Danielle Kurtzleben is a political correspondent assigned to NPR's Washington Desk. She appears on NPR shows, writes for the web, and is a regular on The NPR Politics Podcast. She is covering the 2020 presidential election, with particular focuses on on economic policy and gender politics.
Friday's game, the first of three group stage matches for the U.S., has been eight years in the making as a generation of players has reached their prime just in time for a World Cup on home soil.
FIFA has introduced several changes to the laws of soccer for the World Cup. These include efforts to eliminate time-wasting and to ensure potentially game-changing officiating mistakes are corrected.