You may fall into different camps about who you want to see the U.S. men’s national team play against in the group phase at the World Cup. A bunch of low-ranked teams? A gauntlet of star-laden opponents? Familiar foes? Unknown opponents? All of the above?\u00a0<\/p>\n
If that’s the case, then this potential group will provide plenty of drama and an unhealthy dose of heartburn. FOX Sports analysts and U.S. men’s team greats Landon Donovan, Stu Holden, Cobi Jones, and Alexi Lalas put together the worst-case scenario for the USMNT.\u00a0<\/p>\n
FIFA World Ranking: 16<\/strong> Donovan:<\/strong> Despite the 5-1 thrashing of Uruguay very recently for our U.S. team, that is a really dangerous opponent. They won\u2019t be bothered by the weather or the travel. There won\u2019t be a massive Uruguayan contingent, but their fans are passionate, and it\u2019s just a team that, when they\u2019re all full strength, they\u2019re very dangerous. And by the way: getting beat 5-1 by the U.S. and then being placed in our group? It would be an absolute revenge game for them. This is a team I would not want to face. That would be a worst-case scenario for me.<\/p>\n Holden: <\/strong>I’m with you. You think of the Uruguay of the past with Luis Su\u00e1rez, Edinson Cavani and Diego God\u00edn, but now they’ve got Darwin N\u00fa\u00f1ez, and they just have this ruthlessness about them. I’m also looking at another South American team in Pot 2. If I was to say another one it would maybe be Morocco, but more so Colombia. I just think seeing what they did at the Copa Am\u00e9rica in 2024, even in the pre-friendlies, the U.S. played them a got absolutely thrashed. They’re a team that can run the score up on you 6-0, 7-0. Luis Diaz is electric. They’re going to bring one of the biggest parties off of the field that we’ve seen in a World Cup. It’s a very dangerous, high-octane team.<\/p>\n FIFA World Ranking: 29<\/strong> Jones: <\/strong>When you\u2019ve got Erling Haaland, “The Viking,” arguably (and I don\u2019t even know who would argue against it) the best striker in the world playing up against you, I don\u2019t think the U.S. wants to see that. And then you talk about Antonio Nusa and Oscar Bobb, the wingers that Norway has and how they\u2019re electric 1-v-1 in dribbling and taking you on. Martin Odegaard and his fantastic left foot. They\u2019re good all the way around, solid. I may be jinxing them a bit here, but is this their Golden Generation?<\/p>\n Holden:<\/strong> In a one-off game, do you take the U.S. or Norway?<\/p>\n Jones:<\/strong> Right now, unfortunately, I would probably say Norway.<\/p>\n Donovan: <\/strong>They’re way better than a Pot 3 team. They’re not a Pot 1 team. It’s just recently that this form has come, so it hasn’t caught up yet.<\/p>\n Holden:<\/strong> But doing it in qualifying is different from doing it in a World Cup.<\/p>\n Jones: <\/strong>Very true, but look at Haaland and what he has done: 16 goals in the UEFA qualifying process; the closest person to him has eight goals. I mean, that’s insane.<\/p>\n Donovan: <\/strong>This is what I think about: our U.S. team, in the recent friendlies that we’ve played, you play against some decent strikers. If you have to play against a player like that, it is a nightmare. It’s a nightmare in a World Cup. You get isolated in a 1-v-1, it’s a disaster.<\/p>\n Holden: <\/strong>He’s dunking on you.<\/p>\n FIFA World Ranking: 72<\/strong> Lalas: <\/strong>History matters and Ghana is in Pot 4 \u2014 it’s going to be Ghana. This isn’t a great Ghana team, but it’s still Ghana, and we have plenty of history playing against Ghana.<\/p>\n Holden: <\/strong>Give me Ghana.<\/p>\n Donovan:<\/strong> I want to play them. I want to get over that hurdle. For my personal sake, I want some vindication.<\/p>\n Holden: <\/strong>2010 still hurts, man. We had ’em.<\/p>\n Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? <\/i>Create or log in to your FOX Sports account<\/u><\/i>, and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily!<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY You may fall into different camps about who you want to see the U.S. men’s national team play against in the group phase at the World Cup. A bunch of low-ranked teams? A gauntlet of star-laden opponents? Familiar foes? Unknown opponents? All of the above?\u00a0 If that’s the case, then this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Qualifying record: 7W-7D-4L<\/strong>
Top scorer: Darwin N\u00fa\u00f1ez (5 goals)<\/strong><\/p>\n
Qualifying record: 8W-0D-0L<\/strong>
Top scorer: Erling Haaland (16 goals)<\/strong><\/p>\n
Qualifying record: 8W-1D-1L<\/strong>
Top scorer: Jordan Ayew (7 goals)<\/strong><\/p>\n