Now that the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw is in the rearview mirror, the tournament is starting to feel real.
This version of the tournament will be co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, which has raised some real concerns about things like ticket accessibility, issues around a scheduled “Pride Match” and the potential for Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence at matches. Those are a piece of the story, and they can’t be ignored.
But, at the same time, there is a global sporting event to be played. And, rightly or wrongly, there are plenty of on-field narratives that will also play a role in how the world views and remembers the 2026 tournament.
How will Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo perform in (probably) their last dance on the global stage? Will Spain’s Lamine Yamal take another step forward as soccer’s next big star? Can England make it back to the top of the sport? Or will the story of the World Cup be a Cinderella nation?
For American fans, the hope is that playing on home soil might finally be the opportunity for the nation, which has historically struggled in men’s soccer, get over the hump.
“Why can Morocco go deep into the semifinal of the World Cup? Why can Costa Rica have their journey? Why can Iceland go deep in the Euros, Wales even, and why never us?” Roger Bennett, CEO and founder of the Men in Blazers media network said to Newsweek.
“This, on home turf, in 2026 is the opportunity. One that we all dream about. To win one knockout game only in the history of this nation is at this point, you know, when you think about the feats of America, putting a man on the moon, inventing the Cronut. We should be with this talent that we do have; and we do have talent, this is undoubtedly the most accomplished global generation of footballers. It’s a glut, a gaggle of phenomenal individuals. And can they forge that collective?”
Making Sense of the 2026 World Cup Draw
In an event at Washington, D.C.’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the 2026 FIFA World Cup Draw sorted the qualified teams (and a handful of outstanding qualifiers) into 12 pots of four teams.
But that book-keeping wasn’t all that occurred. We also saw multiple musical performances, some celebrity appearances, and the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize.
“The draw is the moment when almost flesh is put on the bone; when the dream becomes a reality for each one of the 48 teams,” Bennett said. “So, there’s a giddiness. But ultimately the draw is designed to do a couple of things. Number one, to build those journeys, those pathways, the groups, we now know our hero’s journey, and every team does. The beauty of the draw is it’s a day everybody dreams, everything’s still possible.”
But the spectacle is also a piece of the puzzle.
“The draw is also meant to announce to the world ‘Hey, this is happening in 186 days.’ And so you do need the noise, you do need the glitz, you do need the kind of Vegas residency vibe, which football always has around the draw. So yeah, it was a lot. It was long, it was ‘Godfather II’ long, it was Ken Burns long, but it got us all talking…It really was a part-Vegas show and ultimately it was a reflection of where we are in America right now.”
On the sporting side of things, though, the key takeaway for Americans is that they secured a favorable draw; the co-hosts are slated to face Australia, Paraguay and a to-be-determined team from a European playoff.
To Bennett, that represents a massive opportunity.
“I know I sound like I’m from Liverpool, but I love this nation. More than Kenny Powers loves this nation. So, I would start with the United States men and their journey,” he explained when asked about takeaways from the event.
“You know, our U.S. women win things regularly, our men dream and yearn. And they’ve struggled, if we’re being honest, to be anything but a bit part at the World Cup. Almost like a third cousin at a wedding. Just kind of happy to be there, make the pictures in the background. Even though we have and we do now have real talent, we’ve done little with it if we’re being honest.
“We’re a nation that’s put a man on the moon, but we’ve won in our nation’s history just one knockout game ever in the men’s World Cup. And so, the draw, we’ll say no draw’s ever easy. No World Cup game’s easy. They’re played under a crucible of pressure in the spotlight of the world. But we would 100 percent have taken this group, the initial group, the first three games before the draw.”
Playing Under Pressure
At the same time, though, that favorable draw and the chance to play on home soil could be a double-edged sword. While it should be an advantage for the United States, it could also amp up the pressure.
“It’s a unique POV entering this World Cup for the American team,” Bennett said, explaining, “2014 we were in the group of death with Ghana, Portugal, Germany. We were not favored in any of those games. And we gutted tenaciously our way out of there; 2010 the same; 2022, we’re in England’s group.”
This tournament, however, will be different.
“We will be favored,” he continued. “We will be favored. The U.S. will not be an underdog in either of the first two games. We’ll be expected to win, and it’s a unique and rare kind of pressure. And how our players deal with that weight of expectation on home turf will be psychologically fraught and fascinating.”
And while we’re not 100 percent sure which players will make the final squad, we do that head coach Mauricio Pochettino will play a key role in the United States Men’s National Team’s campaign. Running a national team isn’t exactly analogous to club management, but he does have some experience galvanizing a group.
“Pochettino is a phenomenal human being who I’ve known for a long time,” Bennett explained. “He came to Tottenham Hotspur and struggled at the outset. He turned them. We do know how the story ends, he turned them into really a wondrous collective, a young collective who completely overachieved. It was almost alchemy at the end, because they weren’t bringing in new players, yet still he had them soaring, overachieving, dreaming, fighting as a collective.
“And once again at the beginning he struggled. And then he looked at a couple of his highest paid, biggest names, and exiled them from the team and turned around to some of the young players who were you know still young, many of them just coming off a series of loans. Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Eric Dier, Ryan Mason, and he said, ‘You’re my men, you are my guys now.’”
You can’t exactly do that at an international level. “International teams are like all-star teams. They come together; they’re fleeting creatures,” Bennett noted—but Pochettino’s experience in changing the atmosphere and creating a tight-knit group could bear fruit this summer.
“You look at this year, it’s been a year of lows and highs,” Bennett added. “It’s been a year of improvement. I mean, there were humiliating failures when we lost to Panama in SoFi [Stadium], an empty SoFi. The team lost its fan base; it fell so hard. Canada then beat us. We looked adrift. And what he’s done is reset the culture.
“The bigger name players, he either gave them a break or didn’t pick them and has forged a new identity around the values he wants of total commitment, total focus, training hard, not coasting, not [being] complacent. And it’s rebuilt the culture and is now almost trying to fit the bigger players and working out which bigger players he will fit back in, the players who are always a given on this team sheet. And so, I’d say it’s a work in progress.”
And, given that status as a work in progress, the upcoming tournament is an opportunity to see where the United States actually fit in the soccer hierarchy.
“We don’t really know our true weight class in the food chain of football where you know Argentina, England, France are at the top, and underneath you have Norway, Morocco, and the like, Netherlands. Where are we in that food chain? We’d like to believe that we’re up there, we’d like to believe we’re a big dog. But we may ultimately just be a small dog that thinks they’re a big dog,” Bennett said.
What Else to Watch at the World Cup
Even if there’s understandably a major focus on the co-host nations’ chances, there’s more to a World Cup than one country. That’s especially true for this edition of the tournament, which features an expanded 48-team field for the first time.
But, with more names than ever competing for your attention, where should you focus?
“Lionel Messi, who I think is at this point a household name in America, just brazenly wearing jorts in Miami consistently and transcendently. Winning the last World Cup will do that, for a human being.
“They have a good draw. Argentina. They’re playing Algeria, Austria, and Jordan, best Jordan since Michael,” Bennett said. “The storyline there, he’s in his sixth World Cup. He’s not 100 percent guaranteed he’s actually going to play. He’s 38 now. [But] he will play. And the pathway actually has Portugal and Argentina possibly colliding in the quarterfinals. Lionel Messi against Ronaldo, which is, I mean, I don’t like to be hyperbolic, but that’s epic Greek poetry being played out on a on a U.S. field, which would just be utterly ecstatic.”
But that potential clash of the titans isn’t all.
“In terms of other storylines, there is a group of death, Group I, in which France, who’ve reached the last two World Cup finals, they won in 2018—propelled by the delirious play of young national icon Kylian Mbappé—will face Senegal, the best African team, apart from Morocco, loaded with talented European-based talent, including a slew of Premier League warriors, and also Norway, who are returning to the World Cup for the first time since 1998,” Bennett continued.
“A squad so talented, so many massive names in the football world. But they are propelled by the goal scoring feats of Erling Haaland, who is like AI in cleats. He’s like Sampson from the Bible flung onto the football field. He’s really like Shaquille O’Neal, when he broke through with the Orlando Magic and just announced himself in the NBA by just smashing backboards. Erling Haaland, fastest ever to 100 Premier League goals. He just did that last weekend. And so to see Kylian Mbappé face Erling Haaland on the international stage for the first time in Boston will be utterly magnificent.”
But the World Cup isn’t just about stars. And, in Bennett’s mind, a key part of the tournament is the lesser-known nations getting their chance to shine.
“And one more that I’d throw out is it the World Cup, the joy of it, the big teams, yes. But also, the narratives of some of these smaller teams. You know, Cabo Verde, Curacao, for me, none more than Haiti. It’s just a magical narrative. Their first appearance since 1974.
“Most Haitians weren’t even alive during the last team’s appearance. And to watch this team amidst the humanitarian crisis, this soccer mad nation. I’ve been there a bunch. They live for football. They mostly cheer for Brazil, or Argentina, because their own team is never there. Their team is here, this World Cup. They will actually face Brazil…One win could change the narrative and the sense of self of the entire nation. And to me that is the true beauty of the World Cup.
