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

Mexico City has also made tremendous strides to curb air pollution. I remember it being named the world's most polluted city sometime in the 90's, and now it is in much better. It's still not great, but with pollution way down, the effects are much less.

 

The ball definitely sails / carries further. makes free kicks and corners more difficult because if the ball sails slightly it's nowhere near the target.

But aren't a lot of their players in reality Dutch who would need acclimating?

 

How many European based players do they actually have? I know they've poached a guy or two off of us, but my memory is that their collection of core players in Europe has like cut in half (and at one point like 75-80%) compared to where it was at 2010-2019.

It's an interesting thought though, if El Tri gets better again, and starts sending players in heavy numbers to Europe, maybe their home field advantage continues to decline for those very reasons. There's no question that the advantages they have had at home have slipped significantly compared to where it was at 1970s to 2000's as compared to 2010-2025. That could be precisely why: Improvement of top teams in the confederation combined with El Tri sending far more players abroad between 2000-2020 then they used to (although these numbers collapsed post covid and are still pretty low compared to where they were the previous decade, I think anyway). I'm pretty sure their entire attack and core CM for WC '14 and WC '18 were Europe based.....interesting to think about.

 

Azteca was remodeled and now holds less people. Someone mentioned smog has been reduced. Add that to many of their best players not be used to altitude and what used to be a noisy, smelling beehive at altitude isn't the same.

 

The biggest thing is that this version of América isn't very good relative to their history. It's fairly usual for LigaMX fans to basically claim every LigaMX team sucks, etc., but it was still kind of shocking how toothless América was at home.*

Bigger picture, though, I also think that people generally read the HFA stuff incorrectly when looking at MLS teams and even the USMNT.

Mexican and Central American teams simply have a much better HFA than most teams out there. From food poisoning to altitude, etc. There's this weird idea that the US or MLS teams are somehow inferior because they can't win down south ... but the reality is that it's absolutely a bigger HFA they face than anyone coming to the US or playing in most European settings.

In other words, if we played a neutral site -- which playing in the US often is in many ways -- the fact that MLS / the US can't seem to win much down probably means that we're better than people evaluate, not worse. It's just harder to win on the road.

*Zendejas has 0g/1a in his last eight games and had zero goal contributions in CCC.

 

This is also partially why I excused a bit of our underperformance on the road, though Canada in the Ocho really pissed me off and weakened that argument.

There is simply no debate, no argument whatsoever, that what we face in qualifiers on the road, in terms of traditional home field advantage, and the natural pressure based (and concacrap culturally based) biased and incompetent reffing simply makes it much harder to win, especially in Central America and Mexico then it is in North America and the Caribbean, period. It just is, quite emphatically. Our home fields are not intimidating at all, and refs are not intimidated by our fans or the environment, so the refs can sometimes actually still be more biased towards opponents (see NL with El Tri fans stuffing the stands) even when we're playing at home. Literally the only reliable advantage we have at home (even our chants are absolute -----) in qualifiers and competitions is weather based in games played between November and March, that's it.

That not in coincidentally is why Canada practically forced El Tri to a play on a Rankin/Bass Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Set in their winter '21 WC Qualifier.

 

I'll simply note that the US had the best xGD in 2022 qualifying, and Canada was basically buoyed by exceptional goalkeeper (where we had Steffen sucking for half of it), quite a few beneficial own goals and a couple of friendly ref decisions.

Play it over and I suspect we do much better -- especially if we are a bit healthier, and don't screw around with Steffen and Brooks. And I don't know that everything falls Canada's way.

Canada also only won at Honduras and El Salvador, and we won at Honduras. Otherwise they basically won at home, tied on the road ... the big gap was we let them tie us at home. We both tied Mexico; they lost at Panama and Costa Rica and tied at Jamaica.

So our road difference comes down to us tying El Salvador and them winning, and then them tying us at home.

 

🚨 OFFICIAL: Arda Güler’s season with Real Madrid is also almost over after suffering muscle injury in the biceps femoris ❌🤕

Arda will focus on returning for the World Cup 2026 🇹🇷 pic.twitter.com/pDmqzEjgBW

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) April 23, 2026

Hopefully Guler can get back to 100%, probably the best player in our group. Hamstring issues can be very fickle though as we have seen with some of our players. Diego Gomez got hurt this weekend too for Brighton. Don't know the severity of that one. He might be Paraguay's best player, so hope he can make it back too.

 

I'm conflicted on whether I want our opponents best players to be there against us. We've had so many injuries over the years I don't have a ton of sympathy for other teams while I do for the players themselves. Can we bubble wrap our players now? It will be awful if any get hurt in the last few weeks before the WC and miss out.

 

Him and Yamal going down, I think within 24 hours (another dude too I think, though that other dude on Real Madrid sounded like it wasn't so bad).

Sad reality is I think we're gonna lose people period, we just don't know who. It always happens, last cycle's "Player out," group was the smallest I can ever recall, otoh, the fact that several guys came in too dinged up to be effective for 90 like McKennie, I think LDLT, and Reyna, exacerbated what seemed no problem.

For now, we've got a few hurt, but not too many, hopefully if the injury bug strikes, and I'm pretty sure it will, its depth here or there in a deep spot, rather than core unreplacable guys in key areas.

 

One thing we've vaguely alluded to which is definitely interesting is the possibility of an '02 redux where a long Club season combined with playing in humid and really hot conditions, or even at altitude could hurt a variety of powers and UEFA sides. I generally consider the AFC sides largely immune to this, same with CAF, and Conmebol and to some extent us but looking at the groups consider:

Group A:
Czech's will play at elevation in 2 of 3 matches. I didn't like their chances before, now, I really don't.

Group B:
I can be pretty clueless about humidity, but apparently Bosnia opens its cup against Canada in Toronto which supposedly has pretty brutal humidity in the summer. So that could be a problem, no other games appear impacted.

Group C: Every single one of these games will be impacted by potential heat and humidity other than the finale between Haiti and and Morocco which will be played in a dome. I would imagine that would benefit Haiti and Brazil more than Morocco and Scotland (especially Scotland).

Group D:
Our group is unlikely to feature any problems other than maybe dry summer heat in LA or Santa Clara which shouldn't be too bad.

Group E:
Every single game other than Germany vs Curacao looks to be impacted by heat and humidity. I would expect this to be an issue for Germany, but Curacao and Ecuador should be fine, and I would imagine Ivory Coast would be too.

Group F:
Half of the Group F games are going to be held in hot and muggy Guadalupe, or hot and painful KC, your winners on this misery lottery:

Matchday 1: Sweden vs Tunisia
Matchday 2: Japan vs Tunisia
Matchday 3: Tunisia vs Netherlands

So Tunisia is stuck playing all their matches in these miserable conditions, maybe the fact that Tunisia is generally a hot and dry place (much hotter further south) so maybe they're better built for it. Japan seems best acclimated for it as Japanese summers are humid and hot and miserable, so it shouldn't be strange for them when they take on Tunisia. Probably the least comfortable sides will be Sweden and the Dutch.

Group G:
A sister group to ours, they get to hang out in Vancouver, Seattle and California, so they get to avoid the bulk of the unpleasantness in the Group Stage (Iran, Egypt, Belgium and New Zealand)

Group H:
Like Group F, half of Group H's games are in miserable conditions, on the positive side, most of the teams should be used to it (Spain will probably be uncomfortable, the other 3 sides are used to either humid, hot, or humid and hot conditions.
Chief Victim: Uruguay plays all 3 games in horrible conditions (Miami, and Zapopan)
The Saudi's, Cape Verde, and Spain all get one match in one of these two sweltering, and humid arena's, all matches against Uruguay. It does make me wonder if Uruguay is advantaged. On the one hand, Uruguay isn't a terribly hot place, on the other hand it is quite humid there, so it shouldn't be that weird to be playing 2 games in Miami, and one in Mexico.

I can decide if this is an advantage for Uruguay or a disadvantage since all 3 other sides play indoors in 2 of 3 games against one another.

Group I:
All six games will be played in the humid Northeast, NY, Philly, Toronto, and New England. So each team is basically saddled with high humidity and the possibility of one of those horror show hot and humid summers in NY etc. France, and Norway seem least equipped to deal with this (especially Norway), while Iraq and Senegal are used to heat and/or Humidity.

Group J:
Argentina and Austria both will have to cope with Kansas City's potential heat wave, while Algeria will have to deal with it in 2 of 3 matches. Jordan managed to avoid playing in KC.

Group K:
Another group with half of its matches in humid and hot conditions and half in domes or domeable stadiums.

The Victims: Colombia, like Uruguay, will ply its trade in all 3 of the most miserable sites (Azteca, Guadalajara, and Miami), while each other side in the group (Uzbekistan, DR Congo, and Portugal will have to cope with the rough conditions once a piece.

Group L:
Other than the England vs Croatia game, which can be played in a dome, the other 5 matches will be played in the Northeast in humid and potentially hot weather. Panama and Ghana will have to cope with heavy humidity in 3 of 3 games, while England and Croatia will have to do it twice out of 3 matches.

I think this stuff is pretty understated. Maybe it's the reality that UEFA pretty well dominated South Africa in 2010, and shared the spoils until the Final with Conmebol in World Cup '14, so people think it should be fine. In my experience, the stories about the brutal conditions in '94, combined with the epic whining of players (Europeans typically) who come here from Europe in their thirties tells me that this could be rough. Going through the teams most exposed to the Conditions:

Impacted in entire Group Stage:
UEFA: Scotland, France, Norway,
CAF: Ghana, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Senegal
Conmebol: Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, Colombia
Concacrap: Panama
AFC: Iraq
Group L:

Impacted 2 of 3 games:
UEFA: Czech Republic, England and Croatia
CAF: Morocco, Algeria
Concacrap: Curacao, Haiti
AFC: 0

It's interesting, it seems pretty clear to me that they saddled CAF, and Conmebol, which admittedly are hot and/or humid confederations with the bulk of the roughest weather games, while trying to be as light as possible with UEFA and AFC (not really sure why they did this with the AFC, as most of their squads play in hot and humid regions and should be fine).

This is definitely something to be mindful of going into the tournament, I think some teams are probably too good to be concerned about it that won't be used to it (France, England), but others who are strong but more limited could be in trouble, especially the ones in tough groups....I am particularly fascinated by the fact that every power in Conmebol save Argentina was put in one of these hot zones, ditto most of CAF. Really intriguing thing to keep an eye on. Some teams which I was expecting to suck (Scotland, Czech Republic) this just makes me more confident they'll either get grouped or barely survive in 3rd and it could give a team a chance to pull an upset like Costa Rica 12 years ago. Is it possible Haiti, Curacao, Algeria, Panama, and Iraq could surprise in this? Probably not, but maybe (especially Algeria who are actually pretty good and in a joke group).

This also makes me interesting in seeing what knockout matches will be hosted in these misery sites.

 

Nate Silver just posted his new Soccer model.

W% L% D%

USA/PAR -- 39%, 30%, 31%
USA/AUS -- 51%, 21%, 28%
USA/TUR -- 32%, 41%, 28%

No time right now, but I'll try to run some sims based on these later.

 

Yep, that's extremely tight!

 

I think Australia probably gets undersold for the same reason the US used to be underestimated. Australia's probably better than that, I think they got the Turkey game right, Paraguay close, but Australia I'd up the Draw piece at least (which I think is the most likely result if it isn't a US win).

 

Overall his model ranks us the 37th best team in the tournament

We just launched PELE, our new soccer model! It is kind of insanely detailed. But we think you'll really like it and hope you'll check it out. Argentina *just* edges out Spain in the initial rankings. The US is ... much further down the list. pic.twitter.com/SGQ8cUKprV

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 8, 2026

 

Elo currently has us as the 32nd best team in the World Cup, so not much better.

In each case, I think we just have to hope we're better than our performances over the past couple years would suggest.

 

I know we're all down after the last couple years but I disagree that we're worse than Chile, Venezuela, Scotland Ukraine, Greece, Mexico, Australia, Russia, Canada etc.

I do wonder how playing almost every match at home effects us in various rankings. I know that hurts us in The CONCACAF rankings a ton

 

This is the first time I've ever thought that none of this stuff is remotely useful. I guess 2006 that might be true too, the 2006 FIFA rankings were so hopelessly moronic, that wasn't helpful. But This time round we all know what our team is:

Our team from the Copa America Window in '24 and NL '25 is not capable of beating anyone in our group or accomplishing anything whatsoever.

Our team from NL '23, or say, Fall '25 can play with anyone.

We are both of those teams.

So the reality is, we are capable of playing like the 8th-12th best team in the world, and we are capable of barely being a top 50 side, and in the same window lol.

So rankings, and strutting like your Jimi Hendrix, or shuffling your feet in an overcoat like a Joy Division fan in June 1980 is really equally accurate. We are capable of being Voodoo Chile playing out your windows during the Guitar Solo, and black and white life heavy overcoat and Doc Martins wearing Joy Division fans a month after he and Mount St Helen's decided to exit the world the same night/morning.

We're both.

Which is why I'll probably bet the underdog in our matches, and steer clear of anything else.

I have no trouble at all seeing us beating Turkey, or beating Paraguay or beating Australia, we have a higher ceiling and floor than 2 of the 3, and I am distrustful of the stickiness of Turkey's current form, but at the same time, man can we totally suck. Those second halves in March were inept, that South Korea friendly for an SK side that can be real ---- at times was embarrassing, the fact that those players could be humiliated at the Copa America, and then lose to the same Panama at home a second time in less than a year is just astonishing to me. I don't trust this team AT ALL.

I find it infuriating that way back in 1994 and 1995, back in 2002, and 2006 and 2009 etc we were infinitely more trustworthy with far less talent. The situation we're in is totally nuts. And yet here we are. My focus for now is that our players make it through these final weeks with no more injuries. I would not be surprised by anything at this WC, but I'd like to think that these chuckleheads could actually focus for 3 or 4 weeks and play their very best soccer at the biggest tournament they will ever play in, while literally playing the only tournament they will ever play in at their physical prime.

Like man the ---- up, guys, and earn your reputation with at least one signature win, and a consistent window for the first time in freaking eons (granted an A/B/C team did it in November for 2 games, but that wasn't even our first team, which probably wasn't coincidental).

 

Actually 37th best team in the world (not the tournament).. We're 41 in Elo, so it's slightly better.

 

It HELPS us in the FIFA ratings, so there's that. It's the main difference why why Elo and PELE (Silver's new model) think the US is worse than their FIFA ranking.

 

When you look at the rosters, Paraguay looks like a team that should be on the downslope: a lot of 30 year olds playing in South America; some MLS DPs for bad teams; only 3 players in top Euro leagues;Almiron a shadow of his old self, But their results have been solid and steady.

Oz looks like a team that should be on the up. Young team. 4 players in top Euro leagues. A good Feyenoord player, an 18 year old CB on the Rapids. Veteran keeper. Bunch of C-ship and MLS players.

 

As I mentioned in a previous post, I don't think we're either of those things.

I think we are 12th in the world, and probably 55th in the world, depending on what day you catch these guys and who's hurt. I just think usually rankings make sense to some extent, but how do you make sense of a team that can humiliate Uruguay, and handle Ecuador, and Paraguay, and yet lose to Panama twice in 9 freaking months AT HOME.

That is simply not something you can rank because it its straight up freaking nuts, it's kind of analogous oddly to the last of the Klinsy years, where we could vomit on our shoes against Guatemala in a qualifier, and beat the Dutch and German's in friendlies and make the Semi's of the Copa America and follow that up by failing to qualify for the freaking World Cup. That's what it reminds me of, that era of Klinsy insanity where the team was aging out and playing just a bipolar kind of soccer for lack of a better word.

If I go through elo for instance, say, check out my favorite wacky confederation, CAF:

Tier 1:
17. Senegal
24. Morocco

Tier 2:
32.Nigeria
35. Algeria

Tier 3:
51. Egypt
52. Ivory Coast
55. DR Congo
58. Tunisia
61. Cameroon
65. Mali

Tier 4:
72. Cape Verde
73. Angola
78, Burkina Faso
79. South Africa
82. Ghana

This pretty much makes sense, some of it is crazy, but its kind of explicable, Nigeria is really good, but they had a catastrophic start to their qualifying campaign and could only barely make the playoff where they fell to a damn good DR Congo on penalties. The Tier 3 grouping is sound other than Mali who's basically been right there with Burkina Faso and DR Congo in recent years as that team that seemed always in position to qualify, and always stepping on rakes. This cycle was even more pathetic than the usual, they really had no excuse whatsoever for what transpired, they were in 4th freaking place beyond Comoros, and Madagascar until they wrapped qualifying with a run of back to back wins that pushed them into 3rd place. But yeah, I look at CAF and it more or less makes sense, Senegal, Morocco, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, DR Congo and Cameroon (and I'd argue Burkina Faso) and probably the best of the Sub-Saharan African sides, I don't know why Angola is ahead of Burkina Faso, and I know why Ghana is that low, and its primarily that they've just been completely incompetent in the AFCON (after making the Final Four or Final 5 consecutive times '08-17, they've now finished 12th, 19th, and 17th place in '19, '21 and '23 before failing to qualify entirely in '25). Ghana's a weird one, like Nigeria they've basically been underperforming for 8 straight years, even their '22 WC appearance was largely bull---- (they needed an utterly fraudulent penalty against South Africa in the finale of semi-final play to escape a group stage regional qualifying exit)....

But yeah, look at CAF, and it basically makes sense, my quibbles are basically Mali and Angola being too hight, Ghana and South Africa and Burkina Faso probably a touch too low, same with Ivory Coast who are currently a Tier 2 side for the region, but falling to Egypt in the AFCON, and missing the WC for 2 straight cycles largely explains it.

But we can't be grouped like them because the truth is, from '21-'24 we dominated Concacrap, but we also were absolutely wretched in '24 at the Copa America, and were humiliated at the '25 NL.....How do you rank us? You just can't.

As mentioned earlier, I think when it comes to use, we'll see with injuries, seems like a couple of guys are picking up dings (Johnny is now out, Tessmann is also hurt, who else?), and the rest will be about mentality and consistency.

The perfect example of all of that is the Copa America Window in '24:

Opened with a humiliating disaster at home vs Colombia

Then had a fabulous performance in a draw with Brazil.

Had a slightly subpar win over a moribund Bolivia

Then a Red Card ruined what was a likely stomping of Panama (early goal waived off, stupid red card, and then Balo gives us a leave but Berhalter's approach and the players themselves playing chaotically eventually causes the roof to cave in late down a man).

Wrap up a totally humiliating Copa America hosted tournament with a toothless, "we want the coach fired," pathetic performance in a do or die game against Uruguay where not only do they not "do," they basically are so feeble they don't even record a SOG until the final 15 or so minutes of a game where they needed to win by multiple goals to pass Panama for the knockouts.


This is our team, just helter skelter/jeckle and Hyde insanity.

I keep hoping that next month they just metaphorically cowboy up, put their big boy pants on, and show up like our '02 and '14 sides did, and fight their ---es off. But do I believe they'll do that? No. I believe they'll do that in 1 or 2 group games, and if we're lucky, 2 knockout games out of 3. More likely, they'll sprinkle 2 utterly gutless performances in between the 3-5 we end up getting to watch. I really hope I'm wrong.

The people who ever wondered if I'd ever blame the players and not just the coach, well, I always blamed some of the players, but yeah, after March '25, I was at least half buying the argument that there was something fundamentally wrong with the mental make up of these guys, I just think and thought it was always both. Hopefully Poch finds all the right buttons to push and we stay healthy deep into July.

But rankings? They are useless, anyone of us should be able to recognize that this team is one of the few teams in the tournament that could easily put together games where they could play with almost anyone at this tournament, and on the wrong day, they could play like they could take on virtually no-one except some of the truly sad sack Concacrap and AFC squads. Rankings with us are pointless.

We aren't 38th, we aren't 41st, we aren't 55th, we aren't 24th or whatever. We are top 12ish on our best day, and 50ish or worse on our bad days. We're both , until we see different for a nice large window.

 

It was interesting hearing a dude on scuffed talk about how they were humiliated at Copa America and then hired I think the coach that beat them from Costa Rica in the group stage, and he just built a nearly impenetrable D that pretty easily locked in for an auto ticket in that giant pile of teams on 28/29 points (literally everyone other than Argentina basically).

I'm not impressed at all, and if, well hell, let's just merge the mentality of '21-'23, to some extent, with the talent of '25-'26, and I would imagine we would roll against Paraguay win easy 1-0, 2-0 or 2-1. Squeeze a tough win against Australia, and Turkey game depends upon how we both approach it likely being on 6 points apiece. But as I mentioned above, this team has gone from sporadically showing inconsistently in each window in '21 and '22, to outright sucking out loud for months at a time in '24, '25 and '26.

It's gonna be real, real interesting. This tournament is likely going to permanently lock these guys into a reputation.

The OG's had nearly drawing Italy in Italy at the '90 WC (had an equalizer cleared off the line in the 2nd half), and then beating powerhouse Colombia, and tying the Swiss in '94 followed by a spectacular run while nearly on strike at Copa America '95, the new boys in '02 had the greatest run ever with the Portugal and El Tri scalps, the fantastic draw with South Korea, and the moral victory over Germany, the '06 group drew the WC champs, and were probably hosed by the refs (sure seemed like the refs wanted to even up on red cards and were looking for a stupid enough foul to justify it, and then the following match we got hosed again vs Ghana), the next generation had Spain, and a half against Brazil, they drew England, and had the sterling comebacks to beat Slovenia and win against Algeria late, the '14 group escaped a group of death with fantastic performances against Ghana and Portugal, and a gutty defeat in extra time to a powerhouse Belgium side.

This group has what exactly? A draw with England was kind of nice, sure, but anything else? Nope. Just some wins over Canada and the worst Mexico any of us have ever seen. I think a win over Turkey would be impressive, but not up to the previous standards, Seems like the first truly big dog we have in a historical sense would be potential matchups against either Belgium, Uruguay or Spain, or Argentina depending upon how we finish in the group if first or 2nd. Any of those match ups would put us along side the heroes from the past and their greatest moments, that would be the signature win. While I think Turkey is a top UEFA side right now, I'm not sold they're comparable to where Italy was as a host in '90 against College Kids, or CONMEBOL Brazil Pasting Colombia in '94, or WC #1 Dark Horse Portugal (and Germany to some extent) in '02, or WC Champ Italy in '06, or undefeated Spain run in '09, or the back to back games against Ghana and Portugal in '14 etc.....For now Turkey's 9th in UEFA, and 14th in the world with ELO (uneven at Euro '24, better in WCQ)....

 

And yet this poster tells us we are 12th in the world….WTF? Based on what? Vibes?

 

So the new PELE model is basically Elo, plus a couple of minor things (mostly Transfermarkt data, and some better regional/home field stuff).

Not much different, and we're still 4th choice in the group based on the rating. Not surprisingly, it sees the US as a bit better than Elo. Here's the group comparison.

----------Elo------PELE
TUR: 1902----1877
PAR: 1833----1851
AUS: 1783----1783
USA: 1721----1772

That improvement, combined with the home field advantage, has winning the group as our most likely (if ever so slightly) outcome.

USA Finish:
1st - 29.4%
2nd - 28.6%
3rd - 24.7%
4th - 17.3%