One year from hosting the men’s soccer World Cup for the first time since 1994, the U.S. team is struggling to right itself on the field and regain the confidence of a distressed fan base.
Shaken by flops at the Copa America tournament and in the CONCACAF Nations League, the United States will play Turkey in an exhibition match Saturday in East Hartford, Connecticut, then face Switzerland in another friendly Tuesday in Nashville. The Americans then begin play in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, their last competitive matches before hosting the World Cup opener on June 12, 2026. Canada and Mexico will co-host the quadrennial tournament with the U.S.
“There is a palpable and fair angst and maybe even worse apathy relative to this team given its recent failures,” Fox Sports lead analyst Alexi Lalas, a former defender for the U.S., said Friday. “A year out from the World Cup, I don’t think that many of us predicted that we would be in this frame of mind at this point in time.”
After reaching the second round of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the Americans were eliminated in the group stage of the Copa America last summer on U.S. soil, leading the U.S. Soccer Federation to replace coach Gregg Berhalter with Mauricio Pochettino. And then in March, the Americans lost to Panama in the semifinals and Canada in the third-place match of the CONCACAF Nations League Finals.
“We’ve struggled. We’ve got beat down … pegged back a stone, so to speak,” midfielder Tyler Adams, the 2022 World Cup captain, said Friday at the team’s training camp in Chicago. “We need to continue to prove that we are at this level and able to improve.”