The Dallas Cowboys’ home stadium, formally known as AT&T Stadium, but for the purposes of the ongoing FIFA World Cup being played in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, presently known as “Dallas Stadium” made history in Texas-sized fashion on Sunday.
Still months away from when Jerryworld will host American football, Dallas Stadium instead hosted their first ever World Cup football match between the national teams of Japan and the Netherlands. The match ended in a 2-2 tie.
The game was broadcast by a familiar name for Cowboys fans, with FOX using Darren Fletcher and Owen Hargreaves on the call. The Cowboys are scheduled to have nine regular season games on FOX this upcoming season, where perhaps the likes of Kevin Burkhart and Tom Brady will be calling passes from Cowboys QB Dak Prescott to WR CeeDee Lamb.
The last time this exact broadcast duo did so in that exact NFC East matchup from this exact stadium was week seven of last year, a FOX “America’s Game of the Week” the Cowboys won 44-22.
Fletcher and Hargreaves clearly drew inspiration from this and compared a precise pass that led to a Japanese scoring opportunity to an exact moment from this game.
“That might be the best pass they’ve seen in this stadium since Dak Prescot threw a 74-yarder to CeeDee Lamb against the Washington Commanders in Week 7”
– fox
For comparison, here is how Burkhart and Brady sounded on the actual call of Lamb’s first-quarter touchdown, which held up as his longest of the entire season.
Even though Japan did not finish off a goal on this play the same way the Cowboys scored a touchdown for comparison, the precise pass to generate a scoring opportunity is a positive play to put pressure on the opponent. With a completely new-look defense, the Cowboys are hoping their star-studded offense worthy of World Cup broadcast shoutouts can similarly put pressure on teams when they take to this field, instead of playing from behind like they did so often a year ago. If the Cowboys do so, they could put themselves right in the conversation as the Dallas team poised to end “The Drought”.
It is fitting that the Cowboys were mentioned in the way they were with specifically these two teams on the pitch, because they both have their own drought of sorts in the World Cup. Neither country has ever won it, but the Netherlands have been runner-ups three times, most recently in 2010, and finished in third in 2014. Japan has been to the round of 16 four times all since 2002, but never any further.
Their was a lot of synergy on the field when it came to this match and the Dallas Cowboys, and it is really cool to see how even a match not featuring the United States Men’s National Team (the “America’s Team” of the moment, if you will) can still draw ties to the Cowboys – showing why they are also sometimes known as the world’s team at the World Cup.
For the greater cross section of Cowboys fans most interested in when the USMNT will be playing next after a scintillating 4-1 win against Paraguay in their opener, they are in action next on June 19th against Australia from Lumen Field in Seattle. All of the United States’ games in this group stage will actually come at stadiums the Cowboys will also be in this season, beating Paraguay at SoFi Stadium where the Cowboys will play the Rams, set to play Australia on the same field the Seahawks will host the Cowboys at, and then returning to SoFi against Turkey.
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