FRANK’S CUTTING ROOM FLOOR FOR FRIDAY, 6/12:

My “Cutting Room Floor” plays are the situations I considered the closest to being worthy of investment but did not make the “final cut” for my official plays today for subscribers. The last play I cut for Frida is with Paraguay plus the goal-line versus the USMNT in Group D action of the World Cup. Paraguay is a serious threat — and both the ELO and Nate Silver’s world ranking systems place them higher than the Stars and Stripes. The ELO ranking system emphasizes actual results versus expected results against the quality of opposition — they rank Paraguay as the 22nd best team in the world, 17 slots head of the USA at 39th in the world. Silver developed his Soccer Power Index for the 2014 World Cup using metrics similar to his PECOTA system, which he developed for baseball sabermetrics and then later for predicting political election results. Silver updated his SPI methodology for this World Cup — and his new PELE formula rates Paraguay as 23rd in the world, six slots ahead of Team USA at 29th in the world. Not only did Los Guaranies upset the 2022 World Cup champions, Argentina, in World Cup qualifiers, but they also managed to earn draws against Brazil and Colombia. If Arsenal great Thierry Henry admitted he was nervous in his first match for Paris Saint-Germain when France was the host nation for the 1998 World Cup, I expect this young Stars and Stripes group to be very anxious to not let the packed stadium outside Los Angeles and the monstrous anticipated television audience — and this should negatively impact their execution. The USMNT’s defense has been leaky lately. Their last clean sheet was a 2-0 victory against Japan in a friendly on September 9th — and they conceded goals in each of their next eight matches. Supporters seem to be treating a 2-1 loss to Germany in their most recent friendly on June 6th as a moral victory — but manager Mauricio Pochettino’s squad has lost three of their four matches in 2026. The USA is on upset alert — and both managers would not mind at all off this match ends in a draw. Take Paraguay plus the goal-line. Best of luck — Frank.

Frank Sawyer’s 8 of 11 (73%) Soccer run continued by CA$HING the Mexico-South Africa Under yesterday to begin his fifth World Cup as a serious handicapper (serious: conclusions from evaluating evidence detailed in his report versus hot takes coming from vibes) to further his 26 of 40 (65%) Soccer streak! Frank is now on a 12 of 17 (71%) World Cup run — and he furthers his 20 of 31 (65%) WORLD CUP TOTALS TEAR with the Paraguay-USMNT O/U winner on Fox-TV at 9:00 PM ET! WATCH and WIN — and BANK on Frank!

At 9:00 PM ET on Friday, we will be playing Under the Total in the match between Paraguay (225237) and the United States Men’s National Team (225238) in Group D action. THE SITUATION: Paraguay (W0-D0-L0) reached the World Cup with a W7-D7-L4 record in CONMEBOL’s World Cup qualifying stage. The USMNT (W0-D0-L0) automatically qualified for the 2026 World Cup as one of the three host nations. This match will be played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. 

REASONS TO TAKE UNDER THE TOTAL: The hype is finally over for the American team as they take the pitch tonight in this summer event that has been highly anticipated the moment after they lost in the Knockout Stage of the 2022 World Cup to the Netherlands by a 3-1 score. If Arsenal great Thierry Henry admitted he was nervous in his first match for Paris Saint-Germain when France was the host nation for the 1998 World Cup, I expect this young Stars and Stripes group to be very anxious to not let the packed stadium outside Los Angeles and the monstrous anticipated television audience — and this should negatively impact their execution on offense. And then there is the chemistry issue between starting striker Folarin Balogun and attacking midfielder Christian Pulisic. While “Captain America” is already being hailed as the greatest American soccer player ever, the dirty little secret is that Balogun may have already surpassed him with his talents after a strong professional season for Monaco. Pulisic needs to be more of a facilitator to the team’s #9 forward. Besides, Pulisic has been a massive scoring slump. He went 19 professional matches in a row without scoring for AC Milan — his last goal was on December 28th for that Serie A side. It was only in the USMNT’s friendly against Senegal on May 31st when Pulisic finally snapped his five-month scoring drought — he had not scored in eight straight matches for the Stars and Stripes going back to November of 2024. Admittedly, the Americans’ defense has been leaky in 2026. Their last clean sheet was a 2-0 victory against Japan in a friendly on September 9th — and they conceded goals in each of their next eight matches. But those were all friendlies with manager Mauricio Pochettino having the luxury to schedule elite competition given the automatic qualification for this tournament — so conceding goals to sides like Germany, Senegal, Portugal, Belgium, and Uruguay is not as much of an indictment. Pochettino could also use those matches to experiment. His tactical maneuver to deploy three center backs in his back line has been fruitful — and that formation allows for his left and right back to fall to that defensive line if needed. While a victory is what all the American backers want, Pochettino knows that getting at least a draw is essential — so I suspect he will appreciate the emotional energy of the moment and deploy cautious tactics. Paraguay is a serious threat — and both the ELO and Nate Silver’s world ranking systems place them higher than the Stars and Stripes. The ELO ranking system emphasizes actual results versus expected results against the quality of opposition — they rank Paraguay as the 22nd best team in the world, 17 slots head of the USA at 39th in the world. Silver developed his Soccer Power Index for the 2014 World Cup using metrics similar to his PECOTA system, which he developed for baseball sabermetrics and then later for predicting political election results. After selling his 538.com website to the New York Times and then selling out his political predictive methodologies to Peter Thiel, he had enough time on his hands to modify his old SPI (that he probably no longer owns the proprietary rights of) in developing a new system he is coyly labeling as PELE. Tangent aside, Silver’s new PELE formula rates Paraguay as 23rd in the world, six slots ahead of Team USA at 29th in the world. We’ll see how accurate it is (he has not gotten much right this last decade) — but, duly noted that Paraguay presents a stiff challenge. Not only did Los Guaranies upset the 2022 World Cup champions, Argentina, in World Cup qualifiers, but they also managed to earn draws against Brazil and Colombia. Paraguay will not be intimidated — and if styles make fights, this one will be a slog. La Albirroja deploys a pragmatic 4-4-2 formation that is cautious in attack. They are committed and confident in their defensive identity — they possessed the ball just 23% of the time in their upset victory against Argentina last year and just 29% of the time in their draw against Brazil. Paraguay only lost once in their final 12 World Cup qualifying matches — and they surrendered only 10 goals in those 18 matches. They held 16 of those opponents to one goal or less — and ten of those matches were clean sheets. On the other hand, they only scored 14 goals in those 18 matches — and they got blanked nine times. Since manager Gustavo Alfaro took over, Paraguay has allowed only seven goals in those 12 matches with seven clean sheets.

FINAL TAKE: These two teams happened to play in a friendly on November 15th last fall. Some bettors may see the 2-1 score and expect another higher-scoring match. Sophisticated soccer handicappers consider the deeper metrics for context. The USMNT managed only three big chances (Big Chance: an expected Goal probability of at least 35% given the location of the pitch from where the shot is taken) while Paraguay only had one Big Chance. The three combined goals scored came from those Big Chances, which is an outlier since those were not 100% expected outcomes. Team USA managed only 1.22 expected Goals (xG) for the entire match, while Paraguay generated 0.96 xG. With the stakes and pressure much higher now, I suspect those xG numbers will not be higher tonight — which should fare well versus Totals of 2.5. 20* World Cup Paraguay-USMNT Fox-TV O/U Special with Under the Total in the match between Paraguay (225237) and the United States Men’s National Team (225238). Best of luck for us — Frank.