USMNT – Group Stage Review and Knockout Prognosis

The Group Stage for WC 2026 has been completed and it been entertaining and full of surprises. Before we dive into a look at Group D and how the USMNT played lets take a look at the rest of the tournament. For me, as a diehard fan and an American the most inspiring thing has been to follow all the social media posts from visitors and talking to the Aussies first hand in Seattle. I have really enjoyed the travel stories from German soccer fan FreddyLA7. Taking a 6 week tour of the US during the WC and hitting up places like Waffle House and Buc-Ees has just been hilarious. Good stuff. Ok now to some actual game related things.

• First no surprise, they have already broken the all time WC overall attendance record surpassing 3.6 million fans through the first 60 matches. The 1994 WC, also held in the US still holds the record for average attendance/match at 68,991 fans while, so far this tournament has averaged 64,270 fans/ match. And it should be noted that the 1994 WC only had 24 teams so the overall quality of the teams was a bit higher than the current 48 team tournament. However, I think its fair to say that all the pre-WC bashing about how attendance was going to be terrible due to so many more teams and much less quality has proven to be false.
• While we are talking about the 48 teams just how has that worked out. Certainly its a bit subjective but IMO its played out pretty well. There is no perfect answer when trying to balance fan interest, quality of competition, and FIFA’s drive to make money. But its been successful enough that the die hard fans are just going to have to accept that this is the way its going to be. Here’s some of the interesting things that happened during the Group Stage.
• Its hard not to put this at the top of the list. First time participant, Cabo Verde, with a population just over 500,000 people qualified and has actually advanced to the Knockout Stage. Prior to the WC most fans couldn’t even tell you where Cabo Verde is. But all they did was manage 3 draws in their 3 matches including a stunning 0-0 draw with one of the pre-tournament favorites, Spain. That was good enough to get them second in Group H. Who saw that coming!! Now they get to play Argentina in the Round of 32 and don’t expect the fairy tale to continue. But, hey they play the games for a reason.
• Speaking of Group H, Uruguay, the #16 ranked team in the world got grouped. Their Federation was so pissed that they cancelled the teams charter flight home and required the players to take commercial flights home instead. Ouch.
• The leader board for all time goals scored in the WC is taking on a new look now. Thus far Lionel Messi (Argentina) has scored 6 goals to take the all time lead at 19. He has played in 6 WC and a total of 29 matches for far. Kylian Mbappe (France) has scored 4 goals thus far to move his total to 16. This is only his 3rd WC and he has scored those 16 goals in onlyl17 matches. Also at 16 is the pre-tournament leader, Miroslav Klose (Germany). Klose played in 4 WC (the last being in 2014 and tallied his goals in 24 matches. So Messi has the total lead, but if you look at it on a goals/match basis, Mbappe is the best. But we should also mention two other players on the all time list that are still playing. Harry Kane (England) has 11 goals all time including 3 so far this tournament and right behind him with 10 goals is Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) who has 2 so far this time. Messi, Mbappe, Kane, and Ronaldo aren’t done yet either.
• And of course the tournament, like all of them has had it share of controversies. We are not going to even give credence to any of the conspiracy theories being floated. Bunch of nonsense dreamed up by the media to ..well never mind. I am not going to go there. But there are two subjects that do warrant a little attention:
• First off, the structure of the tournament with 48 teams has created a bit of an issue. Perhaps its minor but it is real. And that is the scheduling given that 8 of the 12 groups 3rd place teams advanced. When only two teams in a group advance the fairness aspect was easily dealt with. Matchday 3 for each group had both matches being played at the same time so that no team had any type of an advantage knowing exactly what result they needed to advance. But its a bit different in this format because going into Matchday 3 teams didn’t really know what result was needed. The later groups however did have the extra bit of knowledge of the groups that had already played Matchday 3. With 48 teams there is just no way to overcome this. Some pundits are suggesting that perhaps the right answer is to expand to 64 teams. 16 groups of 4 and back to only the top 2 advance. I understand the logic here but at some point the tournament quality has to drop. But then I thought that the quality would drop to far with 48 and that’s not really been the case. One could make a pretty solid argument that the gap between the best teams in the world and the lower echelon of teams is closing. Just ask Spain and Uruguay!
• Probably the biggest controversy has been how offside has been called and using the Virtual Assistant Referee (VAR) to make the rulings. Numerous goals have been called back for offside with what seems to be an extremely tight interpretation of just what is offside. The final match in Group K was between Columbia and Portugal. The match ended in a 0-0 draw. But the match was intense and filled with opportunities as the 2 sides combined for 37 shots. But neither side could find that magic bullet until the final minutes when Colombia slotted home a header for what appeared to be the game winner. But the AR raised the flag for offside and VAR confirmed the player was off. Literally by a toe. Here’s the replay and the VAR picture.

The use of VAR for offside has been a hotly debated topic for years now. There have been numerous attempts to try and come up with a better solution but thus far no perfect answer has arisen. Now we can bitch and moan about VAR and how can a guys toe make them offside. But it IS objective. There is no interpretation to be made. The technology is concise. The problem arises, of course, from what the intent of the Laws of the Game meant. The purpose of offside was to prevent an attacking player from gaining an unfair advantage due to their position. Does a guys toe being 2 inches offside really give them an advantage? Hardly. But the problem with most all of the solutions out there is that they add back in subjectivity which was the main reason for VAR in the first place. To remove the subjectivity. The biggest league in the world, the English Premier League has been trying an approach they call the zone of tolerance. Well that hasn’t been very well accepted either. Then you have long time Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, who has suggested that the rule be that to be offside there must be clear daylight between the bodies of the players in question. The concern raised with this approach is that it may give too much of an advantage to attacking players. But it would be objective in nature. Replay would show daylight or it wouldn’t. But I think I have an alternative that may be a solid compromise. Use the same approach that is used for keepers when they move to try and save a penalty kick. In that rule, keepers are allowed to move prior to the ball being kicked as long as one foot touches the goal line. They can take a step out but the back foot must still be touching (or be behind) the goal line when the ball is kicked. Apply a similar approach to offside. The attacking players front foot must be in contact with the VAR drawn offside line. This would still be objective but remove the ticky tacky offside for a toe. And create a “zone of tolerance” that is objective.

Round of 32 Projections

Here’s my cliff notes projections for this round. I’ll give you my pick and confidence level for each of the 16 matches.

Canada vs South Africa – Canada. CL is 6. Ok this one was yesterday but it went about as expected.

Brazil vs Japan – Brazil. CL 6. Both sides have looked solid but Brazil has more talent.

Germany vs Paraguay – Germany. CL 7. Paraguay’s defense has slipped a bit and the German attack is tied in goals with 10 (France and the Netherlands).

Netherlands vs Morocco – Netherlands. CL 5. This should be one of the tightest matches this round and could go either way. I just like the Dutch quality a bit better.

Ivory Coast vs Norway – Norway. CL 7. Norway has Eerling Haaland and they are well rested having the starters sit out the last match. Ivory Coast has the team speed to keep them at bay.

France vs Sweden – France. CL 7. I don’t think the Swede’s defense can stop Mbappe.

Mexico vs Ecuador – Mexico. CL 7. Mexico was gifted an easy group and won it going away. But they haven’t looked that good and haven’t been tested. I think they make it past this round.

USA vs Bosnia Herzgovina – US. CL 8. More on this later.

England vs Congo DR – England. CL7. The Three Lions havent woken up yet. They do in this one.

Belgium vs Senegal – Belgium. CL 5. This is THE match for US fans to pay attention to as we play the winner of this one. This is going to be close.

Spain vs Austria – Spain. CL 8. Spain hasn’t allowed a goal yet. This might not change in this match either.

Portugal vs Croatia – Portugal. CL 6. Portugal hasn’t lived up to the hype yet and Croatia has tons of experience at the WC. This will be a fun one.

Switzerland vs Algeria – Switzerland. CL 8. Swiss just take care of business in this one. A bit too tall of a task for Algeria.

Australia vs Egypt – Australia. CL 6. This one is close but Egypt has some injury issues and the overall physicality of the Soccerroos may make the difference.

Argentina vs Cabo Verde – Argentina. CL 9. We’ve seen CV hold Spain scoreless. But that was early in the tournament and Argentina and Messi are on a mission.

Colombia vs Ghana – Colombia. CL 7. Colombia is very strong and this Ghana team isn’t at the level of some of their historically good teams.

USMNT Group D Recap

Not much to add that hasn’t been written and talked about for the last several weeks but here’s my take on how the group went for our guys.  Here’s the short answer. Within one minute of just about perfect. The objective at the WC is simple and in this order.

1. Advance out of your group. And hopefully with no cards or injuries. Check.
2. Know that you have already advanced after Matchday 2 so you can rest players and clear any cards. Check.
3. Play you second lineup in Matchday 3 and get them some preparatory minutes for the rest of the tournament. Secondly, get a result. Check and within a minute of checking the last box

US vs Paraguay

The key to an opening match, depending on your opponent, is to come out strong and push them hard if they are a defensive side. Or to weather the storm from a strong pressing opponent until the game settles down. We knew going in that Paraguay was one of the top defensive sides in South America and was going to play a low block and hope to frustrate the US and then score on a counter. Well none of that happened. The US came our firing on all cylinders and won going away 4-1. In fact a poll on one of the major soccer forums ranked this as the most impressive USMNT match EVER. Better than the US beating Portugal at the WC 2002. Better than the 2-0 win over Spain at the 2009 Confederations Cup. That’s some pretty lofty company and well deserved. The only downside of this match was that Christian Pulisic was kicked in the calf and had to come off at the break.

US vs Australia

Going in this was destined to be an entirely different kind of match that the one against Paraguay. Australia had some speedy front runners and was very big in the center back area. That speed and size would be tough to deal with and dangerous on set pieces. The Soccerroos are also very physical and came to play. Being there was clearly the sporting highlight of my life. Just no way to describe the atmosphere. Lumen Field as rocking and the US players sensed something special was going to happen. Early on the Aussies played very physical and made numerous hard challenges that seemed to warrant yellow cards but the Ref was content with just issuing verbal warnings. Thankfully it didn’t get out of hand nor cause us any injuries. Pulisic was surely missed but due to the physical nature of this match it wasn’t all bad to have him sitting out. The US dominated the first half and when Baltimore native Alex Freeman scored the second US goal the stadium literally was shaking to the point where a nearby seismic graph registered it as an earthquake. The US continued to dominate things the first 20 minutes in the second half but after some subs by both sides the boys from down south started to press. But they still never had much of a threat and the Stars and Stripes held on for a 2-0 win. And the best news later that day was that Paraguay had beaten Turkiye meaning the US had won the group and Turkiye was eliminated. Matchday 3 had zero pressure!

US vs Turkiye

So heading into this match the question for both coaches was how they would approach this match. US coach Mauricio Pochettino said before hand that he would not play any of the players sitting on yellow cards but was unclear on the rest. The thinking for Turkiye though was that they might go with all their starters to try and go home with a result. And that is exactly what they did. They ran out their A team. The US meanwhile ran out 10 different players from the 11 that started against Paraguay and the only reason it wasn’t 11 for 11 is that midfielder Cristian Roldan was injured in training and couldn’t go so Weston McKennie started in his place. And the match went about as expected. With the US losing 3-2 on a last minute goal. What was great to see though was the actual play. The US B team had more possession, twice as many shots on goal, and 4 times as many corner kicks. On another day they could have easily won this match. And it gave Pochettino some great feedback on who may or may not be up for playing time in the knockout stages.

Based on that match here’s how I view the substitutes.

Stock up – Sebastian Berhalter, Austin Trusty, and Miles Robinson

Neutral – Brendan Aaronson, Joe Scally, Ricardo Pepi, and Gio Reyna

Stock Down – Tim Weah, Mark McKenzie and Matt Turner

So here we are guys. No more grace period. Perform or go home.

US vs Bosnia-Herzgovina Preview

This match looks to start much like the US vs Paraguay. The US will probably start the same XI they did in that game and why not!. BIH will play a low block and look to counter. Their best chance to score will be on set pieces. They are very good at them so its incumbent upon our guys to not make silly fouls in the final third  BIH is well below all 3 of our group stage opponents in FIFA rankings and in fact BIH advanced mostly because they got a free 3 points against Qatar, one of the worst teams in the tournament. Although they did tie Canada 1-1, but I am not sold on this Canadian team much.

How BIH can win:

BIH does not have the talent level of the US. Case in point is one of their forwards Esmir Bajraktarevic. Hes actually a US born player and was capped with the USMNT but field a switch to BIH since he wasn’t going to make the US side. He’s good player but still. BIH can win one of two ways. Keep a clean sheet and score a counter to win 1-0. Or keep a clean sheet and get to penalties where it becomes a crapshoot. Or lastly poor officiating that lets them hack the US with our punishment.

How the US WILL win:

They have too much talent and have proven over the last 2 weeks that they can win pretty. They can win physical. And they can play with anybody. But here’s how I see this going. The combination wing play of Antonee Robinson and Christian Pulisic on the left and Sergino Dest and Alex Freeman on the right is too much for BIH to handle. They are too fast and when you try and cover the outside space they cut inside or find the final third pass to McKennie, Tillman, and Balogun.

Here’s the clincher. They are not only fast but they are in fantastic condition. The US players combined covered more distance during the Group Stage than ANY team in the tournament. If Bosnia keeps their defense packed in tight and lets us have the outside space thinking they can control the crosses here’s what may happen. Pulsic, McKennie, Dest,, and Balogun will get a pass at the outside edge of the 18 then dribble to create space for a shot close in. BIH might have trouble defending that without giving us a penalty. So I think we have the tools to break them down whichever way they go.

Now we have to play smart. We have so show up. But heres’ my prediction:

US WINS 3-1