Could the United States men’s national team really make the semifinals of the 2026 FIFA World Cup this upcoming summer? That’s what FOX Sports’ newest analyst and soccer legend Thierry Henry believes \u2014 under one condition.<\/p>\n
“You\u2019ve got to believe that you can do it,” Henry said in his first appearance with FOX Sports on Friday. “It\u2019s how you come out of it and how you\u2019re going to bring people along so that the whole country can believe in them. Then, you can go places.”<\/p>\n
The furthest the U.S. has ever advanced at the World Cup was at the inaugural 13-team tournament in 1930. It made it to the semifinals but lost to Argentina 6-1. Since then, the highest finish for the U.S. at the World Cup was the quarterfinals at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan.<\/p>\n
\u00a0In order for that to change this summer, Henry says the team needs to “connect with the country” as one of the host nations.<\/p>\n
“For me, it\u2019s simple: If you don\u2019t come out of the group stage, it would be a catastrophe,” Henry said. “And after that, it\u2019s how you come out of it. Did you make a connection with the public? When the public can relate to the team, I think the team can become unstoppable.<\/p>\n
“I think, with the quality of the team \u2014\u00a0and really, I know I\u2019m going out there \u2014 quarterfinals and maybe semis are a possibility. It depends on how they connect with the country and the belief of the country in the team.”<\/p>\n
The United States will discover its path to World Cup glory at The Final Draw on Friday.<\/p>\n
2026 World Cup Draw Live Updates, Results:<\/strong> Who’ll Be USA’s Opponents<\/u><\/strong>?<\/strong><\/p>\n Want great stories delivered right to your inbox?\u00a0<\/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 Could the United States men’s national team really make the semifinals of the 2026 FIFA World Cup this upcoming summer? That’s what FOX Sports’ newest analyst and soccer legend Thierry Henry believes \u2014 under one condition. “You\u2019ve got to believe that you can do it,” Henry said in his first appearance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2162","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\/2162","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=2162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}