Big day today folks. The United States men's national team are back in action at the World Cup and it's a doozy. Mauricio Pochettino's side are up against Australia in Seattle with both teams currently on three points after their opening games. A win for either team could effectively lock them into the knockout stages. If it were to be for USMNT, well then the bandwagon would really start rolling.
The fixtures don't let up after that either. The remainder of Group D plays at the end of the night as Turkey take on Panama; between that it's the turn of Group C. Brazil will surely expect to get some pep in their step against Haiti while Scotland would know a point against Morocco would give them an exceptional chance of playing their first ever World Cup knockout game. Plenty to look forward to but there's only one place to start.
Australia's EFL stars
From the outset, as the Englishman on staff, can I just note how deeply amusing it is to see the Australian public riled up by a dismissive assessment of their national team and its qualities? The Americans might not know how dismissively you treat us before every Ashes series (that's cricket guys -- it's too long to explain, but if you would like more coverage across CBS Sports platforms, please do get emailing). They've never seen an English team that they haven't predicted will be smashed 5-0 in a whitewash. And that has actually only happened some of the time.
Sorry, I just needed to get to that off my chest. Onto the football.
"If they do something in this tournament, they should make a statue of me in Australia."@MikeGrella10 is looking for credit for unifying the Australia squad ahead of the World Cup 🤣 pic.twitter.com/ghEg3ffhUb
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) June 16, 2026
Australia's opener doesn't offer the clearest lens through which to assess the Socceroos. An early goal from Nestory Irankunda gave them something to defend, and defend they did, or perhaps Turkey had a complete meltdown. Thirty shots for the team chasing parity sounds impressive, 1.36 expected goals from that, less so. More than half of the efforts Turkey took came from outside the box, Arda Guler, in particular, was guilty of trying the Hollywood ending for too many moves.
If you were offering mitigation for Turkey pulling the trigger from range too often, perhaps it comes in the form of Harry Souttar, one of a string of strong and deceptively quick Australian defenders who made it a bit pointless to be lobbing crosses into the box. In all, the 6'6" Leicester center back made 13 clearances in the 2-0 win.
All that in his fifth game back after two Achilles ruptures and a knee issue that first struck him down on December 26 2024. Watching from afar, he has had to endure back-to-back relegations with Leicester, all while rushing to repeat the trick of 2022, when he just barely returned from an anterior cruciate ligament injury to star at the World Cup. Having been through "absolute torture" to get to the tournament, you suspect there's nothing the USMNT can throw at Souttar that will have him worried (And as a reminder, you can catch all of Australia's EFL stars all season long on Paramount+).
At the other end of the field, perhaps the USMNT should be worried about the bright young things who have landed in the Championship. Nestory Irankunda scored the Aussies first in their World Cup opener and at Watford profiles as an intriguing young winger/forward who has one of the most encouraging statistical qualities for a 20-year-old. He gets shots, averaging three of them per 90 in the English second tier last season. He can take on and beat a man too. There's a reason why Bayern Munich snared him from Adelaide United as a 17-year-old and why they are said to retain a buy-back clause now he is at Watford.
If his statistics are intriguing, they are nothing to his Socceroos teammate Mohamed Toure, who signed for Norwich City from Danish side Randers in January. The 22-year-old barely meets the 500 minute cutoff to be in the table below, which assesses him against his peers across the EFL. Still two hat tricks and another four goals across 12 games is impressive stuff. Not for nothing did his club manager Philippe Clement compare Toure's mental qualities to those of a young Erling Haaland. In a backs to the wall opener there wasn't much chance for Toure to show what he can do, registering just five touches in the opposition half between Irankunda's opener and his substitution in the 74th minute, but the youngster very nearly turned a Jacob Italiano header in at close range.
CBS Sports Souttar, Irankunda, Toure: these may not be familiar names like Harry Kewell or Tim Cahill, but they are players to be taken seriously. After all, as the Australian press learn about once a generation at the hands of England's cricketers, predicting the doom of your rival can backfire in almighty fashion.
Is Brazil Ancelotti's most pressurized job?
Make no bones about it, Brazil were inadequate in their 1-1 draw with Morocco. Worse still, they were inadequate in a fashion you could have seen coming a mile off. The fullbacks were torn to shreds whenever their opponents got a run at them. The Brazilian wingers might have saved their team through Vinicius Junior's moment of magic, but they were bystanders when Morocco had the ball. Casemiro looked too immobile for the space he had to cover. Igor Thiago much the same, the Brentford man an extremely talented striker who tends to play in a very different fashion to how Brazil's opponents will allow them to.
CBS Sports The best you could say is that Brazil had their moments, that they maybe played the game around even after their equalizer. For a team with their aspirations, even against a very good Moroccan opponent, that is a display that merits the tough write-ups it has received.
Change is afoot. Ancelotti confirmed as much, revealing in his pre-match press conference that he had already confirmed the team to his players. Initially floating the idea of four or five changes before laughing that off. "It'll be a bit fewer. I'm not going to say. Those who are going to play already know."
If anyone knows how to deal with selection under a spotlight, it is former Real Madrid, AC Milan and Chelsea boss Ancelotti. And yet, one wonders if even the most intense of those club jobs compares with the external pressure placed on any coach trying to lead Brazil to the hexa, that sixth World Cup triumph that the nation has waited for since 2002.
In years gone by a 19-year-old as gaudily talented as Endrick might be in this squad predominantly for experience, filling the Ronaldo or Kaka role of rarely seen talent spoken of in hushed terms by the world's media. Of course, Endrick is a little more experienced than those players were at their first World Cups. He already has 17 caps to his name, but should a teen with barely over 60 senior games in Europe be viewed as someone who might change the course of Brazil's tournament?
"l'll bring Endrick on at the right moment," Ancelotti said. "We'll have to wait a little while. He'll be important in this World Cup. For me, personally, Endrick is an extraordinary talent. Brazil will make the most of his qualities in this World Cup and in the next one too."
At the other end of the age scale lies Neymar. At his peak, he was one of the planet's best footballers, so good that you could reasonably label him one of Brazil's greatest ever. Since returning to boyhood club Santos he ranks 17th in Brazil's Serie A for non-penalty expected goals and expected assists per 90. Twelve goals (three of them penalties) and three assists do not scream man who can save this team. And yet, unless things go exceptionally well against both Haiti and Scotland that might be the role that the Brazilian press thrust on him.
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