Freeman at 30/1 to Score Again: The Market Has Not Caught Up
Alex Freeman headed USA's second goal at 30/1 anytime; six goals in two games without Pulisic means the R32 price still has room to move.
The headline writers have their angle and you can hardly blame them. Antonio Freeman won two Super Bowls with the Green Bay Packers, caught that one-handed touchdown pass in the 1997 NFC Championship that still does the rounds on social media, and now his son has headed the United States into the last 32 of a home World Cup. It is a warm story. It is also, for our purposes, almost entirely beside the point. The number worth quoting is not the one on the back of the shirt. It is the number that was sitting next to Alex Freeman's name in the anytime scorer market before kick-off: 30/1.
Freeman was a 30/1 shot to score against Australia, according to pre-match lines on Gambling911. Some operators had him as short as 11/1, reflecting the uncertainty about how much defensive involvement a right-sided fullback would have in the final third. What followed was a 43rd-minute header from a Sergino Dest effort that deflected into his path, initially chalked off for offside before VAR confirmed his timing was legal. The goal stood, the crowd at a sold-out Lumen Field erupted, and USA went into half-time 2-0 to the good. They never looked back. The result means Mauricio Pochettino's side are through to the Round of 32, where they will face a third-placed team at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara on 1 July, assuming they hold or improve their position as Group D leaders. That fixture, for now, looks highly manageable. The market agrees, pricing USA as substantial favourites regardless of the third-place opponent drawn against them.
The broader context is important. USA have scored six goals in two group games without Christian Pulisic starting either match. The AC Milan forward has been sidelined with a calf problem and described as day-to-day, meaning the possibility of a fit Pulisic returning for the knockout rounds represents a genuine upside the outright market has not fully absorbed. The hosts shortened from 80/1 before the tournament to around 33/1 after the Australia win, a compression that sounds dramatic until you consider the underlying data: six goals, two clean sheets, the backing of a raucous home crowd, and a bracket path that avoids the tournament's elite sides until at least the quarter-finals. At 33/1, with all that in front of them, this price still has room to shorten. Stake (code MONEYLINE) has USA for the tournament and the R32 match odds available now.
The Freeman story itself is worth unpacking beyond the family narrative. He was listed at 126/1 in the top USA goalscorer market before a ball was kicked, a price that reflects his nominal role as an attacking fullback rather than a primary striker. One goal into the tournament, that price will have compressed sharply. The more relevant market for the R32 is his anytime scorer price in the Santa Clara match, which figures to open somewhere in the range of 7/1 to 9/1, generous territory for a player who has now demonstrated he can arrive late into the box and convert. The Dest assist that set him up was not a fluke; it came from the kind of overlapping run and combination that Pochettino's system actively encourages from the fullback positions. Freeman was in the right place because he had been coached to be in the right place. That tends to repeat.
Folarin Balogun is the other name driving this USA attack. Three goals from his first two World Cup appearances, including a brace against Paraguay, and he is operating as the focal point of an American front line that is pressing higher and faster than anything this nation has produced at a World Cup in a generation. With Pulisic absent, Balogun has become the default threat that opposition defences organise around. Third-placed qualifiers from Groups B, E, F, I or J are not typically equipped to neutralise a striker in this kind of form, playing in front of a raucous crowd in the Bay Area. The anytime scorer price for Balogun in the R32, expected to open around 8/11 to 4/5, represents the clearest value on the board for this USA side right now.
Two picks, then. First: USA to win their Round of 32 match, lined at 1/3 to 2/5 at most operators for a match against a third-placed side, but the more considered play is USA to win by two or more goals, which captures the goal-scoring form and the step down in class the bracket rewards them with. Second: Folarin Balogun anytime scorer in the R32, a prop that opens at approximately 4/5 and has not been dented by the Pulisic absence but enhanced by it. Both picks available with Stake (code MONEYLINE).
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