SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 The U.S. national soccer team advanced to the knockout round at the\u00a0World Cup<\/a>\u00a0despite\u00a0the absence of injured forward Christian Pulisic<\/a>, beating Australia 2-0 on Friday.<\/p>\n A deep U.S. roster overcame Pulisic\u2019s absence to clinch a knockout berth after only two matches for the first time. The last time the Americans served as World Cup hosts in 1994, they advanced by being one of the best third-place teams. They then lost to eventual champion Brazil in their next match, which was in the round of 16.<\/p>\n Pulisic, who plays for AC Milan and has 33 goals in 87 international appearances, missed Friday\u2019s match because of a calf injury.<\/p>\n Alex Freeman,\u00a0the youngest player on the team at 21 and son of Super Bowl champion Antonio Freeman<\/a>, gave the Americans a 2-0 lead in the 43rd minute off a set piece. Freeman headed in a deflected shot by Sergi\u00f1o Dest for his first career World Cup goal. The goal was confirmed after a video review.<\/p>\n The U.S. took a 1-0 lead in the 11th minute after a run down the left sideline by\u00a0Folarin Balogun<\/a>, who scored two goals\u00a0in the 4-1 victory over Paraguay on June 12<\/a>.<\/p>\n Balogun directed a centering pass towards striker Ricardo Pepi, who started in place of Pulisic. The ball never reached Pepi, deflecting off Australia defender Cameron Burgess and into the Socceroos\u2019 net for an own-goal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 The U.S. national soccer team advanced to the knockout round at the\u00a0World Cup\u00a0despite\u00a0the absence of injured forward<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_animmysite_disable_animation":false,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/gray-kcrg-prod.gtv-cdn.com\/resizer\/v2\/N5ZI4662UBGMDPLZANELGTTGLI.jpg?auth=c5a6baae65b597df5bf0c2ecc11bb84d4f8322a606ecc2a5b114303c8993a031&width=1200&height=600&smart=true","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"United](\"https:\/\/gray-kcrg-prod.gtv-cdn.com\/resizer\/v2\/ALCYB6MUAZFVTJ4JPXBXK3I37E.jpg?auth=cd570196eb424fb272f7a9698f8f98abfb953d4744d86ea38b44307efa59c68c&width=980&height=653&smart=true\" "\\"\\"")
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