ALL JUSTIN WILLIS saw was the ocean. Peering down a dark hallway, through a hole in the wall, outside of his grandparents' 11th-floor condo in Surfside, Florida, he saw water and nothing else. Nearby, he could see through the top half of a neighbor's mangled door. The rest of that apartment, what he expected to see behind the door, was severed and gone.

Willis, a University of Connecticut baseball player, knew he and his family had to get out, somehow, and make their way toward the ocean. And he wasn't alone. Several floors below, Esther Gorfinkel knew she had to get out too. Gorfinkel, 88, had never met Willis, 22, but they suddenly, urgently, had everything in common.

Moments earlier, in the early-morning hours of June 24, Willis and his 14-year-old sister, Athena, were still awake and watching TV. Willis, a right-handed reliever for the Huskies, had watched Vanderbilt beat Stanford 6-5 in the College World Series then stayed up to catch a show on Netflix. Their family was on vacation just 2½ weeks after UConn's season had come to an end in the NCAA regionals.

Three loud bangs roused Willis from the living room couch. They came in succession, starting with the familiar boom of what sounded like a coastal storm, escalating until Willis thought a jet was taxiing on the roof. His parents, Albert and Janette Aguero, jumped out of bed. They didn't know what was happening either. His father went to the balcony. Firefighters had arrived below. Concrete dust filled the air. Get out!, a firefighter shouted. So they headed through double doors that led to the hallway, still perplexed -- wondering whether it was a hurricane or the echoes of damage to a neighboring building. Albert and Justin took only their phones and wallets, and Janette and Athena grabbed their phones and water bottles.

That's when they looked 15 feet away, two doors down, and saw the Atlantic Ocean.

The 12-story, 136-unit Champlain Towers South had partially collapsed. Willis and his family engineered a harrowing escape from what remained of the tower, combining gumption with luck. As vacationers rather than residents, they had no idea that the garage-level hole they escaped through wasn't previously there. And they were fortunate that the stairs they took to that garage were unobstructed.

"It was literally," Albert said later, "the only way out."

More than anything, though, they were lucky to happen upon Esther Gorfinkel, who was on the brink of surrender.

They helped save her life on a night that forever changed theirs.

IN THE PITCH-BLACK outside apartment 1106, there was silence. No sirens befitting the chaos that had arrived. No automated voice repeating emergency directions. The electricity was out. The elevators were reduced to hollowed-out shafts. Next to those shafts was the door to the stairwell with an exit sign that remained lit.

As the family of four descended, Albert led the way, and Janette brought up the rear to protect the children. Moonlight seeped through the crumbling walls of the stairwell.

Albert began to count.

We're at 10.

Are you guys still there?

We're at eight.

You back there?

We're at six.

When they reached the sixth floor, they heard pleas from people hoping to escape. Janette wrenched open a door that had jammed, allowing three people from that floor to join.

When they arrived on the third floor, there was Esther Gorfinkel, who had lived in her fifth-floor condo for nearly four decades. Wearing sandals and a nightgown, she had fled with only a flashlight. Her late husband, a World War II veteran, had once told her to never look back toward trouble.

"When I was trying to even look for an exit door, I went to my left because it was along there ... an exit door there to go in the steps," Gorfinkel remembered. "I saw destruction. Then I could see a little bit of the sky. And then I know something wrong happened. And I went to the right, and I opened [that] door and I went to [those] stairs."

The stairwell was chaotic. Alfredo Lopez and his family, from the sixth floor, were there. Another woman, who had held Gorfinkel's hand for a bit, asked Willis and his family to take over. Gorfinkel needed help to keep moving fast enough. For her, it was all a blur.

"I said to them, 'I just turned 88 and look what happened,'" Gorfinkel said.

Willis said he took one of her arms, and Albert took the other.

"At that point, she was like, 'I've lived a good life. You guys can go,'" Albert remembered. He told her she'd make it to her 89th birthday.

"This isn't it for you," he said.

They guided her down to a basement-level garage, where water touched their calves. There was, they remembered, nowhere to go. The ramp that headed out to the street had been destroyed. But they noticed a hole in the structure, likely opened by the shifting building, that they could escape through if they could scale three feet of concrete with Gorfinkel in tow.

"I couldn't walk because my back hurt and my feet hurt," Gorfinkel later remembered.

Willis said he jumped ahead and pulled her over and through some bushes, with his father lifting her up from below and his mother guiding her. Three feet separated safety and doom. According to Willis, he then lifted her in the air to clear a railing. Gorfinkel lost a sandal in the bushes, he said, but they had to press on toward the beach. They were still underneath the building.

Unfamiliar with the layout of the towers -- the apartment had been in the family for three years, but this was the first trip for all four of them together -- the group overshot the lobby, which was obstructed anyway, and didn't know that there was no planned exit in the garage.

"There were survivors who were taken out on the cherry pickers from balconies later ... who have been residents for 15-plus years, who were yelling at us from balconies when they saw us climbing out of the rubble, saying, 'How did you get out?'" Janette said.

"And we kept telling them, 'The stairs, the stairs.' And they're yelling, 'But the door [to the lobby] won't open.' I think they knew, instinctively, that they couldn't go to the ground level because there was no way they were going to trap themselves in the garage."

After making it through that hole, they were outside the building but not yet to safety. They feared the rest of the building would topple too.

"It definitely didn't register in my mind that we're still under the building," Willis said. "I'm like, 'All right, we're outside. I can't think that it's going to fall forward,' which, logically, it definitely could."

They headed out to the pool area close to the beach and faced another obstacle. The collapsed deck had created a 4-foot gap with the pool, still intact. Willis said he picked up Gorfinkel while Albert jumped the gap, then slung Gorfinkel up to his father and to safety. "It was a sigh of relief," Willis said.

They headed to the sand near the building, past the gate that surrounded the pool, through a grassy area with barbecue grills and down a short path -- close enough to see the horror of what they had escaped but far enough away to avoid any further collapse.

But Gorfinkel couldn't go any farther. She made it beyond the gate, where she spotted a picnic bench.

"I need to sit down," she said. "I'm going to have a heart attack."

THEY SNAPPED PICTURES from the beach. That's how they knew how long it had been. Janette's photo was time-stamped at 1:36 a.m. Albert's said 1:38. They remember leaving their condo at 1:25. They knew how fortunate they were. So they stood on that beach processing their fear, mourning and shock. Their survival was a game of inches. "The beach has always been my safe haven, so I felt I'd be safe there," Albert said. "How much more could happen?"

While they gathered themselves on the sand, Gorfinkel stayed behind with Lopez and his family until medical personnel arrived. Willis and his family made sure the right people knew to find her. They took her away from the building and across the street to check her blood pressure. She had not had a heart attack. Gorfinkel's son got a call and went to pick her up.

The family eventually found the street through a neighboring building and headed to nearby Harding Avenue, where a woman with a suitcase told them that she was packed and ready for something like this to happen. She left after the first bang and watched part of the building disintegrate.

Shortly after, they arrived at the Town of Surfside Community Center on 93rd Street and Collins Avenue, just five blocks from Champlain Towers South. Dozens of other people already were there, leading Willis' family to believe that they'd also survived the collapse. They were hopeful. But unbeknownst to them, officials had evacuated an adjacent building too. Police arrived and asked for people from the adjacent building to separate from those who came from Champlain Towers South.

More than 50 people stood up and moved, Janette and Albert remembered.

"There's seven of us [from Champlain Towers South]," Janette later said. "Seven."

Many of the rest were unaccounted for.

"Watching the people at 6 in the morning come into the [community center] and say, 'Hey, so-and-so, I'm here for them,' and they just start bawling their eyes out [when that person wasn't there]," Willis said. "That really hit home."

They stayed there until 6:30 a.m., processing those 11 minutes. Albert had to talk to police, and the rest of the family went to see the building, staring at what they had overcome. Albert didn't follow. He wanted to stare at something else.

The sunrise.

TWO DAYS LATER, as Willis and his family were at Miami International Airport about to board a flight home, Albert Aguero got a call from the Special Victims Unit wanting to know if they were alive. Two days after that, they were home in North Bergen, New Jersey, a dense neighborhood not far from the western bank of the Hudson River where they rode out Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Willis remembered friends from nearby Hoboken who lost their houses and others who still stare at the patches of moss and fungus in their basements, a reminder of catastrophic flooding.

He likened the second loud bang he heard in Florida to what he had heard during Sandy, when they lost power for nine days.

For him, the building collapse was different. It was quick but everlasting. Willis said there's only one feeling comparable to fleeing down those steps: pitching. When on the mound, he has tunnel vision. Sometimes he doesn't recall how things happened. In a game at Minute Maid Park in Houston during his freshman year at Vanderbilt, before he transferred to UConn, he entered with the bases loaded and one out and got out of the jam. He doesn't remember any of it.

"I completely blacked out," Willis said of that March 3, 2018, appearance against Louisiana-Lafayette.

Willis said most of the escape from the Florida condo was a blur -- the scramble out of the apartment, the frenzied descent. Some parts of the journey felt like seconds, a fight-or-flight rush of fear and adrenaline. Other parts might as well have lasted hours.

But Willis does remember some specific details and what it was like for his family to help save Esther Gorfinkel. No, he didn't say they saved a life -- but he described scaling the gap by the pool. He remembered the angle of his foot as he stepped on a stray concrete block. He recalled the wall he used for leverage and where his father was positioned.

He remembered the relief when everyone, including Gorfinkel, made it to safety.

"That's when you feel all right," he said.

ONE MONTH AFTER the collapse, firefighters called off their search for bodies. Ninety-eight people died. Authorities have identified all of the the victims. Willis and his family were among the survivors. Rescue crews from as far away as Israel and Mexico had helped the search. Several lawsuits have been filed on behalf of Champlain Towers South families who want answers from the condominium association, which was informed of a 2018 inspection that found "major structural damage" at the property, notably to that same pool deck from where Willis, his family and Gorfinkel narrowly escaped. Janette said the family is part of a class-action lawsuit.

Albert said that his parents, the owners of the unit, had recently received an $80,000 assessment for repairs on the building. He said the family was under the impression that the money would help spruce up the aesthetics rather than fortify the structure. They thought that it was to keep up with the newer buildings that went up nearby. What remained of Champlain Towers South, the building in which Albert's parents had hoped to retire, was demolished.

They are grateful to have survived.

"A lot of things just aligned however they did for us," Janette said. "I still don't know how, really."

Willis was scheduled to play for the Keene Swamp Bats in the New England Collegiate Baseball League this summer. He also was asked to head to the Cape Cod Baseball League. But he decided not to play at all, opting to spend more time with his family. It has been a lot for the family to process, including Willis, who tore his ACL playing basketball after arriving at UConn in the fall of 2019. Then COVID-19 hit before that spring's baseball season. But he has support.

Willis said that a number of people have reached out to him from UConn's administration, which offered immediate support and counseling. His teammates have peppered the Huskies' group chat with inspirational messages. Longtime UConn baseball coach Jim Penders texted with Willis on the day of the tragedy, before the pair had subsequent phone calls. Willis told Penders he was grateful to be alive.

"It has put life into a different perspective for me," Willis said.

"I'm sure he's going to have a reckoning at some point," Penders said.

Willis already has felt some aftereffects of the trauma. When he got in the shower at the New Jersey apartment, the bathroom lights flickered, triggering a memory of the tower collapse and sending him into a momentary panic.

That morning in Florida has stuck with his family too. In late July, the family vacationed at Marriott's Aruba Surf Club, where Albert's parents owned a timeshare. One day, a fire alarm went off at 5 a.m. They looked at each other in horror. Janette has had trouble sleeping. She'd wake up in the middle of the night, her nails clawing at the mattress, thinking that the bed was shaking. A thunderclap will be a bit too reminiscent of the noise that accompanied the severed building.

Athena heard the booms and saw the ocean too. She was in the hallway and in the stairwell. She escaped through the garage, sprinting ahead of her family and Gorfinkel -- the first one out.

She wants to be an architect when she grows up.

A WEEK AFTER the collapse, Esther Gorfinkel logged on to a Zoom call arranged by her granddaughter at the South Florida home of her son, Marcos, with whom she was staying after she lost everything. It was late morning, and she was already tired.

She talked about the life she had before part of the building came down, the in-home nurse who visited her condo, the white patio furniture you could see from a distance. On that night, Gorfinkel thought it was raining because she had heard what she thought was thunder. Then the bed moved, and so did the apartment. She thought of her neighbors.

"The first night [after the collapse]," she said, "I have a little bit of trouble falling asleep. [I'm] thinking of the people that ... are not coming out. Some friends that I have, they never came out."

Willis and his family had lost touch with Gorfinkel when they separated on their way to the beach. Upon returning to New Jersey, they were processing their own trauma. The thunderstorms came and went.

But shortly after they got home, Albert received a text from Marcos, who said he was thankful that the family had helped save his mother's life. He asked if he could arrange a call. Gorfinkel spoke to Albert, with Willis listening in, about the escape and what has come next. At 88, Gorfinkel started from scratch. No ID, no eyeglasses, no home. She lost it all.

Reflecting on the escape, Gorfinkel said several people helped her along the way, including Lopez, her neighbor from the sixth floor. In the rush to get out, she said, some of the details ran together for her, but she knew one thing for sure.

"There's no words that can express whatever you feel when a person helps to save your life," Gorfinkel said.

She paused.

"I also think I would ... give a thank-you in person."

Then, she cried.

The British and Irish Lions' series with South Africa will go to a decider after the Springboks won a fiery second Test 27-9 at Cape Town Stadium.

But a stylish Makazole Mapimpi try gave the world champions a narrow two-point lead at the start of the second half.

The hosts continued to dominate and Lukhanyo Am's score sealed victory.

Pollard scored three more penalties to further put the Lions in their place after the tourists won the first Test 22-17.

Both sides will have to raise their level once again in what promises to be a thrilling series decider on Saturday, 7 August.

Referee O'Keeffe forced into the limelight

South Africa director of rugby Rassie Erasmus had made himself the centre of attention during the week by posting an unprecedented hour-long video monologue critiquing referee Nic Berry's work in the Lions' opening win.

Erasmus' act also threw the spotlight on Ben O'Keeffe, who took charge of the second Test.

The New Zealander was put through his paces by two emotionally charged sides, with 40 minutes of first-half playing time taking 62 minutes to complete because of stoppages needed for officiating decisions.

Tensions boiled over after just two minutes as Alun Wyn Jones and Eben Etzebeth stared each other down and players from both sides faced off around them.

Pollard and Biggar exchanged penalties, before an uncharacteristic miss by the South Africa 10 as the Lions took a 6-3 lead.

Then the story became as much about the players leaving the field as those still on it. First 2019 world player of the year Pieter-Steph du Toit exited with a shoulder injury, replaced by the much less experienced Kwagga Smith.

The Lions were dealt a bigger blow when Duhan Van der Merwe was given a yellow card for his trip on Cheslin Kolbe.

But Kolbe followed two minutes later after he took Conor Murray out in the air - an action that prompted players from both sides to pile into another scrap and a telling off for both captains from O'Keeffe, who promised more yellow cards if the behaviour continued.

Pollard levelled things with an impressive 54m kick, before the Lions had a try ruled out as Siya Kolisi held the ball up when Robbie Henshaw tried to get it to ground after taking a chip ahead.

The tourists were brought back for an earlier penalty and Biggar slotted his third to give the Lions a three-point advantage at the break.

Resurgent South Africa claim victory

The Lions were hoping to go 2-0 up in a series for the first time since 1997 - the year the tourists last claimed a series win in South Africa.

Warren Gatland's side had turned a 12-3 deficit into victory in the opening Test but the tables were turned this time around.

Pollard began the game-changing move as he faked a long pass then pulled back and chipped the ball across to Mapimpi, who sliced inside the cover to score.

The fly-half's missed conversion could have proved costly when Biggar got another shot on goal, but the Lions 10's effort hit the left post and bounced backwards.

Biggar tested the Springboks with high balls but they were up for the challenge and when Faf de Klerk sent a few back, it was the Lions who faltered.

The Sale scrum-half chipped a ball through for Am and the centre's grounding was perhaps O'Keeffe's most contentious decision.

Am managed to reach the ball before it went dead and South African television match official Marius Jonker brought up replays of the Springbok touching the ball down with his forearm.

O'Keeffe deemed it to be a controlled grounding and any hope the Lions had of getting back into the game was further extinguished by nine points from Pollard's boot.

Lions captain Alun Wyn Jones gathered his players into a huddle at full-time for what was undoubtedly a rousing speech as they turn their attention to a high-stakes decider.

Line-ups

British & Irish Lions: Hogg; A Watson, Harris, Henshaw, Van der Merwe; Biggar, Murray; Vunipola, Cowan-Dickie, Furlong, Itoje, AW Jones, Lawes, Curry, Conan.

Replacements: Owens, Sutherland, Sinckler, Beirne, Faletau, Price, Farrell, Daly.

South Africa: Le Roux; Kolbe, Am, De Allende, Mapimpi; Pollard, De Klerk; Kitshoff, Mbonambi, Malherbe, Etzebeth, Mostert, Kolisi, Du Toit, Wiese

Replacements: Marx, Nyakane, Koch, De Jager, Van Staden, Smith, H Jantjies, Willemse.

RICHMOND, Va. -- Washington Football Team coach Ron Rivera issued a warning to his team after two more players were placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list, giving his players a what-if scenario: If this had happened the day before their season opener, it would impact their first two games.

Washington now has six players on the reserve/COVID-19 list, including All-Pro guard Brandon Scherff, who was placed on it Saturday along with reserve tackle David Sharpe. Receiver Curtis Samuel is another starter who already was on the list, as is key reserve defensive tackle Matt Ioannidis.

Washington ranks next-to-last in terms of vaccination rate, having just climbed above 70% of players having at least one shot. One team remains below 70%. The overall player percentage in the NFL is 89.4, with 22 clubs over 90% and nine above 95%.

As of Saturday morning, Arizona had the most players on the reserve/COVID list with nine. The Indianapolis Colts had four players along with head coach Frank Reich.

Being on the COVID list does not mean a player has the virus. It could be based on contact tracing. But even that would cost a player five days.

As Rivera told his players after practice Saturday, if this had been the day before the opener vs. the Los Angeles Chargers, then Scherff and Sharpe would also have missed the second game because it occurs on Thursday.

"Those guys would not be eligible, so, to me, it brings the reality of what the rules are," Rivera said, "and I hope it helps. But these young men have to make their decisions."

For now, Rivera said, it makes it hard to fully evaluate various players or units with players missing. Washington has wanted to use second-year lineman Saahdiq Charles at guard, for example, but with both Sharpe and fellow tackle Cornelius Lucas on the list, the team has mostly kept him outside.

"That's part of the problem, to be very honest," Rivera said. "That's going to make things difficult, and that's the thing we have to be aware of. It'll make it difficult in terms of everybody working together, difficult on us as coaches with our evaluations and scouts, and it'll be difficult on the player because having time off, not really getting an opportunity to work and develop and grow and learning. That's the downfall and that's the downside."

Rivera said they've set up appointments for some players to get a shot Sunday, which is their day off. He said he has talked to a number of his players about their hesitation over getting the vaccine. Rivera said he tries to provide them with information about how the vaccine was developed.

"There is some deep thought going on from some of these guys," Rivera said. "It's a matter of these guys being educated and understanding because it's fair when you sit down and talk to these guys and listen to them and listen to their true concerns. Some guys just don't know and I've gotten a sense that there are a few who are dug in so hard, so much that they're not going to back down. That's the part to me that's concerning because I care about all these guys. You do worry that somebody might catch it and go home and pass it on to a family member."

On Friday, Scherff, wearing a mask and 12 feet from the media, spoke about the vaccine.

"It's a personal decision for me; it's a personal decision for everybody," he said. "Nobody's made a deal of it. You know, we're all here to play football and that's what we're doing."

On Tuesday, Rivera said he was "beyond frustrated" with the team's slow pace of vaccinations. He also said he was immune deficient because of cancer last fall.

"I think just making the statement that I'm immune deficient hopefully is part of their conversation, part of their thought process," Rivera said.

"It's a personal thing, but we can sway them hopefully."

Washington had no players on its 53-man roster go on the COVID list last regular season. Two players, Ioannidis and running back Javon Leake, both went on the list but Ioannidis was on injured reserve and Leake was on the practice squad.

Milwaukee Bucks forward Bobby Portis is declining his $3.8 million player option and will become a free agent, agent Mark Bartelstein told ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski on Saturday.

The most the Bucks can offer Portis is a $5.9 million exception, according to ESPN's Bobby Marks.

The 26-year-old Portis was one of the more effective sixth men in the NBA, averaging 11.4 points and 7.1 rebounds during the regular season while averaging 52.3% shooting from the field.

He was a major contributor during the Bucks' run to the NBA championship, averaging 8.8 points and 5.0 rebounds during the postseason.

JoAnne Carner, 82, failed to reach her goal of making the cut at the U.S. Senior Women's Open, but she broke some records anyway in her two rounds at Brooklawn Country Club. 

Carner shot her age and below with an 82 in Round 1 and a 79 in Round 2. She finished at 17-over 161 with the cut at 8 over. 

But it was a historical two days for Carner, as she became the fifth golfer ever to shoot their age or better multiple times in a USGA championship while also being the oldest golfer ever to play in a USGA championship. The previous record was held by Jug McSpaden who played the '90 U.S. Senior Open at 81 years old. 

"It was really fun," Carner said Friday following her round. "I mean, I started too late to -- normally you come in here you're all ready. 

"But, you know, I was still hunting and pecking for some way to get it around there. Just, you know, I would hit a really good shot and then two holes later I would drop-kick it. You know, so it was just very erratic for me."

Wait, there's more that makes Carner's feat more remarkable. She has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and had surgery on her right hip in December 2019. She was granted permission to use a cart during her time in Fairfield, Connecticut. 

The 1971 and '76 U.S. Women's Open champion also didn't swing a club for 14 months due to COVID-19 but has been preparing for this event for the last two months. The preparation paid off on the tee, as she hit double-digit greens in both of her rounds in one of the toughest tests in golf, but did putt over 30 times in both rounds, too. 

"Well, the USGA is always the toughest, even in the juniors," she said. "You know, the Opens, of course. But you can't just hit every green and every fairway in an Open. You're always going to have to play out of rough and out of the sand and all that. 

"So your whole game has to be in good shape. That's what I love about it. Those boring girls down the middle don't win the Open usually." 

Although Carner didn't come away with the win this week, there's nothing boring about the cigarette smokin' 43-time LPGA winner. She'll look to break her own record next year at NCR Country Club Kettering, Ohio. 

Mexico overcame South Korea 6-3 in a a goal fest to reach the semifinals of the men's Olympic football tournament in Yokohama.

El Tri, gold medal winners at London 2012, helped eliminate France in the group stage as they finished runners-up to hosts Japan in Group A

- Men's Olympics soccer bracket and fixtures

Henry Martin opened the scoring with a close-range header on 12 minutes but Dong-Gyeong Lee pulled South Korea level eight minutes later with a shot from just outside the box.

Luis Romo re-established Mexico's lead on 29 minutes before a Francisco Cordova penalty six minutes before half-time, awarded after a foul by South Korea's Kang Yoon-Sung on Uriel Antuna, put Raul Gutierrez's side 3-1 ahead.

South Korea came out with intent in the second half and reduced the deficit on 51 minutes when Lee got his second after being set up by Kim Jin-Ya.

However, Mexico made it 4-2 just three minutes later as Martin doubled his tally.

Cordova then got his second on 63 minutes to net Mexico's fifth before Eduardo Aguirre added a sixth on 84 minutes.

Hwang Ui-Jo headed in a consolation goal in stoppage time for South Korea.

Mexico will face Brazil in Kashima on Tuesday for their semifinal in a repeat of the 2012 final.

Aston Villa have announced that they have reached a deal with Bayer Leverkusen for the transfer of Leon Bailey.

The winger had a productive 2020-21 season in the Bundesliga, scoring nine goals and assisting nine more.

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Villa confirmed in a statement that an agreement had been made with Leverkusen, subject to him completing a medical and finalising personal terms.

The signing comes one day after sources told ESPN that Manchester City had offered Villa a £100 million package for their captain Jack Grealish.

The deal would involve City paying Villa £90m and a transfer of highly rated young winger Morgan Rodgers.

Villa would like to keep Grealish but sources have told ESPN that he would be allowed to leave if that was his decision.

Jamaica interntional Bailey joined Leverkusen in 2017 from Genk.

The 23-year-old was part of the Jamaica squad which made it to the quarterfinals of the Gold Cup before being knocked out by the United States men's national team in a 1-0 defeat.

LAS VEGAS -- When the U.S. men's national team and Mexico meet in Sunday's 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup final, it will be the second time in 56 days that the longtime rivals have faced each other with a continental title on the line. And yet the two matches could not be more different in terms of the relative stakes involved.

Back on June 6, the sides met in the inaugural CONCACAF Nations League final, and it was the U.S. in desperate need of a win because, for the entirety of manager Gregg Berhalter's tenure, there had yet to be a victory that confirmed that the team was back on an upward trajectory.

A statement was needed, not only to generate some confidence in the coach's methods but also to give this generation of players something tangible to go with its undeniable talent. And, regardless of the wild sequence of events that took place during the game, the collective group stepped up, absorbed the pressure -- and a bottle or two to the head -- to ultimately walk away with a 3-2 win after extra time.

As for Mexico, while the loss stung -- they always do against the U.S. -- there was a belief that Gerardo "Tata" Martino's men had played well enough to win, having led twice and with the chance to make it 3-3 but for Ethan Horvath to save Andres Guardado's penalty. As it stood, El Tri would be back to fight another day.

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So what has changed heading into Sunday's encounter at Allegiant Stadium? In a word: expectations.

The U.S. came into this tournament with an intentionally youthful, inexperienced roster, with one fundamental reason the desire to give presumptive first-team regulars -- Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Giovanni Reyna and others -- rest ahead of what is expected to be a busy season for both club and country.

But there was also a need to get a better idea of how impactful up-and-coming members of the player pool could be at the international level. This is especially important given that triple-fixture windows dot the horizon for World Cup qualifying, which begins in September, and depth will be tested.

Expectation-wise, this left the U.S. in a bit of a conundrum. Berhalter has said from the beginning that the goal was to win the tournament, regardless of roster construction. And yet there have been times when the team's youth has been trotted out as an explanation for shaky performances.

A 1-0 group-stage win against Canada, who had a slight edge in experience but also fielded some new faces in the absence of stars such as Alphonso Davies and Jonathan David, was seen as a case in point, yet it was not so much the young players who let the U.S. down that day but rather veterans who did not step up.

In Thursday's semifinal win, Qatar looked a cut above in the first half but were unable to find a way past the impressive Matt Turner in goal, which allowed the Americans to rally late in the game and seal victory through an all-important Gyasi Zardes goal.

That this U.S. squad has reached the final speaks well of its ability to adapt, grow and grind out results. Moreover, while injuries to the likes of defender Walker Zimmerman, midfielder Paul Arriola and defender Reggie Cannon have limited options, they have also given Berhalter data points on players like Shaq Moore, Miles Robinson, James Sands and Matthew Hoppe.

Given those developments, the U.S. would seem to be playing with house money on Sunday. Its objectives have largely been achieved and little is expected against the pre-tournament favorite. Yet Berhalter wants his side to be greedy and finish the job.

"We're not done, and that was the message to the team," the U.S. coach said after the semifinal. "It's nice to make the final, but we want to win the final. Our No. 1 goal is to win the Gold Cup. We said that before the Gold Cup, and we'll say it again."

By contrast, the stakes for Mexico could not be more different. This is a game it dare not lose, even if it almost cannot win; beating a short-handed U.S. team to claim a 12th Gold Cup title would prove little, even if there are a players absent like Raul Jimenez and Hirving Lozano.

But in the event of defeat, pressure would increase and doubts would be raised heading into World Cup qualifying. Would it even be enough to cost Martino his job?

There has certainly been that impulse at times in the past, but the tenure of predecessor Juan Carlos Osorio is instructive. The Mexico Football Federation stuck by him after a 7-0 thrashing by Chile in the 2016 Copa America Centenario quarterfinals, and that patience and emphasis on stability was rewarded with World Cup qualification and a famous victory over holders Germany in Russia.

This Mexico team has found a way to get results, even if the actual play has sometimes fallen short of its lofty standards. Jonathan dos Santos has been rallied around following the death of his father, and one would expect that its experience edge all over the field, but especially in a midfield led by Hector Herrera, will tell at some point.

Berhalter noted how poor his side was in terms of winning duels against Qatar, with just 42.7%, while the tackle success was even worse at 30%. If that happens again, the likes of Rogelio Funes Mori should benefit and make it a long night for a back line that has performed so well.

But the very nature of this long-standing rivalry means that another drama-filled chapter seems inevitable. Given the mental fortitude shown over the past few weeks by the U.S., as well as the must-win nature of the game for Mexico, expect another compelling encounter.