Let’s step into the world of the ultimate United States men’s national team optimist and map their potential route to the World Cup final. If they were to do the near impossible and win the 2026 FIFA World Cup, who are the likely teams they have to beat? The answer is just about everyone no one wants to play.
The beauty of a pre-tournament bracket is there’s nothing aside from your own sanity stopping you from taking your team as far as you want. The trouble with a bracket is how grounding it can be when the most likely opponents aren’t names you want to see.
The sentiment around the United States men’s national team’s potential World Cup progression every four years tends to be that getting back to the quarter-finals for the first time since 2002 is a worthy goal.
It’s worthy, but is it realistic? That question is complicated this year because getting to the quarters in a 48-team field requires winning two knockout games rather than one. It’s also complicated because, for all the talk of the U.S. draw being favourable, an easy path to the quarters is unlikely to be laid out before them.
But the World Cup is an athletic tournament that each participant has a chance of winning. Round by round, this is how the U.S. would most likely have to get it done.
Group Stage
Group D vs Paraguay (12 June), Australia (19 June) and Türkiye (25 June)
Winnable is the word that came to mind for many U.S. supporters when watching the draw in December, and it remained so when Türkiye joined the group. The United States were drawn as the top seed into Group D alongside Paraguay and Australia, and eventually Türkiye after they advanced through the final qualifier play-offs this spring. Winnable, and the U.S. are just shy of favourites to progress:
Türkiye (33.7%) have a slight edge over the 2026 co-hosts, according to the latest Opta supercomputer predictions on 11 June. Group D is winnable, but it’s also losable for any of these four teams as the fifth-toughest group at the tournament due to its balance: it doesn’t contain a team from outside the top 50 in the Opta Power Rankings.
Backing up the idea of it being a tight group, it’s worth noting the U.S. have played all three of these sides in the past 370 days with 2-1 scorelines in each. They were all friendlies with wildly different personnel.
Türkiye beat the U.S. on 7 June 2025, though that was with at most four outfield players in their starting XI that also project to start in the coming weeks. The U.S. beat Australia on 14 October, then defeated Paraguay on 15 November. Both of those matches featured more U.S. players who will log significant minutes in Group D.
So the supercomputer has Mauricio Pochettino’s team ever so narrowly missing out on winning the group. Winnable, not exactly favourites, but expected to progress. You can’t win a World Cup without getting out of your group, but you can win a World Cup without winning your group. Just ask Italy.
Onward to the first knockout round of 32 in World Cup history.
Last 32 (77.4% chance of making it this far)
United States vs Iran
If the United States finish second in Group D, they will be up against the runners-up of Group G, which is made up of Belgium, Egypt, Iran and New Zealand.
While Belgium are favourites to win the group, second place is tight to the point of 3.1 percentage points separating Iran, Egypt and Belgium in those second-place probabilities. But Iran are most likely to finish second in G.
The U.S. and Iran have split two previous matches in the World Cup, most recently with the U.S. winning 1-0 to close group play in 2022.
It’s worth considering how the path changes if the U.S. were to win Group D. In the case of that 32.4% chance working out, the U.S. would land on the other side of the bracket and play a third-place team from either B, E, F, I or J. The most likely of those as of 11 June would be Algeria emerging from Group J.
Ignoring any potential geopolitical backdrop, which of Iran and Algeria would the U.S. rather play? There’s probably not enough of a gap to have a strong opinion one way or the other, but the Opta Power Rankings have Iran (79.0) rated slightly ahead of the U.S. (75.3), with Algeria (75.4) almost exactly at the U.S. level.
Last 16 (42.2% chance of making it this far)
United States vs Argentina
This is where the United States could see the value of winning their group. In the old 32-team format, catching the defending World Cup champions in the last 16 (then the first knockout round) would be seen as horrible luck. While getting this far is entirely realistic for the U.S., this is the potential match where their likelihood of continuing in the tournament really slides.
While the benefit of winning the group may not have been evident in the round of 32, it feels a bit clearer here. The alternative route with Tyler Adams and Co. winning Group D would most likely put them up against Belgium. That’s hardly easy with Belgium as the 10th-ranked team in the world in the Opta Power Rankings, but they’re also not a team who have won their last three major tournaments like Argentina have.
There may be a feeling of possibility with Belgium that isn’t quite there with Argentina – a feeling of possibility that was there until the final whistle the last time they played Belgium in a World Cup, no matter how lopsided the match got:
But calling a potential matchup between the U.S. and Belgium an even game would be ignoring what just happened in March, with the Red Devils defeating the U.S. 5-2 in a friendly.
It’s part of a larger issue with the Americans really struggling against European sides for the past five years. They haven’t beaten one in 11 matches since defeating Bosnia-Herzegovina on 18 December 2021. That includes nine straight losses by a 24-7 aggregate score going back to their 3-1 exit from the last World Cup against the Netherlands.
Quarter-Finals (19.7% chance of making it this far)
United States vs Portugal
This is where World Cups end for even the best CONCACAF teams. And this is another scenario in which it may benefit the U.S. fan to have a decent long-term memory and terrible short-term one.
The U.S. and Portugal have met twice previously in the World Cup, and neither were Portugal wins. The last was a 2-2 group-stage draw that contributed to the U.S. and Germany eliminating Cristiano Ronaldo from arguably his prime World Cup tournament.
More recently, Portugal beat the U.S. 2-0 in a 31 March friendly:
The alternative quarter-final scenario if the U.S. were to land on the other side of the bracket as Group D winners would most likely be a date with Spain, the tournament favourites.
But writing a story about a serious underdog’s path to tournament glory is as much about fishing for connections to get the featured team through to the next round as it is about the facts, so here’s the spin: It’s not as if the United States haven’t defeated Spain. They did it rather memorably to end Spain’s 35-match unbeaten streak in the semi-finals of the 2009 Confederations Cup. Yeah, that Spain team.
But that was 17 years ago. And this is the World Cup, not the dress rehearsal.
Semi-Finals (8.2% chance of making it this far)
United States vs England
Ninety-six years after last reaching this stage of the tournament, the Americans are again semi-finalists.
Maybe it’s familiarity, maybe it’s confidence from just beating Argentina and Portugal to get to this stage, but there’s something far less daunting about England than other football powers to American supporters. It may be the simple fact that England have never been an issue for the U.S. at the World Cup.
The United States beat England 1-0 in the 1950 edition, drew 1-1 in 2010 and 0-0 in Qatar a short three and a half years ago.
So as long as Poch can get the U.S. to the semis, history takes care of this one and the hosts remain unbeaten in the World Cup against England. It’s not coming home; it already is.
If the U.S. were to reach the semis from the other side of the bracket by initially winning their group, France would be the most likely team waiting as a roadblock for a spot in the final. But we’ll leave that discussion for the next section, because that’s who the U.S. are most likely to meet in the final on the original path.
Final (3.4% chance of making it this far, 1.4% chance of winning)
United States vs France
OK, the fun is over. No team in today’s CONCACAF region has ever made it to a World Cup final. One has made it to a semi (U.S. in 1930). Five have made it to the quarters (Costa Rica in 2014, U.S. in 2002, Mexico in 1970 and 1986 and Cuba in 1938). There was no comparable quarter-final knockout stage in 1930 when the U.S. were eliminated in the semis by Uruguay.
The most serious pre-tournament discussion around a North American team winning a World Cup was probably in 1986 when Mexico hosted featuring Real Madrid star Hugo Sánchez in the prime of his career. El Tri fell on penalties to eventual runners-up West Germany.
To recap, the United States winning the World Cup with the original path of finishing second in Group D could potentially mean having to defeat Argentina, Portugal, England and France in 13 days – all after getting through four other teams who are more at their own level. For teams at the level of the U.S., that’s a hit list to be achieved over decades, not weeks.
But, we repeat, the World Cup is an athletic tournament that each participant has a chance of winning.
All prediction numbers correct as of 11 June 2026
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Mapping the United States’ Potential Route to 2026 World Cup Glory Opta Analyst.
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