The U.S. men’s national team received one of the more favorable groups during Friday’s FIFA World Cup draw, but head coach Mauricio Pochettino isn’t taking any of his squad’s upcoming opponents lightly.
No. 26-ranked Australia, No. 39-ranked Paraguay, and a TBD playoff winner from Europe have been paired with the USMNT in Group D for next summer’s competition. While several Pot 1 nations were paired with some unknowns, the USMNT already have familiarity with both Paraguay and Australia after just playing both teams during the October and November windows respectively.
Either Turkey (No. 25), Slovakia (No. 45), Romania (No. 47), or Kosovo (No. 80) will round out the group after the conclusion of the UEFA Playoffs next March. Turkey defeated the Americans 2-1 last June in friendly play, a match which that served as preparation for Pochettino’s squad ahead of a run to the CONCACAF Gold Cup Final.
Pochettino was pleased with how his team finished their 2025 schedule, but also knows that they cannot be complacent with six months to go.
“I think in the next six months, we need to update everything,” Pochettino told reporters after the draw Friday. “We know them, but they know us. The most important [thing] is the evolution, and keep improving, in all the areas, for us, like a team. To be sure that in our [play] I think we will be stronger than today.
“That, for me, is the objective, [be] better and show full respect to Paraguay and Australia and the fourth [team] that we are going to find out about in March,” he added. Yeah, I’m looking forward. I am optimistic. Before, after I think looking forward, the World Cup, the most exciting moment for us is to arrive in our best condition.”
While many of the USMNT’s standout performers were not part of the program during their last World Cup involvement in 2022, several players do bring those experiences with them into 2026. Star attacker Christian Pulisic and key midfielder Tyler Adams were among the positive performers in Qatar three years ago and now both have more club and international experience under their belts, as well as many others.
The self-confidence in the USMNT squad remains high heading into 2026, especially knowing that they will have a home field advantage against their three group stage opponents.
“There’s no easy game in a World Cup,” USMNT and Adams in a conference call Friday. “I think that for ourselves, no matter who we drew in the group, we were going to have that belief that we could make a run and do something special. Just having the draw in general, now the excitement grows, and it makes it feel more real.”
“We can go into the World Cup with a good feeling,” Pulisic said on a call. “We’ve been playing together for so long, since youth soccer, and I mean, being able to play a World Cup in our home country, you can’t ask for anything better. It’s what we dreamed of as kids, just to have this opportunity.”
2025 saw plenty of highs for the USMNT, which included victories over Uruguay, Paraguay, Australia, and Japan. However, the year also saw some worrying moments, including home defeats to Turkey and Switzerland, as well as a pair of losses during the CONCACAF Nations League Final Four last March.
The most important thing though was the continued development of the entire squad under Pochettino’s tutelage. Pochettino’s tactics and strategies are now flowing more freely, with several players relishing their opportunities under the Argentine head coach.
With only four matches remaining until the USMNT’s group stage begins on June 12, there will be little margin for error, but Pochettino is optimistic in his team’s abilities to take the next step together.
“Always when you walk in the door, you wait and see what’s going on, [see] what happened, be optimistic and really trust your qualities and our players, in our capacity to compete,” Pochettino said. “The flexibility we start to see because I think, always, you need time, take time to play a role, to adapt to different system and the way that you want to play. We tried from the beginning but doesn’t happen [quickly] because that is normal, the process.
“But I think yes, I think we are so happy in the way that we are evolving like a team, growing in the areas, not only in the aggressiveness, the way that we compete [and] in a tactical perspective,” he added. “The thing is more now within knowledge about what we need to do, and I think we’re keeping improving. That is the idea.”
You have to give Pochettino some credit at this juncture. With the draw complete and no US games until March, Pochettino has set the bar for expectations from the player pool. Yes, they lost some winnable games early in his tenure, but he was still assessing talent and developing tactics. We saw in the last couple of windows a marked improvement in team cohesive and overall effort. Most significantly, the competition for roster spots has clearly escalated, which is where his comment about ‘expectations’ rings true. So far, a good run.
That we have a manager with the maturity and self confidence to implement a long term plan, to sacrifice meaningless games, even a GC with a long term goal in laser focus amidst hardship and criticism is refreshing. Too often we’ve over emphasized short term meaningless victories to the detriment of the long term health of the team.