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USMNT at the World Cup - The United States dominated Paraguay in their opener with a 4-1 win last night. Paraguay might not seem strong from that match, but this team qualified out of South America with wins over Argentina and Brazil.

My world football/soccer rankings take margin of victory in matches and adjusts for strength of schedule with my algorithms at The Power Rank. With the importances of World Cup matches and a relatively small sample size of matches since 2022, the USMNT rose from 32nd to 25th based on last night's performance.

I'm still cautious about expecting the United States to get past the Round of 16. Let's see how they perform against a solid Turkey team in their last group stage match.

Match predictions based on these rankings are available on the public part of The Power Rank.

NBA player prop - San Antonio rookie Dylan Harper has excelled in the playoffs, and the market has adjusted. In the last 5-Nugget Saturday, Harper over 12.5 points won in Game 3, and the market has moved to 14.5 points for this Saturday's Game 5.

However, there is still value in another Harper player prop, as he has averaged 6.8 rebounds in this series. Harper only had 4 rebounds in his last game, but this was his first time under 5.5 in since Game 5 against the Thunder, arguably when he was fully recovered from the groin injury that lowered his minutes earlier in that series.

There is value in Dylan Harper over 5.5 rebounds, -144 at FanDuel.

Best defensive team at the World Cup - I've been building a player based model based on the ratings at FC 26, the video game from EA Sports. I use attributes like defensive awareness and strength for each player on defense, and then sum up these defensive ratings for the starters on each international team.

France stands out as the top defensive team, as they rate two points better than the next best team. Surprisingly, the highest rated defensive player is not center back William Saliba or midfielder N'Golo Kante but right back Joules Kounde.

Of the remaining nine teams with top market odds to win the World Cup, two points separates all eight of these teams. There isn't much difference between Brazil at the top of this group and Belgium and England at the bottom.

Texas Tech football - Despite betting on his own team, QB Brendan Sorsby might play this season after a judge granted an injunction. The entire college sports world has exploded because of this ruling, so we will see if he actually takes a snap this season.

However, Bill Connelly of ESPN thinks Texas Tech wins the Big Ten even without Sorsby. They bring back two RBs in Cameron Dickey and J'Koby Williams who combined for almost 2,000 rush yards last season and an excellent offensive line. The defense lost its two best players in edge David Bailey and LB Jacob Rodriguez but reloaded with another class of stellar transfers.

Bill's preseason model has Texas Tech 7th with Sorsby, and they do not play the next three best Big 12 teams (BYU 18th, Utah 24th, Kansas State 29th). Texas Tech should probably suspend Sorsby and then get the last laugh with a Big 12 title.

Follow Bill Connelly for his preseason college football models and previews of teams.

International soccer humor - Comedian Geoffrey Asmus puts Ohio State vs Michigan in perspective: "You know in European soccer Serbia plays Croatia? You know in the 90's the Serbians tried to kill every Croatian person." Highly recommend all 1:45 of this clip, especially for the intelligent, history buff.

Level up your football betting game

Members of The Power Rank have access to three futures World Cup bets, and I will post more bets during the World Cup.

The primary focus for members is the NFL and college football. To learn more, click here:

https://thepowerrank.com/become-a-member/