The World Cup

Article by Ansel Chiou

The FIFA World Cup is held every four years in different countries where thirty-two nations compete to win a trophy.  This year, the United States Men’s National Team qualified to play.

The World Cup is held by FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, in a nation that bids for the chance to host the competition.  This year’s competition is held (quite controversially) in Qatar.  

The competition has a basic format.  All of the teams around the world compete in their own respective continents to get a set number of teams that are sent to the World Cup.  From there the teams are drawn into the groups.  In the group stages, groups of four play in a round-robin style to see who can garner the best record.  The two best teams move on to the next round.  A group with many strong teams is known as the “Group of Death”.  The next round contains 16 teams(Hence, its name:The round of 16).  From here, it is win or go home.  The play progresses from there to the quarter-finals which is as far as the USMNT has ever gotten.  The four winners of that round move on to the semi-finals.  From the semi-finals, we go to the finals.  The winner of that round has won the World Cup.  The losers of the semi-final matches go on to play a match to see who gets third place.  

The competition has been played since 1930 and has continued ever since, only cancelled a few times for wars.  In years past, the game has been held in Argentina, the U.S.A., England and Korea with Japan, just to name a few.  Winners include Italy, Germany and Brazil, more recently France and Spain with many more on the list as well.  

This year, the USMNT has been drawn against England, Iran and Wales.  England could be America’s greatest threat in this group as they boast a particularly strong offense.  Iran and Wales also pose a great threat as both have a plethora of talent at their disposal. 

Coach Gregg Berhalter heads this team this year as goalkeepers Matt Turner, Ethan Horvath and Sean Johnson intend to stop the opposition.  In front of them are defenders Sergiño Dest, Aaron Long, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Shaq Moore, Tim Ream, Antonee Robinson, Joe Scally, DeAndre Yedlin and Walker Zimmerman.  The midfield consists of Brenden Aaronson, Kellyn Acosta, Tyler Adams, Luca de la Torre , Weston McKennie, Yunus Musah and Cristian Roldan.  Our attacking players are Jesús Ferreira, Jordan Morris, Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna, Josh Sargent, Tim Weah and Haji Wright.  

The World Cup is a competition with no comparison.  Even the Olympics don’t have as much popularity as the World Cup.  This sporting competition is like no other.  So, grab your seats and enjoy the soccer for the opening matches on Sunday!