Swansenreport

The U.S. men’s national team beat Australia 2-0 in Seattle on Friday, punching its ticket to the World Cup knockout rounds with a game still left on the group-stage schedule. Notable: it’s the first time since 1930 the Americans have won back-to-back World Cup matches.

They did it without Christian Pulisic, who sat out with a calf injury. Didn’t seem to matter. An own goal off Cameron Burgess put the U.S. up early, and Alex Freeman — son of former NFL receiver Antonio Freeman — headed in his first World Cup goal off a deflected Sergiño Dest shot for the second.

The U.S. doesn’t have Group D locked up outright yet. A draw against Türkiye on Thursday gets it done and sends the team to Santa Clara for a round-of-32 matchup against a third-place finisher.

For a program that’s spent decades measuring itself against “did we even get out of the group,” winning consecutive matches for the first time in nearly a century is the kind of stat that’s easy to skip past and shouldn’t be.

Sources: ESPN, CNN, Fox News