at No. 21. The fourth-ranked team in every other group has a worse ranking.
If Wales doesn’t get through, things should be easier, but still complicated. If Ukraine is the team that ends up qualifying, it will be playing with an immense reservoir of emotional motivation given the ongoing war. In pure soccer terms, that will present its own special kind of challenge.
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For U.S. manager Gregg Berhalter, the excitement of qualifying earlier in the week and then knowing at least most of his team’s opponents was the overriding emotion on the day.
“It was amazing to get England in our group,” he said. “I think that’s a game that always has a lot of attention around it because of England and their fans and their established place in soccer.
“And then we have Iran, which is a difficult opponent given they’ve finished first in their group of qualifying in Asia, the first Asian team to qualify after [hosts] Qatar, scored a lot of goals, dangerous team and then the unknown of Scotland, Wales or Ukraine. Scotland and Wales are…
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Source : espn
