ATLANTA — With the FIFA World Cup just over two months away, and two blockbuster international friendly matches for the U.S. men’s national team coming up in the next few days, the pressure has arrived.Â
As much as the players try to avoid it — by logging off social media, by setting down their phones and by focusing on their training and process — some of the team’s biggest names acknowledged it this week.
“Hosting a World Cup on home soil, it comes with its pressures,” midfielder Weston McKennie told reporters Friday. Next to him sat forward Christian Pulisic, the biggest star in American soccer.
“There’s pressure. I feel it. Yes, like, it’s there,” Pulisic said. “But it’s nothing that I can’t handle. I’m going to attack it head on. We are as a team. I don’t need to do it by myself. That’s the beauty of it.”
This month’s friendlies against top European competition will bring the U.S. team face-to-face with true World Cup contenders to see how they stack up. First up is a Saturday match against Belgium, ranked No. 9 in the world, followed by a Tuesday tilt against No. 5 Portugal. Both games will be held at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Optimism around the team has started to grow again after a disappointing 2024. Then, in an unbeaten run that began last September, the U.S. defeated Japan, Australia, Paraguay and Uruguay and drew against Ecuador — a promising series of results against five teams that will all be competing in the World Cup.
Now, the team is ready for a bigger challenge, says head coach Mauricio Pochettino. “We decided to bring this type of opponent in because we wanted to play against the good teams, teams that can show our reality,” he told reporters on Friday.
A win or three over a team of Belgium or Portugal’s quality will be necessary for the U.S. to make a deep run in the knockout stage of the tournament. (Belgium, in fact, is a possible opponent for the U.S. in the first rounds of the knockout stage this summer.)
Together, the games this Saturday and Tuesday will show the team and its fans how much optimism to carry into the summer when the United States co-hosts the World Cup with Canada and Mexico.
“These friendlies are not friendlies,” midfielder Cristian Roldan told reporters this week. “So that’s our chance to show what we’re capable of, who we can compete against.”
It’s also the final opportunity for players to make an impression on Pochettino in hopes of being selected for the World Cup roster, which will be revealed in late May. That has upped the intensity at training camp this week, Pulisic said.
“All the guys are staking their claim. Everyone wants to be on the roster. Everyone wants to prove it,” said Pulisic. “Great opportunity with these two games. Feel the energy in the team, it’s getting more serious. “
Some of the decisions facing Pochettino are easy. Pulisic and McKennie, for instance, are locks barring injury. Whether other young players who have made a difference over the past year, such as Diego Luna, Gio Reyna and Sebastian Berhalter, should make the team — will be harder.
“It’s going to be tough to pick the right players for the final roster. It is a big, big job. I am suffering two months in advance,” Pochettino said.
This summer will mark the first time since 1994 that World Cup games have been held in the U.S. That World Cup supercharged the growth of the sport in the U.S. — more than three decades later, the U.S. boasts thriving professional soccer leagues, soccer shown regularly on TV and millions more fans.
Still, soccer lags behind American football and other sports in popularity in the U.S. The opportunity to change that is not lost on anybody in American soccer.
The deepest run the U.S. has made in the modern era of the World Cup is the 2002 quarterfinals, which required upset wins over Portugal and Mexico, then both top-ten teams.
Matching that result is a reasonable goal. Reaching the semifinals — or, fingers crossed, beyond — could create a core memory for millions of young soccer players and fans in the U.S., launching the sport into a new stratosphere for the next generation.
“There’s going to be a lot of pressure at the World Cup. We’re obviously hosting it. We’re in good form. There’s a lot of expectation within our locker room,” said Roldan, who plays for the Seattle Sounders. “With pressure there’s a huge responsibility on our part to show up and create those long-lasting memories for the next generation.”
Transcript:
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The FIFA World Cup is around the corner, and with games being hosted here in the States, the U.S. men’s national team is hoping for a historic deep run. Now fans are about to get a good look at what the odds are of that. In a pair of friendly games tomorrow and Tuesday, the U.S. will face the kind of competition that they will have to beat to go far in the World Cup. NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan is in Atlanta and will be at both games. Lucky ducky, Becky.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Hello, Ailsa. Yeah.
CHANG: Hello. Hello.
SULLIVAN: It is. I feel very fortunate.
CHANG: OK, so set things up for us. Why are these two games such a big deal?
SULLIVAN: Well. Yeah, I mean, this is the first time the World Cup has been hosted here in the U.S. – it’s co-hosted, of course – but for the first time since 1994, so it’s an incredible opportunity. But actually, there had been a little panic in the U.S. soccer community a couple years ago because the national team really had a kind of no good, very bad year in 2024 that led to them firing their head coach.
They brought in this kind of hotshot, top European league guy, Mauricio Pochettino. And so things are finally trending up over the course of this sort of last few months and last fall. Their most recent run of five games that started in September, the U.S. haven’t lost a match. But they were playing sort of against good but not great teams, so now they’re ready for this kind of tougher test.
So they’re going to take on Belgium tomorrow, and then on Tuesday, they will play Portugal. Both of those teams are currently ranked in the top 10. And I think a win or even a draw in one or both of these games could be a real reason for some optimism.
CHANG: Some optimism – so it sounds like the men’s team is on the upswing, but…
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
CHANG: To be totally reasonable here, how excited can fans get about their World Cup prospects, realistically?
SULLIVAN: Well, I think fans should be excited either way. But the best result for the U.S. in the modern era of the World Cup is a quarterfinal. A run that deep generally requires the U.S. to win a big upset. So, like, that quarterfinal run that was back in 2002, they upset Portugal and Mexico in order to get there. They haven’t had that kind of big upset win in the World Cup since then.
So I think, you know, goals are win the group stage, then make a run in the knockout round. So quarterfinal is a fine goal, but I think beyond that, like, a semifinal – something like that would be just, like, a core memory for a whole lot of people here in the U.S. And so they’re – the team is trying to adopt that sort of why-not-us mentality. That’s what Coach Pochettino was saying. He said it again today. ‘Cause bigger underdogs have gone that far, so why can’t the Americans do it?
CHANG: Yeah. Dream big. OK. So is the roster set? Like, is the U.S. team that we’re watching this weekend the one we will see for the World Cup?
SULLIVAN: Not just yet. Yeah, it’s closer than what we saw last year. Those rosters last year were sometimes missing some of the team’s biggest stars, whether that was because of injury concerns or whatever. Some of those guys are here now, like Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie. Basically, this is the last set of international games before Pochettino chooses the final World Cup roster. So everyone here is doing the absolute best they can, especially guys who are sort of on the bubble, to make a good impression like midfielder Cristian Roldan. Here’s what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CRISTIAN ROLDAN: It’s how can I compete, right? How can I put myself in a good spot before the World Cup, put myself in the best spot possible to make that squad? So this is a great opportunity for all of us to test ourselves against some really good competition.
SULLIVAN: And the final roster will be announced in late May.
CHANG: OK. So are you getting excited, Becky?
SULLIVAN: You know, I am. This is really putting me in the vibe. You know…
CHANG: Yeah.
SULLIVAN: Both these games are going to be here in Atlanta. It’s the home of U.S. soccer. The games are at the NFL stadium here. Yesterday, I was down there, and I saw them setting up the fan shop with the brand new jerseys, with the waving red stripes…
CHANG: Oh.
SULLIVAN: …That they unveiled earlier this month. It’s all going to be here before we know it.
CHANG: Get one. All right. That is NPR’s Becky Sullivan. Thank you, Becky.
SULLIVAN: You’re welcome.
