Fifa World Cup: US reach last 16 as Pulisic strike sinks Iran
- Chelsea winger’s goal just before half-time enough to settle encounter in Doha
- Americans underline growing status with performance that highlights the promise of Greg Berhalter’s young, athletic outfit
The United States secured their spot in the knockout rounds of the World Cup in Qatar, emerging with a 1-0 win from a potentially explosive clash with Carlos Queiroz’s Iran at Al Thumama Stadium in Doha late on Tuesday to set up a last 16 meeting with the Netherlands on Saturday.
Chelsea winger Christian Pulisic scored seven minutes before half-time in a game that lacked any of the enmity between the teams representing nations that have long goaded and confronted one another on the geopolitical stage.
Instead, the Americans underlined their growing status within the global game with a performance that left Iran in their wake for much of the 90 minutes and underlined the promise of Greg Berhalter’s young, athletic outfit.
After draws against Wales and England in their opening games, the US – one of the youngest squads in the competition – finished the group with five points and will take on the Dutch, while the Iranians nurse broken hearts after missing out again on a place in the knockout rounds.
Team Melli were appearing at a sixth World Cup finals and, as in the previous five appearances, the country has failed to reach the knockout rounds, despite luring Queiroz back for a third World Cup finals in September and a final crack at the last 16.
The countries had faced one another before at the World Cup, the game at Al Thumama Stadium a rerun of the meeting in Lyon’s Stade de Gerland in France in 1998 when the Iranians emerged 2-1 winners from a clash fraught with prematch political tensions.
Twenty-four years ago neither nation progressed to the knockout rounds. In Qatar, much more was at stake, with Iran needing only to draw to advance while the Americans were looking for a win to go through for the first time since 2014.
There were none of the niceties that punctuated the prematch ceremonies from the previous World Cup meeting, when the teams posed for photographs together and the Iranians handed bouquets of white flowers to the Americans. This was strictly business.
