Ali Moreno

I think we could make the argument that throughout Mauricio Pochettino's tenure with the national team, that is a valid question.

When have we seen whatever he considers to be the best 11 of the United States play together consistently?

It just hasn't happened.

With this whole idea of culture, the new culture that he was creating within U.S.

soccer and within the national team, that he wanted to open up the pool to these players, to those players, to those guys, and this guy, fine.

But once you're settling on what you think is your best 11, then this guy, to Jermaine's point,

They have to be able to play together, and that just hasn't happened.

Beyond that,

See, I have no issue with Mauricio Pochettino coming out and saying, look, Belgium and Portugal, they have some of the best players in the world, and so they're just simply better than us.

And that is, I think, part of the conversation that you're having, Dan.

But you got to put it into context, because a couple of days earlier, the same guy, Mauricio Pochettino, was talking about how the United States should be making it to the semifinals.

So one thing doesn't match the other.

If you're gonna sell me on the idea that the United States should make a semifinal, then in order for them to make that a reality, they will have to beat teams like Belgium and Portugal.

That's just the reality of a World Cup setting.

As you get further into the competition, you eventually are gonna meet, literally you could possibly meet Belgium, but you are gonna meet teams of this caliber, of this level, and this is not the best version of Belgium.

Let me just say, Jermaine mentioned Belgium back in 2014, that was a better version of this one, but neither here nor there.

The point is, you have Pochettino saying, semifinals is where we should aim,

And then a couple of days later, because you have been humbled by a couple of results and a couple of performances, then you say, well, but these guys are better than us.

So which one is it?

Should we sort of raise our expectations to a semifinal or lower our expectations given the fact that the United States are not nearly as good as these other teams?