After a disappointing opening performance at the 2024 Olympic Games, a 3-0 battering at the hands of Thierry Henry's France, the USMNT rebounded brilliantly with a 4-1 thrashing of New Zealand in their second group stage game.
As a result, they have now set themselves up to advance to the knockouts with a victory against Guinea Tuesday afternoon - and while there are multiple scenarios in which a draw would suffice, it's academic if they win. It's a very simple formula for the U.S. squad: win and you're in.
The top two of each group advance to the knockout stages so the victory over New Zealand put the U.S. - should they beat Guinea - in position of making the knockouts, where they'd face a team in Group B which contains Iraq, Argentina, Morocco, and Ukraine.
Reflecting on the surprisingly high-scoring effort against New Zealand, USMNT's Walker Zimmerman said, "We had to get off to a good start, a fast start, because every goal matters here. It's kind of do or die time, and we knew it would come down to the start that we had. ... Being up at the half 3-0 was probably inspiration from the women's team. We saw they could do it, we wanted to join in on the fun."
From Paxten Aaronson and Griffin Yow in the attack to Gianluca Busio in the midfield, GOAL takes a look at five things the USMNT can do to ensure they advance out of the group stage, and make this first Olympics appearance since 2008 something special.