Future Of USMNT Looks Bright After Advancing To Olympics Knockout Round For First Time In 24 Years

The US Men's National Team accomplished something on Tuesday that it hadn't since 2000: it advanced to the quarterfinals of the Olympic soccer tournament!

After starting the group stage with a 3-0 loss against France, Team USA followed with a 4-1 win over New Zealand and needed a good result against Guinea to secure its place in the Knockout Stage. 

That didn't prove to be much of a challenge for the American squad, which scored twice in the first 30 minutes in front of… well, a mostly empty stadium. 

The U.S. side just had to hang on the rest of the way, which it did. The team even added a second-half goal for insurance. 

Now, it's important to note that Olympic soccer – on the men's side – is different from Copa América and the World Cup. 

The tournament is basically a U-23 competition (which started in 1992), which is why the American side doesn't feature players like Christian Pulisic. Because this team is, essentially, the USMNT junior team, Gregg Berhalter was never involved. 

So, he wasn't going to coach the squad even if he hadn't been fired earlier this month. Though, mercifully, he was. 

Still, the Olympics haven't been historically kind to the United States men's soccer team. Its best modern result came in 2000, when the Red, White and Blue finished fourth. 

The USMNT finished Olympics group play at 2-0-1 with a win over Guinea on Tuesday, advancing to the Knockout Stage for the first time since 2000. 

(ARNAUD FINISTRE / AFP)

The United States sent two teams to the 1904 Olympics and earned both silver and bronze medals, the only Olympic medals in US soccer history. 

That 2000 Olympics was also the last time the team advanced out of the group stage. In fact, the 2024 Summer Olympics represented just the second time the team even qualified for the Games since 2000 (it was eliminated in the group stage of the 2008 Olympics). 

But advancing this year shows that the future is bright for USMNT. The team obviously has better young players coming up through the pipeline and with Berhalter gone, a new era of USA men's soccer appears to be on the horizon. 

Those are all good signs for a soccer team that has promised to be a player on the international stage for decades, but has never accomplished that goal.

It still hasn't, but things are looking up for the first time in many, many years.