Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba is set for talks with manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer this week, while Romelu Lukaku wants his future resolved before the squad leave for their preseason tour, sources have told ESPN FC.

Pogba is scheduled to appear at the adidas store in New York on Tuesday afternoon before flying back to Manchester to begin preseason training.

- When does the transfer window close?

It will be the first time the France international has spoken to Solskjaer face-to-face since suggesting he wants a "new challenge" amid interest from Real Madrid and Juventus.

Solskjaer is keen to keep Pogba at Old Trafford and, according to sources, will attempt to convince the 26-year-old to stay.

The midfielder has three years left on his contract and has been told the club are under no pressure to sell.

Lukaku, meanwhile, is keen on a move to Inter Milan but in the absence of an acceptable bid from the Serie A side will be expected to fly to Australia with the rest of Solskjaer's squad on July 7.

The striker has indicated to the club he wants a clearer picture of his future before the flight to Perth.

United are scheduled to face Inter in Singapore on July 20.

Lukaku and Jesse Lingard reported back early to Carrington to Monday despite being given extra time off after taking part in June internationals.

All senior players are expected back this week with the exception of Alexis Sanchez, who is still involved in the Copa America with Chile.

Solskjaer, according to sources, will use training this week to finalise his squad for the preseason tour of Australia, Singapore, Shanghai and Norway.

Youngsters Dylan Levitt, Ethan Hamilton, Angel Gomes, Tahith Chong, Mason Greenwood and James Garner were all part of the senior squad on Monday but have not yet been told whether they will fly to Perth on Sunday.

PARIS -- To win one of the most anticipated games in its history, the United States women's national team ditched any artistry on a sweltering night in Paris. Megan Rapinoe scored two opportunistic goals, and the U.S. erected its barricade against a French team -- willed on by tens of thousands of fans -- that tried to break through.

The Americans entrusted their fate to a defensive effort led by the least known among the star-studded starting lineup. First with four defenders, and then with five in front of the goalkeeper, the Americans withstood surge after surge in a 2-1 win.

It wasn't necessarily beautiful, but it was glorious.

"I haven't seen too many pretty games in the World Cup, I'll be honest with you," U.S. coach Jill Ellis said afterward. "It's hard. It's really hard."

Against an opponent whose recent goal-scoring prowess in the rivalry meant it was as responsible as any team in reducing the Americans' back line to a question mark entering the World Cup, that line's answer was emphatic. Abby Dahlkemper, Crystal Dunn, Kelley O'Hara and Becky Sauerbrunn fit together Friday like a group peaking at the right time. For the line and its leader, this was affirmation.

"In a World Cup, I think you need to be able to win pretty and win dirty," said Becky Sauerbrunn, the defensive conductor who has made 162 career appearances. "And sometimes you just have to put in a hard shift. Tonight was one of those nights where we put in a hard shift."

For the past three years, the U.S. had tried to assemble a team to compete with the direction the sport is moving in. The Americans, along with the other teams that make up the rest of this year's World Cup semifinals, have emphasized a wealth of attacking options and emerging midfield talent. The U.S. produced a different look than it did four years ago, when the eventual champions put together a shutout streak of more than 500 minutes during the World Cup.

• Why USWNT-France quarterfinal match really did feel like 'final before the final'

• Megan Rapinoe scores twice to lead USWNT past France

• Megan Rapinoe's greatest heartbreak, and hope

That team only grudgingly shed a conservative approach midway through the tournament, still a point of criticism for many with Ellis. This team always placed the back line in more peril -- asked to cover more ground and react quicker, even as opposing attacks grew more sophisticated.

"It's so much more not focused on where the ball is and focused on where my teammates are," Sauerbrunn said before the World Cup. "Before, we were defending a little bit farther back, so everything was staying in front of me, and I didn't have a lot of space behind. But now, we're expected to press as high as possible, so I have to take care of the 60 yards behind me, which is just a different game."

That was less the case Friday night. The challenge against France was more concentrated. Kadidiatou Diani, Eugenie Le Sommer and Amel Majri were in the U.S. end for much of the night. It was about keeping them from rolling up the American flanks. It was keeping track of Amandine Henry and Gaetane Thiney in the middle.

England is scarcely less dangerous, especially coming off a comprehensive win against Norway. But there will be more moments of high pressure from the U.S. There will be more moments like a telling one in the 16th minute against France, when O'Hara got caught up the field after a heavy first touch. The sight of both Majri and Le Sommer running free down the left side shifted the remaining three defenders over.

Majri passed to Valerie Gauvin at the top of the 18-yard box, and Gauvin's beautiful quick turn should have opened her up for a clean shot. Instead, Sauerbrunn read the turn and blocked the shot that then skittered harmlessly back toward midfield.

"It shouldn't feel like a high-wire act," Sauerbrunn said this spring. "When Jill first introduced this idea of high pressure, it did feel like a high-wire act, that I was exposed. And that's just because we hadn't figured everything else out. You can't really just teach high pressure as a whole; it has to be line from line. We started with the front line, we did the midfield line, and [then] we really focused on the back line and how you pressure, what's expected, what spaces you protect."

So much of what the U.S. is defensively starts with Sauerbrunn. Overshadowed by her own teammates with bigger public personas and overshadowed at her own position by the player she went up against Friday night, Wendie Renard, she has been as good a defender as there is in the world for most of this decade.

"I can't articulate how good of a player she is, and how much of a presence she brings -- not only to the back line, but to the field," O'Hara said during this tournament. "Her leadership, consistency, kind of just steely nerves, I love playing with her.

"I don't think she gets as much respect or attention as she should."

And she was the constant in all the change over the past three years. Including goalkeeper, where Alyssa Naeher replaced Hope Solo, Sauerbrunn is the only person from the back five in the 2015 World Cup or 2016 Olympics who is still starting in the same role. Julie Ertz shifted to the midfield, replaced by Dahlkemper. Dunn and O'Hara replaced Meghan Klingenberg and Ali Krieger as the first-choice outside backs.

Yet, even that group of defenders started together just four times in 11 warm-up games this year because of injuries to various members. If there is continuity, it is largely down to Sauerbrunn.

Ellis changed up the captaincy a year ago, shifting from Sauerbrunn and Lloyd to Lloyd, Rapinoe and Alex Morgan. Ellis said this spring that the move was simply about "investing in additional leadership" and not a reflection on Sauerbrunn. For her part, Sauerbrunn said that as much as wearing the armband is an honor, not having it doesn't diminish her voice.

Those who play closest to her seem to agree.

"I feel like she is somebody that it doesn't matter who she is playing next to," Dunn said. "She is going to give you that confidence to be at your best."

That is quite a journey for someone who didn't have much confidence in herself growing up, let alone the surplus needed to instill it in others. The national team is a collection of personalities. Tobin Heath thinks about soccer as art. Christen Press ponders the philosophical conundrum of defining happiness through competition. Rapinoe speaks her mind. The unifying theme isn't that they embraced a uniform outlook as they progressed through soccer, but that they embraced their own identity. Even if that's a bookworm at a position that demands vocal leadership.

Likely the team's most voracious reader, Sauerbrunn still loves to escape to the science fiction and fantasy worlds of the books she prefers -- theater companies traveling across a postapocalyptic landscape or con artists in an alien world. But she also increasingly shapes the world she inhabits, on the field with teammates or off the field as one of the voices in the fight for equal pay.

"As I've gotten older, I've gotten so much more comfortable in my own skin," Sauerbrunn said. "I've embraced that I am introverted and I do need time away from people. And that I am a little weird, and that's fine. I love being weird. That's also shown itself on the field, that I feel more confident out there and I can brush off mistakes a lot easier than I used to.

"I feel good and secure enough to tell people where I feel they need to be to make sure the team is doing the right thing."

The U.S. needed both of its goals to get through to the semifinals. It needed Rapinoe to again seize the moment. But it says something that the photo she chose to post on her Instagram feed the morning after was the embrace she shared with Sauerbrunn after the final whistle.

Or that among comments was one from Dahlkemper with double goat emojis for two of the greatest of all time.

"One of the biggest things that I've noticed, that I've come to really appreciate about Becky, is her consistency," Dahlkemper said recently. "Her positioning and just being this solid defender all the time, it's something that I think is very rare.

"I think that she is the best defender in the world, and she makes people around her better."

They were all good Friday. All four defenders at the start and all five when Ertz dropped back between them. They will all need to be good from here on out. Not just good individually, but good collectively.

At least now they know it can be done. They can hold the barricade.

LYON, France -- Last week, the U.S. passed the daunting test against France, but it doesn't necessarily get any easier for the Americans at this year's Women's World Cup.

On Tuesday (3 p.m. ET), they face a determined England squad, a team with world-class talent who are confident they'll break through.

Will they? It's hard to say for sure one way or the other, but our intrepid crew on the ground in Lyon, ESPN's Graham Hays and Alyssa Roenigk, ESPN FC's Julien Laurens and ESPN UK's Tom Hamilton, share their thoughts:

Which coach do you trust more?

Hays: American fans grumbling about Jill Ellis has been a constant through what is now the longest coaching tenure in the team's history. Lineups, rosters, substitutions, tactics -- she hears it on all fronts. Her teams are also 11-0-1 in the World Cup and 13-0-3 in major tournaments. That's not because she did everything right, but it would also be difficult to pull off if she did as much wrong as the grumbling suggests. As much as Phil Neville seems to have quieted the skepticism that met his entry into the women's game and won over plenty of people, Ellis has more of an imprint on a team. Much more than 2015, this is a team constructed to play the way she wants to play.

Roenigk: Ellis. At least publicly, Neville is focused on too much that's happening off the field -- coaches scouting his players at matches, poor "etiquette" from U.S. ops personnel checking out the lobby of his team's hotel. Neville is creating his own distractions, which might not be sending the best signal to his players.

Laurens: Ellis. I don't always agree with her choices, but she has so much experience. She has been there and done it before at the top level, and she knows exactly how to handle the pressure and the expectations. Ellis understands how her players react. For Neville, this is all new.

Hamilton: Ellis has been there, done that and knows World Cup knockout football better than any. But equally, I'd like to see how the U.S. would cope when being put under relentless pressure and against a team that is prepared to go toe-to-toe with them, rather than standing off in awe. Neville, as a player, has played in football's biggest games and has learned from the best, but this is uncharted territory for him. Both have had brilliant World Cups, but Ellis just shades it here.

Who should start in the U.S. midfield?

Hays: Lindsey Horan's absence from the starting lineup the past two games is puzzling. Unless there is an undisclosed physical limitation -- Ellis' comments after the win against France were emphatic that it was a tactical decision -- it's an odd time for Horan to fall out of favor. Rose Lavelle burst on the scene with a strong debut performance in a loss against England in 2017, but the best lineup for the U.S. at the moment feels like Horan and Sam Mewis starting together in front of Julie Ertz as the holding midfielder. A small midfield didn't work in a 2-2 draw against England earlier this year. Julie Ertz, Horan and Mewis could close down that part of the field without being exposed for speed. And Lavelle could be a game-changer as a sub. The catch is Ellis hasn't started Horan and Mewis together in those roles, the Nos. 8 and 10, since two games against Canada late in 2017.

Laurens: I was surprised to see Horan on the bench against France. For me, she has to start against England. She is the best U.S. midfielder, the league MVP. Julie Ertz is an important player on this team, and I thought she was excellent against France. It then leaves one place for Lavelle or Mewis. Lavelle was disappointing against the French, unlike Mewis, but I would still keep her in the starting lineup. She will rise to the occasion on Tuesday.

Hamilton: A lot of options here for the U.S., so whatever midfield the team goes for, it'll be strong. I'd go with Mewis, Lavelle and Ertz.

Who is England's most valuable player?

Hays: Well, Neville this week called Lucy Bronze the best player in the world, so that seems like a good place to start. Bronze, who won an NCAA title in her lone season at North Carolina, will presumably take her normal place at outside back. Although Neville was coy in at least keeping open the possibility of playing her in midfield, as he did against the U.S. earlier this year. In any role, she's probably England's best all-around athlete. And as well as the U.S. did against France's brilliant wide threats this past Friday, those spaces remain a potential weak spots.

Roenigk: Ellen White is the obvious answer. Along with Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, White leads the World Cup scoring race with five goals, and she's found the net at important moments for England in this tournament. But defender Bronze, who plays for Lyon, is England's workhorse and will be integral against the U.S.

Laurens: Bronze. Although I actually think it is wasting her talent to play her at right back. I wouldn't be surprised if she played in midfield against the U.S.

Hamilton: Bronze is world-class and the best right back in the game. England has other fantastic players, too, but captain Steph Houghton is the key. Neville described her as "irreplaceable," and he's spot on.

Both squads posted impressive quarterfinal wins. Which one element do they need to improve?

Hays: They impressed in very different ways. England took the game to Norway, while the United States dug in and defended once it had an early lead against a better opponent. So the logical answer is each needs to improve in the role it didn't play. The U.S. will want more possession, and in conjunction, want to get Alex Morgan more involved in goal-scoring spaces. Morgan has quietly done necessary dirty work since her five-goal outburst, leaving the scoring to Rapinoe. A perfect scenario would be Rapinoe returning to the set-up role she also fills so well. For England? Well, converting penalty kicks would be wise. Not much else went wrong.

Roenigk: The U.S. tempo is its trademark, but they've had one fewer day to recover after the quarterfinals, and England has proved they can run with the best, so the U.S. attack can't be all about speed. Cleaning up the USWNT's passing up front will be crucial. England has never won a semifinal match at a major tournament, so confidence will be key for the Lionesses.

Laurens: I feel England is yet to be tested in this tournament, and the fact this team hasn't been pushed into giving its absolute best could be an issue if it is dominated by the Americans on Tuesday. England also needs to improve its left-hand side as it depends a lot on the right at the moment. For the Americans, they need to get Tobin Heath more involved. The only time they used her against France, she set up Rapinoe's second goal.

Hamilton: England was magnificent against Norway, putting in its best showing of the tournament. But for the U.S. to knock over France on its own patch is some result.

Which result is better for the tournament?

Hays: Seemingly half the questions that Ellis and her players get from foreign journalists are about their perceived arrogance. Neville added this week that he thinks England is the host country's second-favorite team and will have that support in the semifinal, no small thing given the long history of those two countries. So maybe the rest of the world, or at least Europe, would like to see a final without the Americans. It would certainly cap of a tournament in which Europe's depth is on display. But the best stories have big characters, whether loved or hated. So a final between Europe's reigning champion (the Netherlands) and the U.S.? Or a second Olympic rematch between the U.S. and Sweden? With apologies to the English, that's a better story.

Roenigk: Much like their previous game against France, an American win would draw more global attention to Sunday's final. But an England win could alter the landscape of the sport for women in Great Britain, and in Europe overall. A good outcome for the tournament is one that is close, competitive and free from controversy (and too many post-match stories about VAR).

Laurens: Both teams would be great finalists. Like the U.S.-France match on Friday, it is a shame they won't meet in the final. It would be fantastic for England to beat the Americans and make it to the final. It would bring a change as well.

Hamilton: It depends on which side of the Atlantic you live. The U.S. is the strongest team here, but how wonderful for the growth of the game in England if the Lionesses were to win. So from a completely non-biased point of view, an England victory.

How does the USWNT avoid the emotional hangover after the win against France?

Hays: This one is pretty self-explanatory. One of the great strengths of the U.S. is its habit of taking the game to opponents hard and fast in the opening 15 minutes of a game. That doesn't always lead to a goal, although it has this tournament, but it sets the terms of a game. So how does the U.S. avoid the hangover? By not letting the France game drift into the opening minutes here.

Roenigk: By remembering that they've been here before. And knowing that Sweden is in the final four as well should keep the team -- especially those who played in Rio three years ago -- focused.

Laurens: I don't think there are any fears with the USWNT having an emotional hangover after beating France. Winning is in their culture, their DNA. They never get carried when they win. It is actually the opposite. Winning makes them want to win more. The U.S. does not rest on its laurels.

Hamilton: Not at all. The Americans have been here before. They'll recharge and be strong throughout again.

We are down to the final four in the Gold Cup, with historic favorites Mexico and the United States in the mix alongside 2015 and 2017 finalists Jamaica and tournament revelation Haiti.

Here is the lowdown on each of the two semifinal clashes.

Haiti vs. Mexico

Where: State Farm Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona

When: 10 p.m. ET Tuesday

The story so far: For the first time in its history, Haiti has reached the semifinals of the Gold Cup, and it has done so in thrilling fashion. Head Coach Marc Collat's team is still undefeated in the Gold Cup, with four wins, three of which came in comeback fashion. Haiti looked dead in the water down 2-0 at halftime against Canada in the quarterfinals, but it stormed back for a 3-2 win, perfectly encapsulating the spirit of a team playing with no fear and total confidence.

Meanwhile, Mexico soared into the knockout round after tallying 13 goals in the group stage but was brought down to earth by a very resolute Costa Rica defense, squeezing out a 5-4 penalty shootout win to punch its ticket to Phoenix. The Ticos were exactly the kind of test that Mexico perhaps needed ahead of this semifinal; a little suffering to remind that nothing is given in the latter stages of this CONCACAF competition.

Haiti will advance if: Considering that Les Grenadiers were staring at a halftime deficit in three of their four wins, you would advise Haiti to concede early so it can follow that comeback blueprint. But against Mexico, that would be ill-advised; El Tri have too much quality to think along those lines, even if they played an extra 30 minutes on Saturday. Haiti's direct, counterattacking style should work nicely, though, against Mexico, and if it can replicate Costa Rica's approach of tactical fouling and bullying Mexico, Haiti stands a good chance.

Mexico will advance if: Mexico will control this one, and it'll certainly get its chances, so nothing new on that front. What will be key for El Tri is making sure they don't fall victim to the second-half Haiti surge and matching the physicality that Duckens Nazon and the Haiti attack will bring as legs start to tire. What might prove pivotal is Mexico's depth. It is a quick turnaround for both teams after playing Saturday night, but Gerardo Martino has the luxury of starting fresh legs such as Luis Montes and Erick Gutierrez in midfield and Hector Moreno in defense.

Key man, Haiti: Duckens Nazon

Once again, Nazon was a force to be reckoned with against Canada, kick-starting the comeback with a goal before providing an inch-perfect pass for the game-winning assist. To beat the best team in CONCACAF, Haiti needs its best player to deliver a top performance. The 24-year-old forward has waited his whole life for a match such as this. He'll be ready.

Key man, Mexico: Rodolfo Pizarro

Pizarro has been largely used on the flanks, but the Mexico attack seems to hum better when the Monterrey man takes a more central role. Either way, he'll be a crucial piece to unlocking the Haiti defense and setting the table for Raul Jimenez and Uriel Antuna to score the goals.

-- 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup: Fixtures, results and coverage
-- Full Gold Cup schedule

Prediction: Mexico 2-1 Haiti

To say that this is the end of Haiti's Cinderella story would be foolish because with an average age of 24.33, Haiti will have a lot to say in World Cup Qualifying and future Gold Cups. That said, Mexico's quality and depth will bear out here to move El Tri one step closer to an eighth Gold Cup crown.

Jamaica vs. United States

Where: Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee

When: 9 p.m. ET Wednesday

The story so far: With little fanfare, Jamaica has once again reached the final phases of the Gold Cup, relying on its stalwart defense and opportunistic scoring. A five-point haul in the group stage set up a date with Panama in the quarterfinals, but the Reggae Boyz hardly impressed and could call themselves fortunate to have edged the Canaleros 1-0 via a Darren Mattocks penalty.

Just when it looked like the U.S. was starting to find its stride, it produced a lethargic display against Curacao, and it, too, was lucky to pocket a 1-0 quarterfinal win. The lack of energy and urgency from Gregg Berhalter's team was worrisome, making for an intriguing semifinal between two teams that did not exactly win over any neutrals last time out.

Jamaica will advance if: The U.S. can be had on the counterattack, and Jamaica has the weapons to put Berhalter's team to the sword. Jamaica might not possess as much as Curacao did against the U.S., Jamaica coach Theodore Whitmore will know how to take advantage of the USMNT's poor defensive transition. In addition, the pressure is all on the U.S., so Jamaica will be able to stay patient and wait for its chances to come.

The United States will advance if: It will be important for the U.S. to stay as error-free as possible in the back. It was sloppy against Curacao but kept a clean sheet for the fourth game in a row in this tournament and has overall played well defensively. Up top, the man still setting off all the fireworks is Christian Pulisic, and with some better support from the likes of Tyler Boyd and Paul Arriola, the U.S. can strike early and play the game on its terms.

Key man, Jamaica: Andre Blake

Blake took home Golden Glove honors at the 2017 Gold Cup and is rounding into form in the current edition of the tournament. He's likely to be tested early against a U.S. side that will be keen to erase its poor performance against Curacao. Blake's steady hand in goal will be crucial.

Key man, United States: Christian Pulisic

It is plain to see that the U.S. relies on Pulisic in attack, and the new Chelsea man will once again be tasked with creating chances against the Reggae Boyz. Whether it will be enough to find a way past Blake and a strong back four is another matter.

Prediction: Jamaica 1-0 United States

For the third consecutive Gold Cup, these two teams meet in a high-stakes affair, and Jamaica's speed will take advantage of the U.S.' defensive transition to set up a rematch of the 2015 Final versus Mexico.

The Ranji Trophy is set to spill over into March for the first time since the 2004-05 season, following the BCCI's decision to advance the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, the domestic T20 competition, prior to the IPL auction, which is generally held in December-January. As per the preliminary fixtures for the 2019-20 season, the Ranji Trophy will begin on November 29, with the final slated from February 28, 2020. The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, meanwhile, will run from October 31 to November 23.

At the conclave for domestic captains and coaches held in May, several captains were unhappy that the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy was being conducted after the IPL auction. They were of the opinion the existing schedule not only denied players opportunities to impress IPL talent scouts but also robbed the tournament of its relevance. The timing of some of these matches, too, raised a few eyebrows.

The much-debated Duleep Trophy, which was also being re-looked at for the lack of context, will kick-start the domestic season in the same format, running from August 17 to September 8. However, it's yet to be decided if the pink ball trial will continue at the tournament, as has been the case over the last three seasons.

The limited-overs competitions - the Vijay Hazare Trophy (50 overs), Deodhar Trophy (50 overs) and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (T20s) - will follow the Duleep Trophy, before the first-class season begins.

The women's calendar, too, has no surprise additions, despite the call from senior state captains and coaches to include an additional inter-zonal 50-overs competition besides the existing 50-overs inter-state tournament. This, they felt at the time, would provide more match-time and help widen their talent pool.

However, with the Women's T20 World Cup in mind, the board has introduced the T20 Challenger Trophy in a new format, with each side playing the other two over two rounds followed by a final. In the previous avatar, each team played the other two over one round followed by the final.

The tweaked format could help the national selectors scout players for the national side that will then head to Australia for a T20I tri-series, also including England, which begins on January 31. This tournament will also serve as the team's build-up to the T20 World Cup, also to be held in Australia, from February 21 to March 8.

All the live updates and analyses from the Bangladesh v India game. Refresh the page if it doesn't load immediately for you.

Big picture

Anyone who has been subjected to the witless betting adverts that punctuate the cricket coverage in the UK will know, subconsciously at the very least, about "smarts". Those are the little nuggets of internal wisdom that smooth off the rough edges between your "hunches" and your "no-brainers" … and deliver you the value to beat the odds and be a God among your peers. Or, at the very least, enough small change to buy a pint to drown your sorrows.

So, if the no-brainer states that winning the toss and batting on a certain deck is a guaranteed 350-plus score, but the hunch is that, actually, there's a bit of grass still on that wicket, and so-and-so's a handy bowler, and actually, we'd do well to scrape past 200, then the smarts are the means by which you split the difference, and grope your way to a 250-ish total that will win some, lose some, but keep you competitive where others would be doomed to fail.

You can probably see where this one is going by now. England versus New Zealand at Chester-le-Street has become an unlikely clash of ideologies, bearing in mind that it was the hiding that New Zealand handed out to England at the 2015 World Cup that encouraged Eoin Morgan's men to change their craven ways and start handing out hidings of their own to all and sundry.

And yet, where one team has played with more brawn than brain and found itself scrambling to break even at the end of the group stages, the other has tucked itself into a savvy, canny accumulative mindset, grateful for the small gains here and there that have kept its own campaign coasting along, in spite of a couple of bad beats in the last two games.

The upshot is that, while New Zealand's progression is not yet secure, it will take a drastic turn of events to unseat them from the top four, starting with a heavy loss here, and finishing with a similarly one-sided win for Pakistan over Bangladesh (or even vice versa, if the latter can stay in the chase by beating India). England on the other hand need nothing less than victory, but as they've discovered already in this tournament, going for broke in their habitual manner has tended to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But to go back to those "smarts" - they were Kane Williamson's words, not mine (or even Ray Winstone's for that matter). Uttered in the aftermath of a heavy loss to Australia at Lord's, but delivered with the clarity that he has brought to his batting all tournament long. "I think cricket smarts throughout this tournament has been perhaps the most important thing," he said. "Even perhaps more than something like the word 'freedom', which everybody wants to be able to achieve day-in, day-out."

"Oh burn!", as Williamson would doubtless never add.

And so it all comes down to this. On the one level, England have no option but to trust their hunches as they are unlikely to save their tournament if they don't play their way. A side that had been scoring 300-plus scores for fun in the lead-up to the World Cup did not become a bad team overnight, in spite of their intermittent wobbles. But on the other hand, Trent Boult has been one of the bowlers of the tournament, Lockie Ferguson breathes fire every time he unleashes the ball, and Mitchell Santner's angular left-arm spin has been quietly impressive. Get too pushy against this lot, they'll have the quality and poise to punish you.

But England will know too that New Zealand's batting is a one-and-a-half man show - and the half is made up mostly of their allrounders, Colin de Grandhomme and Jimmy Neesham. Put simply, Williamson has been the alpha and the omega of their fortunes. When he scores big, they win - as they did in two tight finishes against West Indies and South Africa - but when he scores less than 50 - as he has done in both of their defeats, plus their near-miss against Bangladesh - it's all up for grabs.

No wonder New Zealand are willing to grind it deep, test their opponent's patience, wait for errors and pounce when they come. It's served them perfectly well so far, and they don't look like budging. England, on the other hand, are obliged to find an edge somewhere, somehow. Will they play it smart or loose? Or even, shockingly, with an amalgam of the two, the method they displayed in putting 337 on the board against India. Perhaps those smarts are seeping through after all.

Form guide

England WLLWW (last five completed matches, most recent first)
New Zealand LLWWW

In the spotlight

He's been England's missing link in their times of duress in this tournament - all three defeats have come when he's been missing from the line-up - but there's no danger of Liam Plunkett missing out again on what used to be his Durham home ground. For all the talk of England's macho approach with the bat, it's possible that their biggest mistake has been to underestimate the importance of his bouncing bombs on a back of a length, in those crucial middle overs. To be caught in the deep off a top-edge might look like batsman error, but the number of times Plunkett forces that error with his hard-to-line-up cross-seamers is remarkable. With him in their ranks, England feel more secure in their belief that the key partnerships can be broken.

So, if Williamson is The One, who among New Zealand's faltering batting can be his No.2? It's time, surely, for Ross Taylor to step forward again. New Zealand's senior batsman has not been out of form in this tournament, but his returns have been less stellar than his golden form of the past nine months suggested they could be. An important 82 anchored the win over Bangladesh, and his other half-century helped Williamson rebuild against West Indies after the loss of both openers for golden ducks. But he was becalmed to the point of self-destruction in Saturday's loss to Australia, having also failed in the Pakistan defeat. His record against England, however, is stellar, including two hundreds on the 2015 ODI tour, and an incredible one-legged 181 not out in his last outing at Dunedin last year.

Team news

Despite putting so much faith in two spinners in the lead-up to the World Cup, the advent of Jofra Archer and the loss of confidence of Moeen Ali has tilted the balance of their attack, with a greater belief now in blasting mid-innings wickets with the return of raw pace, especially now that Adil Rashid has mislaid his own wicket-taking threat in the midst of a long-term shoulder niggle. Roy did not field against India after an apparent blow to the hand, but that probably had as much to do with resting his hamstring than any real concerns.

England (probable): 1 Jason Roy, 2 Jonny Bairstow, 3 Joe Root, 4 Eoin Morgan (capt), 5 Ben Stokes, 6 Jos Buttler (wk), 7 Chris Woakes, 8 Liam Plunkett, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Mark Wood

Henry Nicholls' introduction as a new opening partner to Martin Guptill was not a rip-roaring success, but it's likely that he'll get a second outing given how Colin Munro's form has tailed off in this tournament. There's scope for Ish Sodhi to be retained as the second spinner - not least to target the openers (see below) - but seam is often the way to go in Durham, and Matt Henry and Tim Southee are waiting in the wings, eager for their chance.

New Zealand (probable): 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Henry Nicholls, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Tom Latham (wk), 6 James Neesham, 7 Colin de Grandhomme, 8 Mitchell Santner, 9 Tim Southee/Matt Henry/Ish Sodhi, 10 Lockie Ferguson, 11 Trent Boult

Pitch and conditions

The sun has had its hat on, and the pitch is full of runs. That's the long-lens prediction after the first sighting of the fresh straw-coloured strip that has been prepared for this contest, which will no doubt please England immensely as they look to back up their biffing at Edgbaston last week. There are long boundaries too for this one, which may cause Virat Kohli to raise a quizzical eyebrow after his comments on Sunday. Those may test Jason Roy's hamstrings if England have to push the twos and threes, but the broader acreage won't daunt a team that runs between the wickets better than most. New Zealand's running, on the other hand, has left much to be desired - not least when Williamson and Taylor have been paired at the crease.

Strategy punt

• They would not be the first side to try it this tournament - remember Imran Tahir and Shadab Khan all those weeks ago? - but New Zealand's best bet against Roy early on may be the spin of either Santner or Sodhi. Roy demonstrated his importance to England by helping put on a belligerent century stand against India on his return from injury. He currently has few weaknesses, but of the three occasions he has been dismissed inside his first 20 balls in home ODIs, one each came against legspin and slow left-arm.

• A man who New Zealand might have more success targeting is England captain Eoin Morgan. Despite a career-best 148 against Afghanistan four games ago, he has since made scores of 21, 4 and 1, which includes being bounced out in each of his last two innings. Morgan recovered from a previous tough patch against the short ball, in 2013-15, but has relapsed this year - dismissed five times by such deliveries in 2019, at a rate of once every 6.6 balls. In Ferguson and Boult, New Zealand have two bowlers to have used the bouncer effectively at this World Cup, with five and four wickets respectively. And Morgan doesn't have a good record against left-arm pace either, averaging 14.1 since 2017.

Stats that matter

• England have not beaten New Zealand at a World Cup since 1983, when they won by 106 runs at The Oval.

• The eight-wicket thrashing New Zealand handed out at the last tournament was so comprehensive that the floodlights did not need to be turned on for their day-night match; the teams went off for dinner with New Zealand 112 for 1, needing 12 more to win.

• Williamson's ODI average of 74.64 in England is his highest in any country where he has played at least five innings.

Quotes

"Every wicket that we've played on so far I suppose has been tougher to bat on in the second innings regardless of who's won or not. Even the games I've watched on television, it's been tougher in the second innings.""
England captain Eoin Morgan on the troubles of chasing during this World Cup

"Every time you play you want to win and go out there and put your best foot forward I guess and momentum is a big part of cricket. It is not the be-all-and-end-all. But we are definitely going out there to win tomorrow and hopefully we can, whatever we do first, we can do well."

Ross Taylor

Barcelona's move for Antoine Griezmann does not rule out the possibility of signing Neymar this summer, although the Spanish champions will wait for Paris Saint-Germain to come to them, various sources have told ESPN FC.

Both Ernesto Valverde and the club's sporting structure -- including sporting director Pep Segura, technical secretary Eric Abidal and his assistant Ramon Planes, who are working hard on bringing in new players -- have given the green light to adding both forwards to the squad during the transfer window.

- When does the transfer window close?

While a deal to bring in Griezmann from Atletico Madrid is progressively advancing, with the transfer set to be announced within the next week, the situation with PSG attacker Neymar is moving much slower.

ESPN FC learned last month that PSG are open to selling Neymar and sources with knowledge of the situation at Barca have said the Catalan club are waiting for the Ligue 1 side "to open the door and invite negotiations" for the Brazil international.

The same high-ranking sources inside the club added that "it's a complicated situation, but [signing Neymar] is not impossible." They add that they have looked over the figures and can afford the operation, providing there are more sales this summer.

Vice president Jordi Cardoner said last week that Neymar wants to come back but Barca are demanding he fulfils a range of conditions to help facilitate a Camp Nou return and reduce the tension with the supporters. There is still some disappointment about the way he quit the club for PSG in a world record €222 million transfer in 2017.

The Blaugrana want him to show that he regrets the way he left. They are also looking for him to commit to living a more professional lifestyle away from the pitch as there are doubts about how he chooses to spend his private time.

The sources add that Barcelona still feel Neymar "is a different type of player" who can offer something unique. They believe having Neymar and Griezmann join up with Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez would be a "blessing" for Valverde, who would be tasked with fitting "one of the most feared attacks in history" into the same side.

ESPN FC reported two weeks ago that one of the keys to any potential deal for PSG would be the inclusion of Barcelona players on top of any transfer fee. Philippe Coutinho, Samuel Umtiti, Ivan Rakitic and Ousmane Dembele could all be used as makeweights, it has been suggested, although it is not something the players have been approached over yet as Barca await PSG's move.

Meanwhile, Barca should finalise the €120m signing of Griezmann next week after his buyout clause dropped from €200m on Monday. They will not pay a penny more than the France forward's clause, but would be open to negotiating with Atletico if it meant they could pay in instalments.

Nike struck down a plan to release a shoe featuring the original version of the U.S. flag this week at the request of Colin Kaepernick, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

The shoe, the Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July, featured a logo of the original U.S. flag, the design of which by popular lore is credited to Betsy Ross, with 13 stars in a circle.

The Journal reports that Kaepernick told Nike it shouldn't use that version of the flag, as he and others consider it an offensive symbol due to its connection to a time when slavery was legal.

Colin Kaepernick reached out to Nike saying that he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery https://t.co/6Y2mIlbAuT

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) July 2, 2019

In a statement, Nike said it chose not to release the shoe "as it featured an old version of the American flag."

Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem in 2016 to protest racial injustice and police brutality in the United States. He has not played in the NFL since opting out of his contract after that season.

A Nike-sponsored athlete since 2011, Kaepernick was featured in a new ad campaign at the start of the 2018 NFL season.

Nike still offers the Air Max 1 in red, white and blue, saying the shoe "updates the legendary design with patriotic colors."

According to the Journal, Nike asked retailers to send back the shoes with the U.S. flag on them.

Mike Trout is squarely in the passing-Hall-of-Famers-in-career-WAR-every-few-days period of his career. He is 27.

If I tell you that 27-year-old Mike Trout has more career WAR than, say, Carlton Fisk, you could hear it as an incredible tribute to Trout, but you could also hear it as a diminishment of Fisk -- and if we diminish Fisk, we diminish the power of the tribute. To really appreciate Trout, it helps to appreciate just how incredible the Hall of Famers he is passing were and to understand how it is plausible that Trout is already actually more valuable than they were.

Trout started June with 68.0 career WAR. With another fantastic month -- he hit .320/.440/.641, ended June leading the American League in WAR and raised his career mark to 69.5 -- he passed eight more Hall of Famers. In Trout's honor, we will consider those eight.

Ryne Sandberg, 68.0 WAR (83rd all time among position players)

How good Sandberg was:

1. He was a home run-hitting second baseman who set errorless-streak records and won more Gold Gloves at that position than anybody except Roberto Alomar. He stole 50 bases one year and hit 40 homers in another, one of only three players in history to do that. At his peak, he was the highest-paid player in baseball. And by the time Sandberg was 31, Tim Kurkjian could write that he was "a lock" for the Hall of Fame. On June 23, 1984, after watching Sandberg collect five hits -- including two game-tying homers against future Hall of Fame closer Bruce Sutter -- Whitey Herzog declared, simply, "Ryne Sandberg is the best baseball player I've ever seen."

2. In the 1990 Home Run Derby, Sandberg outhomered the entire field of seven other players combined. Now, in fairness, that was the strangest derby ever, with a stiff Wrigley wind holding Cecil Fielder, Jose Canseco, Ken Griffey, Darryl Strawberry and Bobby Bonilla homerless, but all the same: On a day when those five, plus Mark McGwire and Matt Williams, could muscle only two stupid baseballs out, Sandberg popped three. (He also led the league in homers that year, with 40.)

3. He was such a superstar he singlehandedly shifted national baby-naming trends. Before Sandberg, the name Ryne never appeared in the top 1,000 baby names in the United States, and it's hard to find evidence it was considered a name at all. (Sandberg was named, inexplicably, after the 1950s reliever Ryne Duren, but Duren was actually named Rinold.) But in 1984, Sandberg was the NL MVP, and his name jumped from oblivion to become the 600th most popular name in the country. Through the rest of his career, the name Ryne stayed in the top 1,000, climbing higher when he had better seasons and dropping some when he was worse; it fell out of the top 1,000 when he retired in 1995, but jumped back in when he unretired in 1996. The correlation between Sandberg's WAR and the popularity of the name is an extremely strong 0.87, suggesting that the two (Sandberg's accomplishments and naming babies Ryne) were strongly entangled.

There have since been around 15 Rynes in professional baseball, all of them born during (or immediately after) Sandberg's career. Of the 2,000 or so Rynes named during his career, close to 1 percent have played affiliated baseball, a staggering estimate that doesn't even include a small handful of middle-name Rynes (such as Patrick Ryne Palmeiro, son of Ryne's teammate Rafael) and independent leaguers. Ryne Sandberg was, quite literally, a household name.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: Trout has already passed Sandberg in career walks, and he'll probably pass him in home runs by the end of this season. Subtract Trout's career from Sandberg's, and you'd have more than 4,000 plate appearances with a .255 on-base percentage and .330 slugging percentage left over.

Edgar Martinez, 68.4 WAR (81st)

How good Martinez was:

1. Martinez is probably the latest-blooming Hall of Famer of the modern era, at least among hitters. He didn't lose his rookie status until he was 26, didn't play his first full season until he was 27, didn't hit 20 home runs until he was 32, but from 32 onward outhit just about every player in major league history. Only seven players (Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams among them) had a higher OPS from 32 on, and none of those seven had as many post-32 plate appearances as Martinez did. Through age 30, he was just the 679th-best player in history, by WAR; then, his march up the leaderboard began:

Through 31: 633rd-best player ever
Through 32: 435th
Through 33: 331st
Through 34: 246th
Through 35: 186th
Through 36: 156th
Through 37: 127th
Through 38: 100th
Through 39: 95th
Through 40: 78th

2. Randy Johnson, Martinez's teammate, was another late-blooming Hall of Famer. "I've faced a lot of Hall of Fame hitters," Johnson once said, "and my gosh, Edgar is the best hitter that I ever saw." He had a reputation as a hitting genius, a technician, a perfectionist, a worker. A Mariners exec remembers seeing Martinez at the ballpark on Christmas Eve, his car the only one in the whole lot. "Over the years it was a common sight to see him sitting at his locker ... pulling out his little kitchen scale, checking every bat of a new shipment, carefully writing the weight in ounces on the knob, and occasionally shaking his head over discrepancies," longtime beat writer Bob Finnigan wrote.

3. With two strikes, he was the sixth-best hitter in history. Against right-handed pitching, he was the 13th-best right-handed hitter in history. Those are supposed to be the hard plate appearances, and they were, but for Martinez they were simply less hard than they were for almost anybody else.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: Edgar is the sixth-best hitter ever with two strikes. Trout is fifth. Edgar is the 13th-best right-handed hitter ever against right-handed pitchers. Trout is the best. Edgar is headed to the Hall of Fame because he is, arguably, statistically, the greatest designated hitter in history. Trout, who in addition plays a demanding position every day, has been a considerably better hitter, with a slightly higher on-base percentage and a much higher slugging percentage. Trout's incredible rate stats, to be fair, don't include his eventual decline phase. On the other hand, Trout has done all this and he's still younger than Edgar was at the end of his first full season.

Carlton Fisk, 68.5 WAR (80th)

How good Fisk was:

1. Fisk was the best rookie catcher in history. And then, two decades later, he was easily, clearly, by a mile, the best old catcher in history. In 1990, he produced 4.9 WAR at age 42. The next-best season by a catcher 42 or older, other than Fisk, was by Deacon McGuire, who in 1906 managed 0.8 WAR. Then comes Walker Cooper's 0.2 WAR in 1957. Fisk produced 4.9! The next-oldest catcher to produce at least 4.9 WAR in a season was Gabby Hartnett, who was only 36.

Fisk was good at 43, too, for that matter. His WAR as a 43-year-old catcher was 1.9.

2. In 1971, as Peter Gammons recounts in his great book "Beyond The Sixth Game," Fisk sprinted down the line on a ground ball, in a race with the batter Thurman Munson. Fisk won the race; he got to first and received a throw to complete an ultra-rare 3-6-2 double play. Munson was, Gammons writes, mad that Fisk had shown him up. Thus launched one of the great rivalries of the 1970s, between Fisk and the Yankees. He would brawl with Munson after a home plate collision in 1973, and with Lou Piniella after a collision in 1976. As Gammons writes, "He grew up in the heart of Red Sox country, and was available in the January 1967 draft to them only because, as one Baltimore scout said, 'everyone knew that he'd only play for the Red Sox.' He looked so much the part of the hearty, square-jawed New Englander, getting up at 6 a.m., chopping down trees on his farm, and being willing to defend New England's team with his fists, his bat and his body. He had come to believe in that role for himself, and was convinced that he really did hate the Yankees."

Of course, it wasn't just the Yankees who Fisk feuded with. Frank Robinson called him "the most disliked player in the league." The only stats Fisk ever led the league in: triples, as a rookie; and hit by pitches.

3. When he retired, he had the career by-a-catcher record in just about every offensive category. He was later surpassed in a bunch of them, by Mike Piazza or Ivan Rodriguez, but remains second or third in almost everything. In the early 2000s, Bill James ranked Fisk sixth all time among catchers, and noted that this was somehow not conventional wisdom:

"If you have a player who a) holds major career hitting records for a catcher and b) was an outstanding defensive catcher, one might think it obvious that he should be rated among the greatest catchers of all time. Apparently it isn't, as nobody else rates him there, but I will point out there is an argument that I should have rated Fisk quite a bit higher." James then considers, in a lengthy passage, whether Fisk might actually deserve to rank higher than Roy Campanella, who is in the catcher pantheon despite catching only half as many games as Fisk did. "Now I'm not saying that, to get even, Campanella has to be twice as good; he doesn't. But he does have to be, at the very least, 10 percent better. I can't see that he is."

How Trout is plausibly better, already: Now I'm not saying that, to get even, Trout has to be twice as good. But he is. Fisk, in his average season, produced about 30 more runs than a replacement-level hitter. Trout, in his average season, has produced about 40 more runs than that.

Eddie Murray, 68.7 WAR (78th)

How good Murray was:

1. The word "compiler" is often used as disparagement, but if we call Eddie Murray the greatest compiler of all time we can rightly put the emphasis on "greatest" and use it as an honor rather than disparagement. Murray never led his league in homers or RBIs in a full season (he did so in the strike-shortened 1981 campaign). Yet he hit 504 home runs and drove in the eighth-most runs in major league history. He hit at least 15 home runs in each of his first 20 seasons, the only player in history to do that. He drove in at least 75 runs in each of his first 20 seasons; nobody did that, either, and only one hitter even got past 17.

"Great," you might shrug, "15 homers and 75 RBIs." Doesn't sound like much. But that's the floor, and for most of those two decades Murray was way above that floor. Remember how good Adrian Gonzalez was in his prime? A terrifying hitter, a respected defender, a star who could be the biggest name on the Hot Stove and the best player on a World Series contender. There was no "but is he elite?" discussion about Gonzalez in his prime. He was. Murray was that good, for as long as Gonzalez was that good. Now just add three very good years at the front of the career and six good years at the back, and that's Eddie Murray.

2. Bill James perfectly captures this: "Here's a challenge for you: Can you identify Eddie Murray's best season?" He then proceeds to name nine plausible answers. Nine! "He never won an MVP Award," James continues, "but he was an MVP candidate every year."

3. He was also the 24th "clutchest" hitter in history, according to FanGraphs' way of measuring that. (Performance in high-leverage situations relative to performance overall, basically.) That's a stat that tends to hurt the very best power hitters, for various reasons, but it never hurt Murray.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: If Murray was an MVP candidate every year, Trout is the MVP favorite every year. Murray's career-best OPS+ is 159, 59 percent better than league average; Trout's career-worst OPS is 168 (which was good enough to lead the league).

Ivan Rodriguez, 68.7 WAR (77th)

How good Rodriguez was:

1. According to lore, Rodriguez might have grown up to be a dominant pitcher instead, but his arm was too good. His dad, they say, moved him to catcher because little Ivan's pitching "scared the other kids." According to Rodriguez, "I threw seven no-hitters, two in one day." Anyway, he had the best arm, as a catcher, in history.

Baseball Prospectus has an advanced metric for catchers' throwing, based on how often runners try to steal, how often they successfully steal, and adjusted for the pitchers who were on the mound (because individual pitchers have an even bigger effect on the running game than most catchers do). Rodriguez's arm produced three of the four best throwing seasons in history, and five of the best 11. He also picked off 90 baserunners, 25 more than Yadier Molina (so far) and 28 more than Johnny Bench.

In a 1997 Sports Illustrated profile, it was claimed that "Rodriguez throws so hard that the ball appears almost misshapen as it speeds toward second," which doesn't make any sense but goes to the sense of disorientation and fear that his arm inspired. That fear arguably made Rodriguez even more valuable than we give him credit for, just because of the way he subtly affected baserunners' aggressiveness: "His arm keeps some runners from attempting to steal and makes others reluctant to even take a sizable lead. [Rangers manager Johnny] Oates says Rodriguez's arm allows [first baseman Will] Clark to play off the bag when a runner with average speed is on first, closing the hole a left-handed hitter would otherwise enjoy. The Rangers' pitchers say that with Rodriguez behind the plate, they get more double plays and fewer opposing runners who go from first to third on a single or first to home on a double. 'I call it the Drop Anchor Effect,' Clark says. 'Guys get to first. Drop anchor. Then wait till it's safe to go to second.'"

2. That SI profile came out in 1997, when Rodriguez was just 25 years old. It called Rodriguez the most irreplaceable, most important player in baseball. Oates issued a guarantee that Rodriguez would make the Hall of Fame. That sure seems aggressive, considering that at that point Rodriguez was merely an average hitter.

But Oates was, in fact, a prophet: "Oates insists that Rodriguez could end up with 30 homers one year. Moreover, says Oates, if Rodriguez, who usually bats second, didn't have hitters like Rusty Greer, Juan Gonzalez and Clark hitting behind him, he could steal 20 bases. There's no telling how many more RBIs he'd have if the Rangers' rotating leadoff men weren't batting a paltry .249, third-worst in the league through Sunday." Two years later, Rodriguez hit 35 homers, stole 25 and drove in 113 runs, batting .332/.356/.558. He won the MVP award, along with his sixth consecutive Silver Slugger award.

3. When Rodriguez made his debut in June 1991, at 19, he was the youngest player in the American League. He would stay that way through the season, and through the entirety of the next season. He spent almost two full years as the youngest player in his league. By the time he retired, he was the eighth-oldest player in baseball. There are about 100 Hall of Fame hitters -- among them Mike Schmidt, David Ortiz, Frank Thomas and Jimmie Foxx -- who played fewer games than he caught.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: No knock on Ivan Rodriguez: It's just about impossible to do the things Trout does (or even come close) while catching. Ivan Rodriguez hit .308/.346/.489 in the first half, during his career; he hit .282/.318/.431 in the second half, presumably worn down by the strain of catching. He hit .306/.347/.490 through age 32, the same OPS+ as Robin Yount and Derek Jeter had in their careers; he hit .274/.301/.404 in seven years after that, same as Jerry Hairston. It's hard to catch, and Rodriguez was so good he had to bear even more of the burden than most: Oates described the routine of coming to work every day, knowing he had to give Rodriguez the day off, vowing to give Rodriguez the day off, and then caving and writing his name in the lineup once more, unwilling to give up his most valuable player for the day.

Al Simmons, 68.8 WAR (76th)

How good Simmons was:

1. In 1996, five decades after he played his final game, Simmons suddenly showed up on the cover of Sports Illustrated, under the headline "The Team That Time Forgot." Everybody knew that the Murderers Row Yankees of the mid-late 1920s were the greatest team ever; what the accompanying article suggested was that it was actually the 1929-1931 Philadelphia A's who might deserve that title: "Statistically the New York and Philadelphia mini-dynasties were remarkably even: The A's had a record of 313-143 (.686) between 1929 and '31; the Yanks, 302-160 (.654) between 1926 and '28. And while Philadelphia scored six fewer runs than the Yankees -- 2,710 to 2,716 -- the A's had five fewer runs scored against them: 1,992 to 1,997. That represents a difference between the two teams, in net scoring, of only one run." Simmons was the best player on that team, the team's WAR leader over those three years, better than any American Leaguer besides Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

2. A quintessential "fall out of bed and hit" player, Simmons -- despite an incredibly violent and multidirectional swing, a swing that looked like frames were missing from it -- had actual evidence in his support: After holding out for a contract one spring, he finally signed and showed up for Opening Day without having played in a single spring training game. He rapped two hits. (He would hit .390 that season.)

"Late in his playing career, Simmons set a goal of obtaining 3,000 base hits," according to his SABR biography. How late he set that goal isn't clear, but his struggle to get there shows just how difficult it is to keep hitting major league pitching after the game has overtaken you. In his final four seasons, his hits totals were just 25, 3, 27 and 3 (with a year off in the middle). "He came up 73 hits short. He bemoaned the times he had begged off playing to nurse a hangover or left a one-sided game early for a quick shower and a night on the town. Proud of his Polish ancestry, Simmons as a veteran coach imparted his unachieved goal to another Polish-American. 'Never relax on any at-bat; never miss a game you can play,' he advised a young Stan Musial."

3. "One time," James writes in "The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract," "Al Simmons was in a terrible slump. After going oh-for-four he stumbled out of the shower in a funk and, not really thinking about what he was doing, put on his hat. The sight of a naked man wearing a hat caused somebody to laugh out loud, which caused other people to look and see what was funny, and pretty soon the whole clubhouse was roaring at the sight. The next day, Simmons had four hits. You can imagine what happened then: Simmons began getting dressed every day by putting his hat on first. And, as he got hot and stayed hot, this spread to the rest of the team. After a while, you could go into the A's locker room after a game, and there'd be a dozen men running around naked except for their hats."

How Trout is plausibly better, already: Simmons spent the final decade of his career as merely a league-average hitter. Even before that, he hardly ever walked. And he played in an era of outrageous offense. Bottom line: He finished with an OBP that was about 5 percent better than his league's average. Trout's OBP is 30 percent better than his contemporaries'.

Tony Gwynn, 69.2 WAR (75th)

How good Gwynn was:

1. He's one of the all-time great fun fact machines, maybe top five. Aaron Judge already has more career strikeouts than he did. After falling behind 0-2 in counts, he still hit .267, and his strikeout rate in those plate appearances (13.6) would rank around 20th, out of 180 qualifying hitters, in 2019. He hit .444 with the bases loaded. He hit .398 in extra innings, with a .500 on-base percentage.

But here's probably the greatest one: He faced Greg Maddux -- one of the half-dozen best pitchers in baseball history, and perhaps the savviest -- 107 times. He batted .415 against Maddux. He walked 11 times and never struck out. Maddux got two-strike counts against him at least 22 times; Gwynn hit .476 in those at-bats. Against all Hall of Famers, he hit .331. Other than Gwynn, no batter since Stan Musial has hit that high in a career, against all pitchers.

2. In Musial's final season, Stan The Man was joking around with Joe Garagiola before a game. Mocking the tendency of old-timers to demean those who came after, Musial mimicked: "Then, we didn't have any radio or any television or any writers following us around. We just played ball. We didn't have ceremonies at home plate. We just played ball and we hit .370. Kids today have it too easy."

Al Simmons hit .370 a few times. So did Gwynn. But Musial, who counseled Gwynn on hitting decades later, knew: These .370s aren't nearly equal. It was miles easier to hit .370 in the 1920s, when the quality of talent was far thinner and the offensive environment much friendlier. If we compare each player to just his peers, Gwynn rises into truly elite status: His batting average, relative to his era, is tied for the third highest ever, trailing only Joe Jackson and Ty Cobb. His strikeout rate is the fourth lowest ever, relative to league norms. He won so many NL batting titles they named the danged thing after him.

3. Gwynn's reputation as a singles hitter belied his ability to drive in runs. According to FanGraphs, he's the greatest clutch hitter ever, or at least for the years (1974 to the present) that the stat covers. He hit .352/.411/.480 with men on base, outslugging Dave Winfield and Andre Dawson and Carl Yastrzemski in such situations.

"Will have average power when he learns to pull the ball more," a scout predicted after watching Gwynn play in college. That took until the mid-1990s, and a conversation with Ted Williams, when Gwynn was 37:

"We talked for two hours," Gwynn says, "and we must have spent 50 minutes talking about the inside pitch." Gwynn already had won six of his seven National League batting titles, including the crown for the strike-shortened 1994 season that he got with a .394 average, and amassed Hall of Fame credentials by allowing the inside pitch to get to the plate before, as he likes to say, "carving" the ball through the hole between third base and shortstop. Williams insisted that a good hitter meets the inside pitch in front of the plate. He picked up his cane, snapped at an imaginary inside fastball and shouted at Gwynn, "You've got to turn on it! You've got to let it go! Let it go!"

He ended up driving in 119 runs that season. "I don't care what the numbers say," Gwynn said in that same article. "Am I better than Hank Aaron? Stan Musial? Frank Robinson? Not a chance. The only thing I want people to say about me is that I played the game the way it should be played. What I've always wanted to do is be a complete player. This is as close as I've ever come to it."

How Trout is plausibly better, already: This feels like a hard one. Gwynn has a lot of black ink on his player page, and for stretches of his career he was a great corner defender and a great baserunner. He had a particular set of strengths, and he used them flawlessly. But Trout has those skills, too -- he's 17th all-time in AVG+, which is batting average relative to a player's era -- and a few more. He's about to pass Gwynn in walks, about to double him in career homers, and he plays the much more demanding position. (Just by playing center field instead of right, Trout has earned about 9 more WAR than Gwynn.) And while Gwynn's batting averages are historic, he had only two seasons with an on-base percentage higher than Trout's career OBP. His best season would be Trout's sixth best.

Tim Raines, 69.4 career WAR (74th)

How good Raines was:

1. Just after Tim Raines announced his first retirement, in 2000, ESPN.com ran a poll asking fans whether he should be in the Hall of Fame. Only 4% said yes. Thus began a decade-and-a-half-long push by sabermetric writers to convince those other 96% -- and the baseball writers who overwhelmingly voted against Raines when he first appeared on the Hall ballot, in 2008 -- that he was, truly, among the 100 best position players who ever lived. A "dweeb team" was formed to make this case. Many thousands of words were written, many analyses conducted and the case never weakened. The facts were so strong that, eventually, most of those voters changed their minds, and Raines was elected in 2017. In the 25 years or so that sabermetrics has been a truly popular movement, few positions have been more universally and consistently held within that community than this one: Tim Raines was an all-time great.

2. Here's the nutshell argument, made way back in 2000 by Joe Sheehan: "Raines was probably the best player in baseball from 1985-1987, and could have been the 1987 National League MVP has he not lost the first month of the season to collusion. [Note: In 1988, Bill James wrote that the best current player in baseball was either Raines or Wade Boggs.] He led the NL in steals four times, and stole 807 bases at an 85 percent clip for his career, which makes him the second-best basestealer in history behind Rickey Henderson." For a decade, he was the National League's second-best player. For his career, he was history's second-best leadoff man. "I'd rather have Tim Raines or Rickey Henderson than any slugger in the game today," Padres manager Steve Boros said in 1986. "That's not to say I'd take the good leadoff man over the slugger, per se. I'm talking about Raines and Henderson. They're probably the two best leadoff hitters who ever lived."

3. Raines did many things well, but his value came mostly from getting to first base (he reached more times than Gwynn) and then, a pitch or two later, getting to second base. Raines once claimed he could steal 150 or 175 times in a season if all he'd cared about was piling up numbers, but he was much choosier to avoid making outs.

How Trout is plausibly better, already: Raines played 23 years, to Trout's nine so far. But the final decade of Raines' career was spent mostly injured, in part-time roles or as a veteran occasionally coming off the bench. From 1993 to 2002, he had 11.3 WAR; Trout already had 11.0 by the end of his rookie season. Which is to say that Raines had longevity, sure, but his case was always built on his great peak; Trout's peak, meanwhile, might be the greatest peak of all time. Raines does have a baserunning edge of nearly 80 runs; but Trout's edge on defense (110 runs) wipes that out. And Trout's OBP (.420) is nearly as high as Raines' slugging percentage (.425). Raines' best season would only tie Trout's sixth best.

Who's next: Ed Delahanty. Trout could pass him today.