Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 was ready to tell fans of the U.S. men’s national team that it was time to believe following its 4-1 win over Paraguay to open the 2026 FIFA World Cup. He’s doubling down on that stance following the USA’s 2-0 win over Australia on Friday.<\/p>\n
Following the USA’s second victory in Group D, Ibrahimovi\u0107 proclaimed that the Stars and Stripes can win the World Cup as they advanced to the round of 32.<\/p>\n
“They had a good performance today. [U.S. manager Mauricio] Pochettino did good putting two strikers [in the lineup],” Ibrahimovi\u0107 said. “If you didn’t believe before, I will repeat: Start believing. They have the country behind them, and when you have this support, it\u2019s difficult to beat you. They just need to continue, bring confidence game to game.”<\/p>\n
Thierry Henry co-signed that sentiment, praising Pochettino’s approach.<\/p>\n
“Mauricio Pochettino said, \u2018If you want to win the competition.\u2019 Before, he would’ve said, \u2018How far can we go?\u2019 He said, \u2018If you want to win the competition,'” Henry said, believing it shows a positive change of mindset. “Things have changed.”<\/p>\n
Pochettino’s tactics and confidence have helped the USA move just a point away from securing first place in Group D. If Paraguay wins or draws against T\u00fcrkiye later on Friday, or if the USA wins or draws against T\u00fcrkiye on Thursday, the USA will win the group.<\/p>\n
But are Ibrahimovi\u0107 and Henry correct in their assessments that the USA can make a deep run in the World Cup? Here are some stats to help make you believe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2: <\/strong>The USA won two straight men’s World Cup matches for the second time and the first since its first two matches ever in the tournament in 1930.<\/p>\n 2: <\/strong>This is also just the second time the U.S. has won two group stage matches in a single World Cup (1930).<\/p>\n 2: <\/strong>The USA became the first team in World Cup history to benefit from an own goal in two consecutive matches.<\/p>\n 2: <\/strong>This was the first time in the modern era (since 1990) that USA has benefited from an own goal in consecutive games (all competitions). There have also already been seven own goals scored at the 2026 World Cup; only the 2018 edition has seen more scored (12).<\/p>\n 15: <\/strong>USA is the second World Cup host nation to score a goal in the opening 15 minutes of each of its first two matches of that year’s competition, joining France in 1938 (per OPTA). The own goal, which came off a cross from USA striker Florian Balogun, came in the 11th minute.\u00a0<\/p>\n 6: <\/strong>The six goals the USA has scored in this group stage are already tied for the most the team has scored in a group stage in a World Cup ever (six in 1930).<\/p>\n 2: <\/strong>Friday was the first time the U.S. has led by multiple goals in consecutive World Cup matches since 1930 and just the fourth time ever.<\/p>\n 7: <\/strong>USA improves to 7-0-0 (W-D-L) all-time when playing in Seattle Stadium. The USA is now 10-1-1 (W-D-L) at all venues in Seattle, with the only loss coming vs. USSR in a 1979 friendly in the Kingdome. If the USA wins Group D, it will play at Seattle Stadium if it advances to the round of 16.\u00a0<\/p>\n 11: <\/strong>One key to victory for the USA? Score first. The USA improved to 11-2-1 (W-D-L) all-time at the World Cup when scoring first, and 10-2-1 (W-D-L) all-time at the World Cup when leading at half.<\/p>\n 3: <\/strong>USA improves to 2-1-1 (W-D-L) all-time at the World Cup against AFC opponents; USA improves to 3-1-1 (W-D-L) against Australia.<\/p>\n 44: <\/strong>Star midfielder Christian Pulisic didn’t play in Friday’s win. The U.S. is now\u00a044-16-15 (W-D-L) when he does not play and 45-16-26 (W-D-L) when he does play.<\/p>\n 3: <\/strong>Alex Freeman scored his third career international goal and first at a World Cup.<\/p>\n 16: <\/strong>U.S. men’s national team manager Mauricio Pochettino improves to 16-2-10 (W-D-L) since taking over in September 2024.<\/p>\n 8: <\/strong>The USA’s last eight men’s World Cup goals (excluding own goals) have been scored by players younger than 25 years old, equaling the longest such streak in World Cup history (Poland, eight straight between 1938 and 1974) (per OPTA).<\/p>\n 97.8: <\/strong>Chris Richards has completed 97.8% of his passes at the FIFA World Cup (175\/179); that is the second-best accuracy by a player in their first two appearances on record since 1966 (min. 100 passes), behind\u00a0Gheorghe Popescu in 1994 (122\/124 \u2013 98.4%, per OPTA).<\/p>\n 18: <\/strong>Weston McKennie had the most chances created (three) and the most passes ending in the final third (18) against Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 was ready to tell fans of the U.S. men’s national team that it was time to believe following its 4-1 win over Paraguay to open the 2026 FIFA World Cup. He’s doubling down on that stance following the USA’s 2-0 win over Australia on Friday. Following the USA’s second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5099","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\/5099","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=5099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}