Co-hosts Canada and the United States will open their highly anticipated World Cup campaigns Friday, but each team will be facing a difficult opponent who could spoil the party for the respective home crowds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canada kicks off the day\u2019s action in Toronto against a Bosnia and Herzegovina team that is participating in its second World Cup. The day then concludes when Mauricio Pochettino\u2019s United States team hosts Paraguay in Los Angeles in what promises to be a hard-fought game.<\/p>\n
Here is a look at both games.<\/p>\n
Six games, six losses. That is Canada\u2019s history at the World Cup, with pointless campaigns in 2022 and 1986.<\/p>\n
After a disappointing tournament in Qatar four years ago, Canada will finally look to take its first ever positive steps at the World Cup when it hosts Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday in Group B action.<\/p>\n
There is plenty of room for optimism for Canada these days. The team boasts several high-quality players who play in the top leagues in Europe. It’s done well under head coach Jesse Marsch, who guided the club to a semifinal run at the 2024 Copa Am\u00e9rica. Since that run, Canada has only continued to surge under Marsch. In the 23 matches since its shootout loss to Uruguay in the third-place game, Canada has only lost twice.<\/p>\n
The strength of the team over the past two years has been its defense. Since the Copa Am\u00e9rica, Canada has conceded more than one goal only twice, a 4-2 win over Croatia last June and a 2-2 draw with Iceland in March. This rise has propelled Canada to 30th in the latest world rankings.<\/p>\n
The concern for Canada right now, however, is the health of two of its best players. Left back Alphonso Davies is dealing with a hamstring injury and is doubtful to be able to play on Friday, while central defender Moise Bombito is day to day.<\/p>\n
Bosnia and Herzegovina comes into this game as an underdog with a FIFA World Ranking of No. 64, but that could be misleading. Right now, it is a team full of confidence riding an eight-game unbeaten run. The last time Bosnia and Herzegovina lost was in a World Cup qualifier against Austria on September 9.<\/p>\n
The highlight of this run was in March during the World Cup qualifying playoffs, where Bosnia and Herzegovina defeated Wales and then Italy in shootouts to qualify for this tournament.<\/p>\n
Led by head coach Sergej Barbarez, Bosnia and Herzegovina brings a team that has a blend of youth, prime-age players, and older stars. Former New England Revolution winger and Wisconsin native Esmir Bajraktarevic is one of the team\u2019s bright young players. Now at PSV Eindhoven, the player known as the “Milwaukee Messi” played 120 minutes in each of the March playoff games and buried his penalty in the shootout to defeat Italy.<\/p>\n
On the other end of the spectrum, there is captain Edin D\u017eeko, who is the all-time leading scorer and most capped player in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina\u2019s national team. At age 40, he is still crucial to the team. He scored five international goals in 2025, and it was his late equalizer against Wales in March that kept their qualifying hopes alive.<\/p>\n
Forward \u00b7\u00a0Canada<\/p>\n
After a prolific start to his career with Gent in Belgium followed by a terrific five years with Lille in France, David moved to Juventus last year. It was a difficult first season in Italy for him as David managed just six goals in Serie A as the club failed to qualify for the Champions League.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is obvious that David is a quality player, but how much will the tough season affect him? He is the player to watch in this game because his performance could very well dictate Canada\u2019s performance. If he plays like he did during his Lille years, Canada is a threat. If he stays in his Juventus-era rut, Canada likely doesn\u2019t have the firepower to advance very far.<\/p>\n
In Group D, the United States national team kicks off its World Cup campaign on Friday night in Los Angeles and Mauricio Pochettino\u2019s squad is among the most difficult teams to predict in the World Cup, despite its current FIFA World Ranking of 17.<\/p>\n
The Pochettino era has been a wild roller-coaster. At the beginning of 2025, the U.S. team was in terrible shape after finishing fourth in the final rounds of the Nations League with losses to Panama and Canada. At the Gold Cup that summer, Mexico got past the U.S. in the final. But the fall saw the team steadily improve to the point where, in November, the U.S. team was playing terrific soccer. In that window, the U.S. team defeated its Friday opponents, Paraguay, 2-1, and then followed that with a resounding 5-1 win over Uruguay.<\/p>\n
Then this past March, the team made a complete 180 and struggled to compete in ugly losses to Belgium and Portugal.<\/p>\n
The two tune-up friendlies were mostly positive as the team defeated Senegal 3-2 and lost to Germany 2-1. Still, the U.S. was prone to making costly mistakes that could sink them at the World Cup.<\/p>\n
In other words, the team is almost unpredictable, and almost any scenario at this World Cup is possible. But there have been two encouraging developments for the team recently.<\/p>\n
The first is that Christian Pulisic ended his scoring drought against Senegal by bagging his first goal for club or country in 2026. If he is back in form, the U.S. team will be dangerous in the attack.<\/p>\n
The second is that the team\u2019s best central defender, Chris Richards, appears to be ready to play. He suffered an ankle injury three weeks ago playing for Crystal Palace. If he is back and close to full fitness, the U.S. team\u2019s defense is significantly improved.<\/p>\n
The U.S. team\u2019s opponent on Friday will be Paraguay, and it will be the first time the U.S. team has faced a South American team at the World Cup since the last time it hosted in 1994, when it upset Colombia, 2-1, in the group stage and then lost to Brazil in the round of 16.<\/p>\n
Paraguay qualified for the World Cup with a sixth-place finish in South America\u2019s single-table qualification, but there was not much separating the teams that qualified. Argentina finished comfortably in first, but Ecuador finished second with 29 points, while Colombia, Uruguay, Brazil, and Paraguay all finished with 28 points.<\/p>\n
Coached by Gustavo Alfaro, Paraguay enjoyed some impressive moments during qualifying, including home wins over Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Those results showed that this Paraguay team can defeat the best teams in the world.<\/p>\n
It will be the ninth World Cup appearance for La Albirroja but the last time came in 2010 when the team made a run to the quarterfinals in South Africa. For the team\u2019s veteran leaders, Miguel Almir\u00f3n and Gustavo Gomez, it will be their first time in the tournament.<\/p>\n
But Paraguay has a nice blend of veterans and youth. One of the team\u2019s most talented young players is Diego Gomez, who broke out in MLS before transferring to Brighton & Hove Albion, where he is now a regular in the Premier League. Meanwhile, Gomez, the 33-year-old central defender, will captain Paraguay. He is a club legend for Palmeiras in Brazil, where he has won Brazil\u2019s Serie A three times and the Copa Libertadores twice.<\/p>\n
Forward \u00b7\u00a0United States<\/p>\n
The AC Milan winger finally ended his 2026 scoring drought in the U.S. team\u2019s first tune-up game against Senegal. That gave hope to the U.S. team and its fans that Pulisic is in the process of returning to top form. He is absolutely critical to the U.S. team\u2019s chances for success at the World Cup and the pressure on him is intense as he is the figurehead for the country that will be hosting the most games of this World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Against Paraguay, it will be important to watch Pulisic early. If he is energetic and creating chances shortly after the opening kickoff, the U.S. team will be in good shape. If he is invisible, Paraguay has a good chance of getting a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Co-hosts Canada and the United States will open their highly anticipated World Cup campaigns Friday, but each team will be facing a difficult opponent who could spoil the party for the respective home crowds.\u00a0 Canada kicks off the day\u2019s action in Toronto against a Bosnia and Herzegovina team that is participating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4585","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\/4585","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=4585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}