Caught Offside: Why the USMNT Won’t Win the World Cup (For Now)
Image courtesy of CBS Sports
By Griffin Cappiello
As the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaches, the hype around the US Men’s National Team (USMNT) seems to be growing. Will the “golden generation” make a competitive push in the tournament?
Unfortunately, there seems to be a number of issues outside of the control of the team that will hold the USMNT back in international competition for the foreseeable future.
First, and perhaps most noticeably, the United States lacks a soccer culture.
Sure, Americans like soccer. Millions of young athletes across the country play soccer growing up, and the sport is gaining popularity with Americans of all ages.
However, the money doesn’t lie.
Major League Soccer significantly trails other major American sports leagues in average player salaries. Additionally, the pay-to-play model used by youth soccer clubs in the US creates barriers for low and middle-income families.
Financially, it makes more sense for young athletes to be drawn toward sports like basketball and American football. The barriers to entry are much lower, and the potential upsides for making it to the highest level are significantly greater.
Several generations of young athletes choosing traditionally “American” sports over “foreign” soccer reinforces these stereotypes, resulting in an American sports culture that generally overlooks soccer.
Additionally, the US is geographically isolated from traditional world soccer powers.
As soccer journalist Simon Kruper and sports economist Stefan Szymanski point out in their bestseller Soccernomics, despite only containing around five percent of the world’s population, Western Europe dominates world soccer.
In the last five World Cups, eight different nations found themselves finishing in the top three. Of these eight countries, seven were European – Lionel Messi’s Argentina was the only exception.
It’s no surprise that the countries with the best soccer leagues field the best international teams. Kruper and Szymanski refer to the soccer hotbed of Western Europe as “the densest network on Earth,” referring to the geographic proximity of the nations in the region.
This proximity allows for the rapid exchange of tactics, players, and coaches between nations, leagues, and teams, which the authors compare to the exchange of scientific ideas within the same region throughout history.
They explain that modern Western Europeans see soccer as “a passing game played by athletes,” and the tactical styles of teams in the top five leagues reflect this vision. Players for clubs in these leagues, regardless of their country of origin, learn the same basic Western European soccer philosophy, strengthening the respective national teams in the region.
Other countries, even traditional powerhouses such as Brazil, are left out of this tactical exchange. In four of the last five World Cups, Brazil was eliminated by a European team in the quarterfinals. Their one semifinal appearance in the same span was their infamous 7-1 loss to Germany.
The United States suffers from this phenomenon to a greater extent, as the nation only borders two other countries, neither of which is a dominant world soccer power.
Like South American nations, the US’s only hope for success comes with sending players to develop in Europe with the hope that they can bring the fruits of European tactical systems back stateside for the national team.
Finally, and perhaps least obvious, the United States itself lacks a unified national cultural identity.
This may seem like an odd criticism, but national culture can often manifest itself in soccer playing style.
Brazilian jogo bonito, German gegenpressing, Dutch Total Football, and even the tactics of nations like Japan and countries in Latin America all reflect aspects of their respective cultures.
The United States, however, is a melting pot of culture, which results in the USMNT being a multicultural team with players from different international backgrounds, including players with heritage from countries ranging from Croatia to the Netherlands, and from England to Nigeria.
While the multicultural background of the USMNT is reflective of American society, it has its drawbacks on the soccer pitch – namely, a lack of tactical unity; there is no distinctly American style of playing soccer.
England also suffers from this problem but to a lesser extent. As the nation becomes more multicultural, the English national team no longer finds the same success they found historically.
There does seem to be hope, however, that multicultural teams can win on the world stage. France, winners of the 2018 World Cup and runners-up in 2022, had squads largely made up of immigrants and children of immigrants. This suggests that the USMNT’s strategy of recruiting dual nationals could lead to success in the future.
While these issues may not bode well for the future of the USMNT, current trends suggest that they may not be a problem for much longer. If these trends continue – if American appreciation for soccer increases, if more Americans abroad participate in the Western European soccer exchange, and if multiculturalism begins to dominate world soccer – the United States might win the World Cup within our lifetimes.
