2026 WC USA (et al): Worldwide Opponents Watch [all R's]

Pretty much by your own definition, it is a player we can afford to lose.

We may not want to lose him, but "can't afford to lose" implies that there are some serious, if not catastrophic, consequences for the senior team.

I'm bummed. But I think the chances this affects us is pretty low. It's probably more likely he hurts us by making Mexico better than he's necessarily a material upgrade on our alternatives.

 

Exactly.

We like Ledezma. We like Gutierrez.

The writing has been on the wall for both with regards to USMNT involvement for quite some time.

Both play for Chivas now.

So yeah, what did we think was going to happen?

 

In the end both are playing we are losing mostly to coaches choice.

And to be fair Ledezma has to file a switch but Gutierrez does not and is free to go back (though guessing that won’t happen).

 

https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/47655996/afcon-2025-final-senegal-vs-morocco-day-football-died

Senegal wins 1-0 in an upset in one of the craziest finals we've seen in a very long time. Nice write up from espn. The theme? Morocco and the refs basically pulled a South Korea 2002 all tournament, but unlike South Korea, it went farther than individual refs caving to home town cooking. Definitely happy to see Morocco go unrewarded, though, man, that Diaz miss was Nick Anderson in the '95 Finals level un-clutch.

 

Not sure if this is true, but I saw it posted, " Opponents averaged 50% more fouls and over 200% more yellow cards when facing Morocco compared to their other matches. In 6 of 7 games, the opponent set their single highest foul count of the entire tournament against the host. That level of statistical consistency is impossible unless manipulation is present. We literally saw Morocco commit 22 fouls vs Nigeria with zero cards, while opponents were continually booked early in the match. Morocco didn't get a single yellow card in the first 45 minutes of any match they played. This didn't happen at the last AFCON, and the previous host (Ivory Coast) received no help. Senegal didn't just beat a team. They beat a system that was stacked against them from kickoff."

One reporter mentioned that Morocco received ridiculous degrees of homer calls in the QF's, the SF's, and the Final.

 

Chicago Fire FC midfielder Brian Gutiérrez was involved in multiple incidents involving intentional elbows during the 2025 MLS season, leading to suspensions and fines for violent conduct.

Good riddance.

 

I'm always a bit wary when people say:

because it almost always makes an assumption that no team has something inherent to them that draws more fouls, etc. These things are always calculated for commentary as if fouls should be distributed almost randomly, which, of course, they are not.

That said, if there is a study out there on the rate of cards to fouls, as well as detailing the likelihood of outliers, I could believe that is on the far end of statistical consistency, especially since one reason for giving a card is frequency of fouls.

The first part (teams committing lots of fouls) is an extreme outlier, but not impossible if Morocco is simply that good. The second part (22 fouls with zero cards) would really seem to need to be that Morocco somehow managed something I suspect no team really can.

Of course, all this is under an umbrella of mass corruption in FIFA, rampant sports betting and a continent with a long history of home teams getting home cooking -- this may not be true in AFCON but at the club level in many countries the home team wins an absurd % of matches due to clear home cooking.

Glad Senegal won, but you also can't walk off the field even if you think you are getting screwed. Maybe if the ref literally asks for a counter bribe or something, but otherwise we're going to have teams doing it left and right unjustified.

 

Morocco really showed their true colors this AFCON https://t.co/lHxlGD7LZy

— 11 Yanks (@11Yanks) January 19, 2026

Ftr, I wasn't paying attention to it until the semifinals, then when I heard how the Nigeria game was reffed lol. I kept wondering what the hell was going on when I saw the xG and shot #'s because Nigeria had been steamrolling teams throughout the entire AFCON, 5 consecutive total --- kickings, and then suddenly not a shot on goal basically for ages and ages, and then I see the foul discrepancies, and it's up there with Donaghy level bull----.

I have no idea, I just tend to think quite clearly AFCON refs just generally suck do to $$$ issues/training, maybe some culture issues, with Concacrap and Conmebol, it's a mix of mostly culture (a love of "getting away w/----", and a celebration of "little fish" type stuff) with a tolerance of violent conduct, and a disinclination towards yellow and red cards etc.

So I don't know, really don't know, I am not inclined to think it was rigged, I just think it was the most massive example of home town cooking in a long time, then you have this ----

Morocco really showed their true colors this AFCON https://t.co/lHxlGD7LZy

— 11 Yanks (@11Yanks) January 19, 2026

There are numerous reports of this level of cheating, and numerous diff examples of these shenanigans. When they missed that penalty, clearly given exclusively due to home town cooking fan pressure, it was karma well served.

Morocco's got an amazing thing going, but the kind of bull---- they were up to in this tournament is liable to derail everything in terms of outsider support, not that they care, at this point, they fumbled away a trophy they nearly stole, good, they aren't winning ---- at the WC, though they have a cake draw, and should be able to make the knockouts, the path afterwards seems pretty intense (the Dutch or Japan likely in Round of 32)

Although you might not imagine it, I'm disinclined to really think rigging btw, I just assume a mix of incompetence, culture and home town cooking explains a lot of it. Otoh, look at how many betting scandals are now ripping through the NBA, NCAA, and have already ripped through leagues like Serie A over the past 15 years....rigging isn't completely out of the question either.

My biggest concern is that at this point, the only refs I even slightly trust are UEFA, and AFC, AFC because I don't know them yet, and UEFA because it's cleaner and more rigorous, otoh, the most notorious screw ups for the US (Hugh Dallas, UEFA, and the '06 Ghana penalty idiot, were both UEFA), and in '06, the 3 yellow card idiot at the WC was also UEFA.

Quite frustrating. At least we have VAR, even if in my view, it's used inconsistently, and wrongly (I don't believe for a second the way it determines offsides is remotely in the fashion or spirit offsides was meant to be called and I'm shocked FIFA hasn't come in and tweaked the rules to get rid of the thumbnail/toenail/wrist bs offsides calls).Offsides was never intended to be reffed in this fashion and I imagine they have decided to use it in this way simply because it's easier, and more efficient and quick w/VAR, but it is absolutely harming the game, but now I'm off topic so I'll stop here.

 

I'm not saying it was rigged ... but it wouldn't shock me one bit if it was.

 

Qualifying format next time around

Concacaf 2030 World Cup qualifying

Round 1, 2027: Teams ranked 14-35

Round 2, '27-28: 11 winners and top 13 ranked teams

Final round, '28-29: top two from each of six groups

Qualify: Three group winners & three runners-up; one more could qualify through two-layer playoffs.

— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) February 6, 2026

 

Interesting that MLS plucked Canadian international Eustaquio from Porto................
LAFC acquire Stephen Eustáquio from FC Porto | MLSSoccer.com

[As we enter the MLS season, LAFC has a really strong squad.]

 

Plus the full calendar for the next cycle

2026 to 2030 Men’s Senior National Team Competitions Calendar 🗓️https://t.co/ggfFPYMKOW 🔗 pic.twitter.com/x28hfJ5cbo

— Concacaf (@Concacaf) February 6, 2026

 

Wow, way to make the dumbest and most boring qualifying format possible.

So, let's get this straight ...

• We first have six groups of four with home and aways. I can't imagine it won't be seeded at some level, so we're looking at no Mexico, Canada, Panama, Costa Rica or Honduras in that group ... and likely only one of Haiti, Jamaica, Curacao, T&T, Guatemala and Suriname.
• So at best we get a home and away with Jamaica or something.
• Then the top 12 teams go into 3 groups of 4. Again. So even if those are the top 12, there's a decent chance we again get one of the top group?

So we're almost likely to go through the entire qualifying cycle not playing Mexico or Canada, or at most, one of them.

How is this supposed to help us prepare for anything? None of the creampuff teams have any real shot anyway -- nobody past #16 or so has any shot even with six bids (Nicaraugua and El Salvador have fallen to #15 and #16).

There's no fan interest here. No good preparation. We AT best have like one home game that's a challenge and maybe three away games if we are super lucky.

Just straight stupid. USSF should have never allowed this -- this is absolutely something I wouldn't have threatened the GC hosting over. What a freaking waste.

 

So 12 matches (assuming we advance to the final round) which would be the fewest WCQs the US has played since 1990 (not counting '94 and '26 when we hosted and didn't have to qualify).

'90: 10 matches (2 second round + 8 C'CAF C'ship)
'98–'02: 16 matches (6 SF + 10 Hex)
'06–'10: 18 matches (2 second round + 6 SF + 10 Hex)
'14–'18: 16 matches (6 SF + 10 Hex)
'22: 14 matches (Ocho)

 

This sucks.

Glad Goff is still the first one tweeting stuff and he got a buyout rather than the Axe!

 

The new final round is the same as the old semifinal round from the Hex era ('98–'18). 12 teams into 3 groups of 4. Top six advance. We never failed to advance but there were a few times where we made it tough on ourselves. Off the top of my head there was '02 where we needed a win in Barbados on the last match day to advance and it took us over an hour to finally break the deadlock. Then there was '18 where we lost @ Guatemala and needed to win the reverse fixture in Columbus to get to the Hex. So will it be easy? Of course. But certainly not a total gimme.

 

I'm not worried about advancing. We should never, ever, be in a situation where we were in 2018, talent wise.

But also, we beat Guatemala at home 4-0 and T&T 4-0. Yes, we were 1-1-1 after three matches but we had home matches against the two contenders to knock us out (and we only had to finish top 2) and an away against St. Vincent and Grenadines. We went 14-0 in goals to finish out. We could have even tied against both of them and made it through.

My issue is that it's boring as hell for no reason.

Look, I'm all for meaningful games for lesser teams, but let's not pretend that they are ready to contend. Have them play prelims. Use Nations League. Whatever.

Then let's have something that involves the better teams competing for the six spots. South America does a big round robin.

The lack of real competitive away matches is a problem. No friendly will ever replicate competitive play, especially the away aspect. To take away most of our chances to play a competitive match played at Azteca is a problem.

 

If you replaced the 3 groups of 4 with 2 groups of 6, you need 4 extra matchdays. That calendar is quite full

 

You can just start earlier. Or use Nations League as an opener / qualifier.

 

Im not sure theres really windows available to start earlier.

The only way I could think of that working would be to grow League C (something that would screw up The NL format) and have it double for the first round but that still only gets you 2 matchdays

The way I see it, The NL Quarters, Semis and Finals will get you 8 matches against top 8 CONCACAF teams and that's not even counting The Gold Cup. I think that semi makes up for the loss of the bigger qualifiers.

I understand they're not road games, but I've always viewed those games as more of an obstacle than actual ideal World Cup preparation

 

Nations League has ineligible non-FIFA members, which would be problematic for getting FIFA to approve its use for World Cup purposes. They seem to be using up all of the available windows. The only way to find more windows would be to reduce to one Nations League per cycle, and good luck with the politics of that.

I've always assumed the unified final round and US-Mexico WCQ were dead the moment the allotment was expanded to 6.

 

I'm too lazy to do the research myself. Any way to fit Copa America 2028 participation into the calendar?

We'll also have the Olympics in 2028 on our calendar, which I'm sure we'll take very seriously.