Rick Lund

Father, husband, veteran...and huge USMNT fan.

[Rick Lund @ricklund23]

@LeahRay44 You nailed it with #1. Mexican food trucks are the best (from a biased Californian).

[Vince Langman @LangmanVince]

OMG, listen to the Mexican announcers on team USA's 3rd goal going completely off-script

I haven't laughed this hard in a long time! "Oh my f*cking goodness" 😂

[Nic @ClawForThatInch]

https://t.co/UWgqEzBQRr

[herculez gomez @herculezg]

There is a lot of “Paraguay isn’t very good” talk. Full stop.

Under Alfaro, they lost just once in WCQ and went 9 straight without defeat. They beat URG, Brazil, & Argentina.

They were one of the best defensive teams in the 🌎.

Paraguay isn’t bad.

#USMNT made them look bad.

[Ligue 1 English @Ligue1_ENG]

Folarin Balogun ran the show in USA’s first World Cup 26 match 🇺🇸💥

[JuventusFC 🇬🇧🇺🇸 @juventusfcen]

It's a home World Cup for Weston McKennie and his USMNT teammates, too, and they begin against Paraguay tonight 🇺🇸🆚🇵🇾

Good luck, Wes! 👊

[Bayer 04 Leverkusen @bayer04_en]

🇺🇸 Three points and an assist - Masterclass from Malik as @USMNT beat Paraguay 4-1 for a perfect start to the #WorldCup! 👏

[Fulham Football Club @FulhamFC]

World Cup matchday on home soil. 🇺🇸

We'll be watching, Jedi! 🤍

[AFC Bournemouth 🍒 @afcbournemouth]

A winning start on home soil for @USMNT 📈

Tyler Adams played the full 90 minutes in Los Angeles 🍒

[Henry Bushnell @HenryBushnell]

For eight years, we talked about potential.

And about Friday, June 12, 2026, as the moment this USMNT would have to meet.

On a near-perfect night at SoFi, they met it, and maybe, just maybe, took U.S. men's soccer into a new era.

Column @TheAthletic:

https://t.co/7LbDaRYzim

[SuperiorUSMNT @EinSchwarzwelt]

I've never seen a more dominant USMNT performance at a World Cup level like this btw. To have a team completely sink back, thoroughly exposed to our transitions our through balls and our forwards having their way.

[Bayer 04 Leverkusen @bayer04_en]

Malik is Magic for a reason 😍🇺🇸

[AS Monaco EN 🇲🇨 @AS_Monaco_EN]

He is him 👑🇺🇸

Balogun 🔥

[Crystal Palace F.C. @CPFC]

Our Chris Richards.

He completed all 83 passes he attempted for the @USMNT against Paraguay. The most passes with a 100% accuracy rate by any player in a @FIFAWorldCup match since 1966.

@OptaJack 📊

[Peter Rutzler @peterrutzler]

Gustavo Alfaro, the Paraguay coach, puts defeat down to the "complexity" of the US approach. "They dominated tactically, technically and physically... they create a pentagon in midfield... they have a solution to every problem".

[Guillaume Huin @HuinGuillaume]

There is simply no equivalent to the Fifa World Cup.
Not the Super Bowl. Not the Olympics.

You have ducks wearing soccer jerseys in the streets of Mexico, random German bros like Freddy going full National Geographic mode on X documenting the beating heart of America while South Koreans are wearing sombreros and dancing to Gangnam style in a taqueria.

As a European at heart, seeing people from Germany, Scotland, France, Spain and so many more discovering the endless and exceptional energy that makes this country so beautiful is an unparalleled joy.

As a French living in Chicago, I cannot even explain how happy it makes me to see my US friends finally feel the magnetic power of the World Cup on home soil.

C'est magnifique.

[Nate Silver @NateSilver538]

I know Paraguay, homefield, etc. but that was literally the best half of World Cup soccer for the USMNT in 96 years.

[Gregg Beerholder 🍺 @MLShater]

🍺BEERHOLDER STATEMENT🍺

It’s time to back the fellas. Whoever is on the field, we will support. No more MLS slander. 100% backing this team. We will make history this summer.

It’s us against the World 🇺🇸

[ًًً @_captainpulisic]

“you’re more american if you’re not born over there bc you had the choice to choose and you chose america.” that is so powerful.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. A diner. The waitress asked me how I want my eggs, and my mind went completely blank.

"How do you want your eggs, hon?"

Want. How do I WANT them. No one has ever asked me this. In my land, the egg arrives as the cook decrees, and you thank the egg, the cook, and your ancestors, in that order.

"Scrambled? Over easy? Sunny side up?" she offered, gently, the way one talks a man down from a roof.

The terms did not help. Over easy — over WHAT, easily? Easy for whom? Sunny side up — these people have named an egg after the dawn. Who does that. I needed time.

I have chosen battlefields faster than I chose those eggs.

She refilled my coffee and said she'd come back. It was the second refill. I had been deciding for nine minutes.

The man on the next stool leaned over. "Just say over easy, man. You can't go wrong."

"And if I CAN go wrong?"

"...it's eggs, buddy."

It's eggs. Eight hundred years of my family training itself to want nothing, and this man dismissed all of it with a fork in his hand. He was right. I will never tell him.

"Sunny side up," I declared, with the weight of a man choosing a path for life. "I will face the sun."

"You got it, hon."

The eggs came. Two small suns on a white plate, looking up at me. Golden. Ridiculous. Exactly what I wanted.

So THAT is what wanting feels like. I had to cross an ocean and hold up a breakfast line to learn it.

The man on the next stool got his check and left. "Good choice," he said.

I have never been more proud of anything.

A man does not ask the eggs to be simple. He only becomes a man who knows what he wants.

Tomorrow: over easy. I am almost ready.