By Tim Stannard

1) US fail to ‘Putin’ performance for Russia to see World Cup woe

Well, that didn’t exactly go to plan.

For the USMNT to fail to qualify for the 2018 World Cup completely – not even make the playoffs, the playoffs! – took a spectacular series of events to ensure that there will be 22 Americans who won’t be up to any kind of activity in Russia in the near future. Very much bucking a national trend it seems. 

Bruce Arena’s men played their game against Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday night with all the enthusiasm of someone heading for a root canal op, while Panama and Honduras played their respective matches against Costa Rica and Mexico with the same level of determination as Cristiano Ronaldo making a beeline to a mirror. Hence, one defeat for the Americans and two wins for their CONCACAF rivals sees Panama joining Mexico and Costa Rica at next year’s finals with Honduras playing off against Australia.

Wednesday is likely to see Bruce Arena potentially stepping down – the coach admitted his job was to get the USMNT to Russia – pressurr on US Soccer president, Sunil Gulati to resign and an awful lot of Twitter action with gardening talk of grassroots reform and root and branch examinations of why the US cannot find eleven men to score either the same amount of goals or even more than a Caribbean island off the coast of Venezuela.

Tune into the XTRA on Wednesday at 7PM ET / 4PM PT for the latest news as the sports bars of the USA lament a summer of missed daytime drinking. Aside from some Panamanians.

2) One man show from Messi ends Argentina agony

Make that Argentineans with gallons of beer, too. 

The Albiceleste proved to be a one-man team once again. But fortunately, that one man is Leo Messi and the Barca man delivered for his country with Messi digging out a hattrick to beat Ecuador 3-1. "Football owed Messi the World Cup," beamed team coach, Jorge Sampaoli, ahead of a summer for his overburdened charge spent carrying his country on his back from one end of Argentina to the other.

Argentina made a late dash into third. Uruguay secured second, Colombia eked fourth and Peru grabbed the play-off spot which will see the team facing New Zealand in a Pacific Ocean derby, with just the 6,818 miles between the two countries. 

The big losers on the night were the rapidly disintegrating Copa America holders, Chile, who were thrashed by Brazil to see the nation out of the World Cup and manager, Juan Antonio Pizzi, set to step down. 

Tune into the XTRA from 7PM ET / 4PM PT where Uruguay legend, Diego Forlan, will be looking back at a wild night in South America as well as the hot issues currently burning in La Liga. 

3) Ronaldo ensures a summer spent in Russia 

Over in Europe, Portugal ensured that the Ronaldo v Messi battle will go into another World Cup after a win over Switzerland that sees the Atlantic outfit heading to Russia as group winners. 

The Netherlands were the big losers of the night by finishing third in their group to see Arjen Robben retire from international football. “Better times are coming,” promised the cutting-in-from-the-right-winger. 

France also secured top spot in their respective group to ensure that some hugely talented players can massively underachieve next summer. 

4) Kyrgios fined after another tennis tantrum

It’s been a while since Nick Kyrgios has graced the Sports Burst pages. 

But the fiery Australian is back after receiving a punishment for simply walking off court and giving up on his first-round game at the Shanghai Masters. After going one set down against opponent Steve Johnson. Kyrgios later blamed a stomach bug but that did not stop him forfeiting the first-round prize money or receiving a $10,000 fine. 

A year ago, at the same tournament the Australian was fine $50,000 banned from the ATP tour for a lack of effort. If tennis rules were implement into US soccer, it could get quite expensive for some of the players. 

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The life philosophy of Sports Burst is that if you are not upsetting someone, then you are not trying hard enough. SB is a daily trawl and troll through the morning's sports news to bring you fact-nuggets to make you both smile and swear. Hopefully at the same time.