Soccer in the United States - A Fan's Perspective (Post 2026 World Cup Exit)

What's wrong with the USMNT.

I say that not with a question mark but with a period because I know. I know what's wrong with the USMNT.

The problem is...

You know what? Before I tell you what's wrong, let's back up a little.

As I'm writing this, it's been just a few days since the United States Men's National Team exited the stage that is the FIFA World Cup with a 4-1 defeat to Belgium in the Round of 16 in Seattle. I would say that it's because I didn't want to write my immediate emotions, but I was atypically calm about the entire game. I do like to do some research though and the past few days have provided that chance. 

The USMNT won their group stage after just their second game, winning both of their first two group stage games against Paraguay (a 4-1 victory in Los Angeles) and Australia (a 2-nil victory in Seattle) before losing to Turkiye (a 3-2 loss back in L.A.) while resting most of their starters. The US then played Bosnia and Herzogovina, getting a 2-nil victory in the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium. 

In that game against Bosnia and Herzogovina, USMNT player Folarin Balogun was issued a red card based on a VAR review of a moment between Balogun and Muharemović which determined that Balogun's inadvertent stepping on Muharemović's ankle was a reckless challenge. The USMNT played the final 26' + 11' of stoppage time down a man, but extended their lead from 1-nil before Balogun's ejection to 2-nil on a magical free kick by Tillman from just outside the penalty area. 

In the ensuing days, people discussed whether it was or wasn't a red card, could the USMNT appeal the card or not, and generally is VAR helping or hindering the sport these days. There seemed to be a general consensus from the broadcast personnel and their "Soccer Rules Analysts" that VAR likely broke protocol by showing Brazilian official Raphael Claus the still images of the exchange between Balogun and Muharemović before showing the full speed exchange. So Belgium and USMNT players prepared for their game without Balogun. Until Sunday, when it was announced that his red card would be suspended for the game with a 1-year probation period to follow. Rumors and reports followed consisting of the President of the United States making a call to FIFA President Infantino to look into the red card. Suddenly, and surprisingly, the USMNT's top scorer was back in play.

Belgium then went out and bossed the USMNT all over the field, getting their first goal just 9 minutes into the first half. The USMNT would claw one back in the 31st minute, again from a Tillman free kick, only to concede minutes later to go back down. Mauricio Pochettino had tried to change the momentum by making a substitution at halftime, but to only moderate and temporary success. Belgium would add a third goal in the second half on a spectacular mistake from USMNT GK Freese, and would then tack on a fourth in stoppage time from second half substitute Lukaku just for good measure, emphatically putting an exclamation point on the domination of the game. Christian Pulisic left the game minutes after Belgium's third goal with a leg injury (now reported as a bone bruise and microfracture).

Which is where we find ourselves today. Talking about a USMNT that, once again, made it to the Round of 16 but no further. 

So what's wrong with the USMNT?

If you've listened to the talking heads (including many former players) and the internet, everything. I've heard:

• Pulisic didn't step up. As "Captain America," people expected more from him. He needed to play injured.
• Pochettino didn't select or play the right players and/or didn't make the right tactical decisions, including his decision to not play the starters in the third group stage game.
• Balogun's red card was a distraction.
• The President of the United States messed with the soccer gods and karma struck back immediately.
• This "golden generation" of soccer players for the USMNT just don't have the fight, the mentality to compete against the top teams in the world.
• The US wasn't sufficiently tested in the lead-up to the World Cup because they were automatic qualifiers.
• The United States' youth development program is a shambles and worthless.
• The United States doesn't have its best athletes playing soccer, they're playing other sports like football, basketball, baseball...
• We call it soccer instead of football.
• We don't have promotion/relegation in the country.
• Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

The answer to what's wrong with the USMNT. It's really easy. 

NOBODY REALLY F**KING KNOWS!

Why would I know the answer? I'm just a guy who writes about his local club for the past baker's dozen years, but has played the game, refereed the game, coached the game (albeit to little kids), watched the game, and discussed the game for nearly the entirety of my life. So I do have some thoughts.

Maybe it's a little bit of all those things in that list. Maybe not, and in some cases, probably or definitely not. It takes some legit mental gymnastics to buy into the "best athletes are playing other sports" thing when arguably one of the greatest to ever play the game is 5'-7" and 150 lbs. Messi doesn't fit the "best athletes" physique those folks have in mind, but there's no denying his ability, skill, and instinct around the goal. The karma thing could be real though. As we like to say in America for other sports, "ball don't lie." Getting politicians involved messed with the karma. I have sports superstitions so I can buy into that one.

Maybe it's as simple as the United States played a bad game against a good team at the wrong time and they were beaten. Having lost to Belgium earlier this year, albeit with some slightly different players, lends credit to the fact that maybe the USMNT just didn't match up well against this Belgium team.

Maybe Belgium took the momentum from their late comeback win against Senegal and the anger/frustration about the Balogun reinstatement and used it all as fuel to play the kind of soccer a Top 10 ranked team can play despite having some struggles in the group stage.

Maybe, and I'm just spit balling here, maybe it's really difficult to win in world soccer. 

Maybe, just maybe, the top teams in the world are the top teams in the world for a reason. Maybe they've just been able to pull all the right strings together to get the right resources with the right players at the right time with the right culture to consistently win games. Maybe that's not easy to duplicate even with some number of any of those factors aligning for other countries.

The World Cup has been played 22 times before this iteration. Eight (8) countries have won it. Eight. 

• Brazil (5 - 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994, 2002)
• Germany (4 - 1954, 1974, 1990, 2014)
• Italy (4 - 1934, 1938, 1982, 2006)
• Argentina (3 - 1978, 1986, 2022)
• France (2 - 1998, 2018)
• Uruguay (2 - 1930, 1950)
• England (1 - 1966)
• Spain (1 - 2010)
• And only 5 other countries have ever made the final game (Netherlands runners-up 3 times, Hungary 2 times, Czechoslovakia 2 times, and Sweden and Croatia 1 time each)

Let's look at this another way. Looking at the official FIFA rankings from June 11th, right before the start of the World Cup, 30 of the top 34 teams in the world made it into the expanded field of 48, with only Italy (ranked 12th), Denmark (21st), Nigeria (26th), and Ukraine (32nd) not making it into the tournament. There were 6 additional teams inside the top 50 of the rankings, with the final 12 teams consisting of teams at a ranking of 50 or higher (Uzbekistan at 50 up to New Zealand at 85). For refence, the United States came into the tournament ranked at 17th.

Digressing slightly, Italy is a four-time winner and didn't even make it into the field. Since they won in 2006, they've exited the tournament twice in the group stage, and haven't qualified the past 3 tournaments. Germany is also a four-time winner and after winning it in 2014 didn't make it out of the group stage in 2018 or 2022 and lost in the Round of 32 this year. And US fans were upset about missing the 2018 tournament...

Back to my larger point, in the Round of 32, there were four teams that were ranked in the Top 32 that didn't advance: Uruguay (16th), Iran (20th), Turkiye (22nd), and South Korea (25th). So those four plus the four that didn't even make the tournament, otherwise 24 of the 32 positions were filled by countries that were ranked in those positions pre-tournament. The other 8 positions in the Round of 32 were rounded out by teams ranging from the Ivory Coast (33rd) to Ghana (73rd). 

Favorites vs Underdogs Results

The Round of 16 was filled by 10 teams that were ranked in the Top 16. The United States (17th), Switzerland (19th), Egypt (29th), Canada (30th), Norway (31st), and Paraguay (41st) made it into the Round of 16 from outside the Top 16 rankings. 

Of the Round of 32 games, only Paraguay's win over Germany (9th) was from a team with a lower ranking. From the Round of 16 games, only Norway's (31st) win over Brazil (6th) and Switzerland's (19th) win over Columbia (13th) were games with wins by the lower ranked team. 15 of the 16 Round of 32 games were won by the higher ranked team, and 6 of the 8 Round of 16 games were won by the higher ranked team. The above image was created before the France/Morocco game, but that one also was won by the higher ranked team, France.

As we like to say here in Indiana during the NCAA March Madness tournament, this World Cup is "going chalk." The higher seeded teams are generally winning when they need to win. Sure, there have been some amazing games. Argentina has been pushed to the brink twice by significant "underdogs." England v Mexico is probably still my favorite game of the tournament so far. But the higher seed has prevailed most of the time.

The United States (17th) played to chalk too. They beat a Paraguay (41st) team 24 spots behind them. Chalk. 

They beat an Australian (27th) team ten spots behind them. Chalk. 

They lost to a Turkiye (22nd) team five spots behind them in the rankings after conceding a 90'+8' goal. So they nearly got a draw from that game with a highly rotated squad. Almost Chalk. 

They beat Bosnia and Herzegovina (64th) despite being a man down for a significant portion of the second half and stoppage time. Chalk. 

The lost to Belgium (9th). Chalk.

Like most USMNT fans, I was disappointed and frustrated at the loss on Monday night to Belgium. "It's the hope that kills you," right? I let myself get excited for the "why not US" propaganda that FOX has been feeding us because of how well the US was playing in the early games of the group stage and that they overcame the struggle of the red card to still advance. Like most soccer fans in this country, I wanted to see them get over the Round of 16 hump, but it just didn't happen. However, I didn't feel like the sky was falling Monday night and I still don't think the sky is falling today. I think the USMNT got outplayed by a better team, which has been a theme for much of this tournament. Cape Verde gave Argentina as much as they could handle, and Egypt did the same until Argentina's class finally kicked in in the 79th minute, but with only a couple of exceptions, the world class teams have come through each time in this World Cup.

So where does that put us as it relates to the USMNT?

Last year, I wrote an article about my local club, Indy Eleven, where I discussed Expectations versus Reality. With very little effort, what I wrote about Indy Eleven can apply to the USMNT, so I'll reiterate it here with the appropriate edits:

I have had versions of this conversation over the years with various people, but the following quote has been the most eloquent way I have heard to say it: "Conflict arises when expectations exceed reality."

There's an expectation that Indy the USMNT is one of the top clubs teams in the league world. As a result, there is an expectation that Indy the USMNT should be consistently at the top of the standings and winning most of their games. When that doesn't happen, people want to blame the coaches or the players or any number of reasons for them not meeting the expectation. The reality is that Indy (not counting the USL W league team or the Academy teams)  the USMNT has only had a modicum of success, spread out over just a few seasons in the twelve-year history of the team tournaments. Indy The USMNT have a history of expectations exceeding reality. While this year's team is underperforming based on last year's results, t The reality is that they're right where history has told us this team will be: 

With the exception of the 2018 World Cup that the US didn't qualify to play in, the team has only not made it out of the group stage once since their quarterfinal run in 2002 (exited in the group stage in 2006), and have been a consistent fixture in the Round of 16 (4 out of 4 times they've been in the tournament). The expectation was that they should be progressing further than their predecessors because they're the "golden generation," the best the United States has ever fielded. The reality is that while this team improved, they're not the only ones. It's not a stagnant finish line that they're chasing. The other countries in the world have a say in this too.

So where does the USMNT go from here? Tuesday was officially Day 1 of the next World Cup cycle. 

Will Pochettino be around? His contract with the USMNT has expired but the US Soccer Federation has offered him an extension through the 2030 World Cup. Whether he takes it or moves on is still to be determined.  

What players from this team continue to be part of it? The average age of the team was 26-years old so there are clearly some players who will be age eligible to continue their time on the team. At 38 years old now, Tim Ream is, likely, not one of those players, but nobody thought he would be there this time. Cristian Roldan will be 35 years old so maybe he's not in the mix either. Matt Turner will be 36, but goalkeepers age differently in this sport so he might be a possibility, but he wasn't even the starter for this World Cup. After that though, every other single player on this roster will be in their late 20s or early 30s. 

I can hear some of you now, get rid of all of them. Why would we keep trying to use players that can't get it done? "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Because until some players step up and displace them, they were determined by Pochettino to be the best (or healthiest at the selection time) available. As I argued in my earlier Expectations vs Reality article for Indy Eleven, the USMNT have talented players. Saying they don't is foolish and you're basing your opinion on the last result, which for 47 of the 48 teams in this tournament will not be as World Cup winners. When healthy, Pulisic is still a dynamic player. In the first two games, Weston McKennie was the engine that drove the team. Tyler Adams covers a lot of mistakes that others make. Freeman, Tillman, Balogun. All of those players deserve to make a case for themselves, and I think they will all continue to be part of the team for the foreseeable future. Whether that extends to 2030 will be dependent on who steps in, steps up, and takes their positions from them.

I don't think he was fully healthy, but I think there's going to be a place on the team for a guy like Diego Luna. He's fearless, which can be enough to unsettle opposing defenders. Much like Emma Hayes has done for the USWNT, the early stages of this new World Cup cycle should be met with bringing in a lot of players from wherever they can find them. At one point last year, Hayes had given 32 players their first cap. The old guard is starting to give way to the new guard, and I know there are players around the country (or playing in other countries) that deserve the chance. I just assume that the men's team's old guard aren't quite ready to concede their positions yet. 

Though given the vitriol I've seen towards some of them lately, I don't know why they would want to continue to put themselves through this shit. It's a lot of fans' prerogative, but if you're an American wanting them to fail, then you and I are on different wavelengths on what we think is good for the sport. 

Which gets me to my final point.

Go support soccer. Call it soccer if you want. Call it football if you want. Find a team, preferably local because there are plenty of them at all levels of the US Soccer pyramid, and go to games. Watch games on television or the internet. Find a foreign club if that works for you (I support Motherwell in the Scottish Premiership).

Some of you may have found soccer for the first time in any real way with this World Cup. Welcome. Welcome to the madness. Try to not let some of the gatekeepers hold you back. If you have questions about the game, there's somebody, not a gatekeeper, who is more than willing to share their knowledge with you about the game. To talk about the game. To laugh and cry about the game. 

I've explained it a few times on this site over the years about how I arrived at the name of my site, the Game Beckons, but I'll summarize it again here.

I had reread Finding the Game: Three Years, Twenty-five Countries, and the Search for Pickup Soccer, by Gwendolyn Oxenham and watched the companion documentary Pelada, when I was thinking about names for my site. I remembered a quote from Luke when they were in Marseille, France, when Gwendolyn writes the exchange in the book (the same exchange occurs in the film):

"Five or six games stretch across the park. We stand there watching, weighing, still wondering whether or not the jersey once belonged to Drogba. A ball skips towards us. Luke takes off after it and volleys it back. He's quiet for a second. Then he says, "When the ball comes toward me, I consider the game beckoning me - the game wants me."

There's another point in the book where Gwendolyn writes about an exchange while they were in Italy talking to a writer, Cristiano, who reads from his own book and then helps them understand his meaning (emphasis mine):

"He pours us grappa and translates the meaning, hands gesturing, "It is a story about an old man who imagines what he'll say to his grandson...that there is a god for the soccer fields, a kind of magic. Not the big ones - the small ones in the provinces." Head cocked to the side, he smiles, shyly like he's telling us something personal, emotional: "Soccer will give you much more than you can give it."

Soccer in the United States is going to be fine. It might not be the meteoric rise that some would like of it, but the USMNT will get better. I believe they will eventually make it beyond the Round of 16 again. They might also not qualify again. Germany and Italy have proven how hard qualifying and performing in the World Cup can be. 

I, personally, believe that the USMNT will get better. But I plan to be here either way.   

If the World Cup beckoned to you, enjoy it. As somebody who has continues to have the game beckon to me for the past 50 years, I agree with Luke and Cristiano. The game will beckons you and it will give you more than you give it. That I can promise you is true.