The World Cup is on American soil, everyone thinks the USMNT is a joke and it’s time to prove them all wrong

The 2026 FIFA World Cup starts Friday night and the entire planet thinks American soccer is a punchline. Every European football account on the internet has spent the last four years making jokes about the USMNT hosting a World Cup like we don’t belong at the table.

The English think it’s cute. The Germans think it’s funny. The Brazilians, the Argentinians, the French, all of them look at American soccer and laugh like we’re a little league team that accidentally wandered into the adults’ tournament.

Fuck them. Every single one of them.

Good. Let them laugh. Let them come to our country, play in our stadiums, in front of our crowds, on our soil, and find out what happens when 330 million people decide to give a shit about a sport at the same time because let me tell you, that’s what’s about to happen.

The World Cup is here. It’s ours. The stadiums are ours. The home crowds are ours. The energy is ours. Every single advantage that comes with hosting the biggest sporting event on the planet belongs to the United States of America for the next month and the rest of the world is about to learn what that means.

Every worldwide event gets me fired up. Give me anything where you can wrap yourself in red, white, and blue and scream at a television until your voice is gone. Give me an excuse to let my nationalism bleed while a drink excessively and I’m there.

The World Cup on home soil is different though. This is the one event where the entire world shows up and tells you to your face that you don’t belong. That your country doesn’t understand the sport. That your players aren’t good enough. That your league is a retirement home. That your fans don’t know what they’re watching.

Friday night against Paraguay at 9 PM on FOX, the USMNT gets to start answering all of that on the field.

The USMNT Golden Generation Is… Ready?

Stop calling them prospects. Stop calling them young. Stop treating them like kids with potential who might be good someday.

Pulisic is at AC Milan dominating Serie A. McKennie is at Juventus competing in the Champions League. Aaronson has been all over Europe since he was 20 years old. This roster is full of players who have been tested at the highest levels of club football across the continent and have proven they belong.

They’re not the youngest squad in the tournament anymore like they were in Qatar. They’re in their mid-20s, entering their primes, playing the best soccer of their careers, and they have a World Cup on home soil with a group draw that couldn’t have been more favorable.

The 2022 World Cup squad was the youngest in the tournament and showed flashes of what this generation could become. Four years later, those kids are now experienced veterans who have been through Champions League nights and league title races at the biggest clubs in Europe. This is the window. This is the moment the entire program has been building toward for a decade.

Pochettino said it and I’m going to keep saying it until this tournament is over. “Why not us? Why not us? Why not us?” The man coached Tottenham, Chelsea, and PSG. He’s been in Champions League finals. He knows what elite competition looks like at the highest level and he’s standing at a podium telling the American public that this team can compete with anyone in the world. Believe him. I do.

The Group Draw should be a Gift

Paraguay. Australia. Turkey. That’s Group D and the USMNT is the highest-ranked team in it at 17th in the world with Turkey at 22nd, Australia at 27th, and Paraguay at 40th.

No Brazil. No France. No Germany. No Argentina. The World Cup gods gave the United States a path and now it’s time to walk through it without tripping.

If the USMNT can’t get out of this group playing at home with this roster, the entire program needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt from scratch.

USMNT GROUP SCHEDULE

Three matches over two weeks, all on FOX:

• Friday, June 12 at 9 PM ET: United States vs. Paraguay
• Friday, June 19 at 3 PM ET: United States vs. Australia
• Thursday, June 25 at 10 PM ET: Turkey vs. United States

Paraguay on Friday night is the one that sets the tone for everything. They’re the lowest-ranked team in the group at 40th in the world and the USMNT should handle them comfortably in front of a home crowd on a Friday night. A convincing opening win on national television tells the rest of the tournament that the USMNT is here to compete, not just participate.

Australia in the afternoon on June 19th is the trickiest game on paper because the Socceroos always compete hard at World Cups regardless of their ranking and they have a knack for grinding out results against teams that underestimate them. They’ll sit back, defend in numbers, and try to nick a goal on the counter. If the Americans come out flat after a big opening win against Paraguay, this is the game where things get complicated. The USMNT cannot take this one lightly.

Turkey on June 25th at 10 PM could be the group decider depending on how the first two matches play out. Turkey is the second-best team in the group with legitimate quality across the roster. I fucking hate Turkey for personal reasons. They are scum of the earth people. We cannot lose this one. Period.

Regardless of my personal issues, both teams have already qualified by then, the match becomes about positioning and seeding for the knockout round. If one or both still need a result, it could be the most intense atmosphere of the group stage.

The Knockout Path Is Wide Open

Here’s where it gets exciting. The expanded 48-team format means the top two teams from each group advance automatically along with the eight best third-place finishers. Win Group D, which the USMNT absolutely should given the rankings and home advantage, and they’d face a third-place team from one of several other groups in the new Round of 32. That’s not a death sentence. That’s a winnable match against a team that barely scraped through their own group.

Win that Round of 32 game and the USMNT would face the winner of a match involving the Group G winner, likely Belgium, in the Round of 16 with a quarterfinal berth on the line. Belgium is ranked ninth in the world so it wouldn’t be a cakewalk but it’s a matchup the USMNT can absolutely compete in on home soil with a crowd behind them.

The quarterfinals should be the floor for expectations, not the ceiling. If this roster with this talent playing at home can’t get past Paraguay, Australia, Turkey, and a third-place team, then the entire Golden Generation narrative was hype and nothing more. I don’t believe that. I believe this group is going to show the world something over the next month.

The World Has Been Telling Us We Don’t Belong for 30 Years

The last time the United States hosted a World Cup was 1994 and the rest of the world acted like it was a charity event, like FIFA was doing America a favor by letting us hold the tournament. Those stadiums were packed. The 1994 World Cup set attendance records that stood for decades. America showed up and the world pretended it didn’t happen.

Thirty-two years later, the same narrative is playing out. “Americans don’t understand soccer.” “MLS is a retirement league.” “The USMNT isn’t a real contender.” “Hosting doesn’t mean competing.” I’ve been reading these takes from European soccer accounts for months and every single one of them makes me want to run through a wall.

The disrespect is the fuel. Every condescending tweet from an English football account, every smug European pundit dismissing the USMNT on television, every comment section full of people laughing at the idea of America making a deep run, all of it goes into the fire. The Golden Generation didn’t spend a decade developing in the best leagues in Europe to come home and get embarrassed on their own soil. This roster has too much talent, too much experience, and too much pride to let that happen.

Philadelphia Is at the Center of Everything

Six matches at the Linc starting June 14th with Brazil, France, Croatia, and a Round of 16 game on July 4th. Four Union academy products on the USMNT roster with Freese, Trusty, Aaronson, and McKenzie all making the squad. Pulisic with Pennsylvania roots. The Fan Festival at Lemon Hill running for 39 days. SEPTA running overnight service with free rides home from the sports complex. Over a million visitors expected in the region this summer between the World Cup, the All-Star Game, and America250.

This city is going to be electric for the next month. The World Cup coming to Philadelphia in the 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence, with American players who grew up in this region on the national team roster, is the kind of convergence that happens once in a lifetime. Brazil at the Linc on June 19th. France on June 22nd. A knockout round game on Independence Day in the city where independence was declared 250 years ago. You couldn’t write a better script if you tried.

Hey USMNT, Why Not Us?

The world thinks American soccer is a joke. The world has been telling us we don’t belong at the top table of this sport for as long as this sport has existed. The world is about to fly to our country, play in our stadiums, and try to beat us in front of our people.

Friday night at 9 PM, the talking stops. Paraguay is first. Then Australia. Then Turkey. Then whoever is next. One game at a time. One win at a time. The Golden Generation on home soil with the entire country behind them and a path to the quarterfinals that is sitting there waiting to be taken.

Why not us? Seriously. Give me one reason why not us. The talent is there. The experience is there. The coaching is there. The home crowd is there. The draw is favorable. The knockout path is manageable. Everything is lined up for this team to make a run that changes the way the world looks at American soccer forever.

It’s time. For the Cup.

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