The Big Picture: USA Knows Its World Cup Foes and Can Now Dream the 'Impossible'

KENNEDY CENTER (WASHINGTON, D.C.) — More than a year ago, at his very first press conference after being hired as coach of the 2026 World Cup co-host United States, Mauricio Pochettino refused to put any limitation on what the Americans can achieve next summer at the 48-team tournament.

"We need to believe," the former Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur coach said then, "that we can win the World Cup."

Pochettino doubled down on that message on Friday, a few hours after the U.S. men's team learned its group stage opponents (two of them anyway) at the glitzy World Cup draw ceremony from the nation's capital.  The U.S. will meet Paraguay and Australia in its first two games. It will then close out with a European opponent of either Türkiye, Kosovo, Romania or Slovakia in Group D (those teams will play each in March). Whoever they meet, it’s clear that the U.S. players are buying into what their coach is selling.

Mauricio Pochettino REACTS to United States Landing in Group D 🌎🏆 'We need to be optimistic'

"We all want to win the World Cup," veteran defender Tim Ream told reporters after the draw. "You don't play the tournament just to be there."

"Our idea is to win," added Tyler Adams, who captained the squad to a round of 16 appearance at the last World Cup in Qatar. "That's the goal."

Whether it’s realistic or not is another matter. Just eight nations have ever hoisted the most coveted trophy in sports in the almost century-long history of the World Cup. Still, miracles happen. Leicester City overcame 5000-1 odds to claim the Premier League title less than a decade ago. Greece won the European Championship in 2004, a feat any rational soccer observer would’ve deemed impossible beforehand. 

It starts with belief. Pochettino has leaned into that idea heavily. Speaking at U.S. Soccer’s summit in New York earlier this week, he admitted to falling in love with the 2004 movie "Miracle," based on the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s iconic defeat of the Soviet Union on home ice at the 1980 Winter Olympics. 

"Do the impossible" has become both the team’s mantra inside the dressing room and a slick marketing slogan outside of it.

Asked on Friday what he'd consider a success next July, Pochettino cut off a reporter mid-question. "Win the World Cup," he said.

USMNT Maurico Pochettino has taken insipiration from the movie based on the famed "Miracle on Ice" game at the 1980 Winter Olympics (Getty). 

In their heart of hearts, Pochettino and his players surely know that they probably won’t accomplish their ultimate goal. Yet it costs nothing to dream big dreams.

"People can laugh and say whatever they want," Ream said. "But it's, it's exciting. We were all excited. It's a World Cup. If you can't get excited for a World Cup, no matter who you're playing, then there's problems."

And truth be told, the draw set them up well. As a seeded team — one of the benefits of staging the event alongside North American neighbors Canada and Mexico — they couldn’t draw a superpower such as recent group stage foes England, Germany or Portugal. This year, the U.S. has already beaten Australia and Paraguay in World Cup tuneups. They narrowly lost to the Turks — one of the overwhelming favorites to survive March’s European playoffs — in June. Still, the co-hosts can’t afford to take anything for granted.

"We know them, but they know us," Pochettino said shortly after Friday’s gala event at the Kennedy Center in the nation’s capital. "The most important thing is to keep improving. That, for me, is the objective."

Later, when asked about looking ahead to the knockout stage, he cautioned against that idea.

"Maybe Argentina, today the best team and the last [World Cup] winner," can think beyond the first round. 

"But with USA?" He shook his head. "Our first game is the final of the World Cup, and the second is the final of the World Cup, and the third. That is the mentality that we want to build, that mindset."

For Pochettino, it’s personal. As a child, he dreamed of representing Argentina as a player on the biggest stage in sports. He thought the opportunity might never come. When it did, at age 31, it didn’t go well: his Albiceleste were shockingly eliminated in the group stage at Korea/Japan 2002.

"After that, I suffered a massive depression," he said on Friday. "What I don’t want is in the future, that people regret that they didn't do enough or their best to try to be successful."

In the coming months, the U.S. will scout not just Paraguay and Australia, but those four possible European teams that could join them on the West Coast. At the same time, they can’t look past the June 12 opener versus Paraguay in Los Angeles. Even with the top third-place finishers advancing to the business end of the tourney for the first time since the last U.S-hosted World Cup in 1994, getting three points right away could be crucial.

"It doesn't matter who we're playing — first match of the World Cup, obviously playing in L.A., I mean, we're going to be ready for that game," Christian Pulisic said when I asked him about the importance of winning the opener.  "Of course, getting three points right off the bat would be an amazing start for us, and just put us in a great position in the group.

"We're definitely looking forward to that one," he added.

"Being able to play a World Cup in our home country, you can't ask for anything better," said Adams. "It's what we dreamed of as kids. And just to have the opportunity, I think it is important to go into it with the mentality that we're going to enjoy it, we're going to try to take in the whole experience.

"It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity," Adams continued. "When it gets down to it, we're going to be ready to fight and give it everything we have."

Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports who has covered United States men's and women's national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ByDougMcIntyre.

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