USMNT fans have the right to get excited about winning their group. That much is conclusive.
It's also not worth clamoring about the Americans defeating Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Round of 32. Even with the fight from Bosnia in mind and Folarin Balogun's controversial red card, the United States deserved the win.
But anything beyond that? For the moment, let's pump the brakes.
Prior to Wednesday's contest, former New England Revolution forward/MLS on Apple TV commentator Taylor Twellman joined Yahoo! Sports to discuss the USMNT, their path to a potential World Cup Final, and the momentum surrounding the game in the United States.
With regard to the USMNT's path to a potential World Cup Final, Twellman restated how any run to a World Cup title will almost certainly involve Spain, France, and Argentina in the quarterfinals, semifinals, and final, respectively. In doing so, he seemed to quash much of the hype (overhype to some capacity) surrounding the USMNT and expose such opinions as those that "show some ignorance."
And he's right about their knockout round path. Though the Americans secured a 2-0 win over a Bosnia and Herzegovina side that Twellman characterized as "a tough out", "better than Australia in defending", and "tactically smarter than Paraguay", getting through to the last 16 isn't even the hardest part of their knockout round path.
Simply put, Spain only recently won the European Championship, and Argentina won the last edition of the World Cup. And France is led by Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé, both of whom could easily outscore entire teams and then score another few goals for fun.
But before they can even get to those three teams, the USMNT will have to play a Belgium side that looks far better than their 2022 counterparts. They've successfully rallied from each of the two deficits they've faced so far at this World Cup, and they've now scored multiple goals in two consecutive matches.
Striker Romelu Lukaku has found some form in recent games, while others like Youri Tielemans have provided timely contributions for the national team; the latter scored a brace to bring Belgium level in their Round of 32 tie against Senegal before converting the winning penalty deep into extra time.
The USMNT's win over Bosnia and Herzegovina?
It was not only their first knockout round win since Landon Donovan helped catapult the team into the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup, but it also acted as their first win against European opposition since before the 2022 edition.
That's a long run of poor form against European opposition, even for a continental powerhouse like the United States.
And they're going to have to play three European teams just to get to the World Cup final. Considering the above and the fact that the Mauricio Pochettino era of the USMNT hasn't entirely been peaches and cream, it's not that hard to argue that the Americans have a tough run to the place that a good handful of people think the team is headed.
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