DOHA, Qatar – The men’s national team of the United States at the World Cup only gave up one goal during its three group stage contests, a penalty that Wales star Gareth Bale converted in the 82nd minute. Then, on Saturday during the knockout round against the Netherlands, it gave up three goals—all of which came naturally—in the course of play.

After having a day to reflect on the defeat that saw the Americans eliminated from the competition, American goalkeeper Matt Turner came on FOX Sports’ “World Cup Live” to share his thoughts on the game and what he and his teammates might have done to potentially change the outcome.

Turner said, “As a goalie, you reflect and ask yourself, ‘Could I have pointed guys in directions a little bit more?'” Little things that we did extremely well in the group stage that maybe the passion of the game got to us, and we all went into a little bit of a shell, were things that I could have flipped the players on so we didn’t concede from a throw-in in stoppage time of the first half.

It’s disappointing, and we do believe that we left something on the table, but you also have to give credit where credit is due. They have some excellent players, and they punished us for our minor errors.

Turner and the Americans will have to wait an additional four years before participating in a match of that stature, whether those errors were brought on by the team’s lack of experience or just their inferior quality to the Netherlands team. Turner claims that until then, his group will utilize their loss to strengthen their bonds.

Turner declared, “I believe we made significant progress. “Overall, we’re happy of what we did, but we’re also disappointed, and that’s also a nice emotion to have — that dissatisfaction; not feeling like what we achieved is enough,” said one of the squad members. “We had confidence that we could compete with some of the best soccer teams in the world, strong belief both from within and from our own country.”

On a brighter note, FIFA Qatar 2022 reaches a record-breaking viewership number

FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 just keeps on captivating television viewers worldwide with record-breaking numbers in numerous markets. 

On Sunday, November 27, the group game between Japan and Costa Rica drew an average audience of 36.37 million people in Japan. This was nearly 10 million more viewers than their amazing comeback against Germany in their tournament opener and was 74% more viewers than the typical domestic group stage audience at the FIFA World Cup in 2018.

11.14 million people in the Korea Republic watched their tournament opener against Uruguay on Thursday, November 24. The broadcast’s TV audience was 97% greater than the average for group stage matches at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil in 2014 and 18% higher than at the FIFA World Cup in Russia in 2018. 

Additionally, a significant number of viewers in Europe have been watching the second round of group stage matches. 

If there is a game that sparked so much excitement and anticipation, it has got to be the one with La Roja vs. Germany on Sunday, November 28, with 65% of Spanish viewers tuning in. The combined audience for coverage on La1 and GOL MUNDIAL was 11.9 million, which surpassed the viewership for any group stage match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

In addition, 4.33 million people, or 68.4% of the Canadian population, watched their crucial match against Croatia on average. This was 12% more than the top combined audience in the region for the 2018 tournament and 17% more than Canada’s opening match. 

The two-time FIFA World Cup champions’ crucial match against Mexico averaged 8.48 million viewers in Argentina, giving them an incredible viewership share of 81.3%. The nation’s television audience for the broadcast was the highest of the competition so far and 5% more than for both their match versus Saudi Arabia and the average viewership for their group stage matches at the FIFA World Cup 2018.