The USMNT's ongoing quest for a dependable, goalscoring No. 9 took a dramatic turn on Wednesday with the release of the Nations League squad: the World Cup trio of Jesús Ferreira, Josh Sargent and Haji Wright were all omitted while Daryl Dike and Ricardo Pepi got call ups.
West Brom may have only finished Saturday’s EFL Championship game with 30% possession, but that’s all they needed after two early Daryl Dike goals vs Middlesbrough was enough for a 2-0 victory.
Dike’s pair of goals came just two minutes apart as he bested fellow American goalkeeper Zack Steffen in the 8th and 10th minute.
The first goal for Dike came at the end of a great sequence of passes from West Brom. His darting run into the middle gave him enough space to slip the ball past Steffen.
Daryl Dike played the full 90 minutes of a game for the first time on Saturday since Orlando City’s playoff defeat to Nashville on Nov. 24, 2021. Various injuries have sidelined the 22-year-old talent for roughly a season and a half.
West Brom came back from two goals down to defeat Luton Town 3-2 on Saturday. Dike’s team couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start after conceding twice in the opening 10 minutes. The Oklahoma-native got the Baggies back into it with a goal in the 39th minute.
West Brom's incredible renaissance under Spanish manager Carlos Corberán continued Monday with a 1-0 victory over Reading courtesy of Daryl Dike's goal in the 60th minute.
After missing a large portion of the start of the season with a thigh injury, the 22-year-old American striker enjoyed his longest outing of the Championship season (66 minutes) and scored his second goal in eight games.
⚽️ West Bromwich 1-0 Reading FC
GOAL | 60' Darly Dike ⚽️Send Like ve RT for more audience !
FBref.com last week published a map of its most-viewed soccer teams by state in 2022 and the results show the incredibly varied interests across the United States.
Across the 50 states there were teams represented from the English Premier League, MLS, La Liga, USL, NWSL, the EFL Championship, the English fifth-tier National League – and the U.S. national team.
“There were definitely some surprises,” Jonah Gardner, product marketing manager for FBref, told The18 in an email.
Men's club football is slowly returning with the World Cup ending Sunday, and the first signs of life are in the EFL Championship.
One man who's clearly benefited from the break is 22-year-old American Daryl Dike. The start of his 2022-23 campaign with West Brom was a 12-minute substitute appearance on opening day, and then he missed the next 19 matches with a thigh injury.
The United States men’s national team begins its World Cup campaign against Wales in just over a week and it’s still not clear who will start at the striker position. Josh Sargent helped his case for the starting role after scoring in Norwich City’s final game before the World Cup break on Saturday.
Norwich lost 2-1 to Middlesbrough on Saturday with the lone goal for the Canaries coming from Sargent. In the seventh minute he slotted in a shot past fellow American goalkeeper Zack Steffen to open the scoring.
In three weeks, the USMNT begins its World Cup campaign in Qatar. Much is still to be decided for the final roster — especially at the goalkeeper position.
During the September international break (with Zack Steffen omitted as a precautionary measure as he recovered from injury), Matt Turner started against Japan and Saudi Arabia. Turner had a strong showing against Japan, and was arguably the top American performer that day, before having little to do in a dull match versus the Saudis in Spain.
If I had a nickel for every time an EFL Championship match had a goal that was too big, I'd have two nickels — which isn't a lot, but it's weird it's happened twice.
For the second weekend in a row, a Championship match had a delayed start as one goal was larger than the other, again by two inches. This time, the inconsistency occurred in Kingston upon Hull, where Hull City hosted Birmingham City. Referee Leigh Doughty noticed the issue during his pre-match check.
I've played on long fields, short fields, skinny fields, wide fields. Fields with metal fencing as the net and fields so hilly you could barely see from one goal to another. In high school, the inauguration of our newly-turfed home field was even delayed because movable goals were brought in instead of anchored ones.
But never have I heard of the goals being two different sizes — as was the case at Saturday's EFL Championship match between Wigan Athletic and Cardiff City.