USA through — but they scared themselves first

The hosts wobble, then hold firm

There were moments when the USMNT gave themselves a genuine fright — Bosnia-Herzegovina arriving at this tournament with enough quality to make any co-host uncomfortable. The Americans did not always look like a side playing with the freedom of a home crowd behind them. They looked, at times, like a side acutely aware of what failure would mean.

But football does not reward anxiety — it rewards goals, and the United States found two of them. A 2-0 scoreline is a clean sheet and a cushion. It is the kind of result that gets smoothed over in the history books, the nervy passages quietly edited out by the time the knockout rounds begin.

What it means for the co-host story

The United States join Canada and Mexico in the last 16 — completing a clean sweep for the three co-hosts that the tournament organisers could not have scripted better. It adds a layer of continental pride to a competition that was always going to carry enormous symbolic weight for North American football.

For the USMNT specifically, the pressure was unlike anything this generation of players had faced. A home World Cup, a nation increasingly invested in the sport, and the knowledge that an early exit would have cast a long shadow over the tournament's legacy on US soil. They did not exit early. The dream is still very much alive.

The United States will face whatever the Round of 16 brings with a clean sheet on the board and a crowd that will be louder than anything Bosnia-Herzegovina could have prepared for. Whether they wobbled or not — and they did, a little — they are still standing.