US stars relish football’s primetime moment against Bosnia

LOS ANGELES: Football has made astounding progress in America in recent years, but the United States players know the spotlight on Wednesday’s knockout clash against Bosnia and Herzegovina will be by far the brightest yet.

Up to 30 million Americans are expected to tune in for the primetime game in the San Francisco Bay Area, as Christian Pulisic and his teammates seek the nation’s first knockout win in almost a quarter-century.

“Everyone knows in the back of our minds what this could do for this country,” said US midfielder Gio Reyna.

“We feel the country rallying around us. We see the momentum it’s bringing to the sport in this country, just through the group stage. But we also understand if we make a nice run in this tournament, what it could really do for the sport.”

For all their improvement, the US still have just one knockout win in World Cup history. That 2-0 victory over Mexico at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea took place in the middle of the night for most Americans.

By contrast, the Bosnia game kicks off at 5pm local – 8pm on the East Coast – and comes after US group games smashed TV ratings records, with 25 million watching the co-hosts’ opener against Paraguay.

The 30 million figure predicted by Fox Sports analyst Michael Mulvihill would put the Bosnia match above nearly every regular-season game in the stratospherically popular NFL, and comfortably clear of baseball’s World Series and basketball’s NBA Finals.

But for captain Tim Ream, more important than the audience numbers is the impact his team are already having on American kids’ passion for football.

“Everybody’s talking about, ‘my son’s now picking up a soccer ball for the first time, and he’s taking it to a restaurant’, or ‘he’s out in the park’, or ‘he just wants to go out in the backyard,’or, ‘my daughter’s doing this because of watching you guys play’.

“I think it’s those moments that are the most special. But I think the whole thing just has been incredible.”

Football’s encroachment on a country where sports fans usually spend their summers watching baseball or following NFL off-season trade rumours has been noticed in other ways by the players too.

Stars including Tyler Adams have been guests on the Pat McAfee Show, a hugely popular sports talk show that typically ignores football, but has been giving extensive coverage to US victories.

“A lot of the players being interviewed and a lot of the highlights being shown on that show, it doesn’t happen often. I watch that show a lot,” said Reyna.

“You just see the watch parties, you see all the stuff being written about it, you see the athletes, the celebrities watching – it’s just cool to see everybody really tuned in and focused.”

‘Win-or-go-home’

To keep the good vibes going, the US players know they need to win.

While they would be underdogs if they reach later rounds, the US are favourites in the last-32 match against a Bosnian team who are playing in their first-ever knockout, and are likely to defend deep.

Though Bosnia are the third-lowest ranked team left in the World Cup, they eliminated Italy to reach the tournament.

The US have lost their last 10 straight games against European opponents, and the players have watched as traditional powers Germany and the Netherlands were eliminated early this week.

“We’ve seen in the knockouts so far, there hasn’t been an easy game for anyone, so we’re not expecting an easy game at all,” Pulisic told Fox Sports on Tuesday.

For Reyna, as enjoyable as all the attention has been, “we are pretty much just focused on each game in front of us at this moment, as it is win-or-go-home.”

He added: “Obviously, that’s our main focus, but, like I said before, we know what this tournament could have as an impact on this country going forward with the sport.”