What Will It Take For USA To Win 2026 World Cup? 'High Capability Of Suffering'

"Why not us?"

That's the mantra that United States men's national team coach Mauricio Pocchetino has used to motivate his team ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be co-hosted on home soil (along with Canada and Mexico) this summer. 

But how realistic is that objective for the U.S. with less than two months before the World Cup starts? It's a question put forth to three former USA coaches in the first of FOX Sports' special roundtable series previewing the tournament’s highly anticipated return to North America this summer.

"Obviously, if you set out the highest bar, there’s nothing wrong with this," former United States men's national team coach Jürgen Klinsmann said. "But in order to win a World Cup, it takes such a high capability of suffering and going through difficult times in specific moments, to play every three or four days once you get into the knockout phase."

Klinsmann's U.S. side was knocked out in the Round of 16 at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil after finishing as the runner-up in the "Group of Death" with Germany, Ghana and Portugal. He previously led Germany to a third-place finish as its coach in 2006 and was named German Football Manager of the Year for his efforts with the national team. He also won a World Cup title as a Germany player in 1990.

"When you think you go through the Round of 16 or the quarterfinals, you think, ‘Oh, now we’re really there,'" Klinsmann said. "Then comes an even more difficult game with extra time and maybe a penalty shootout. The thing is: Is our team ready to really, extremely suffer? Are we ready to go through the extreme of going one game at a time?

"You see a lot of top soccer nations in the world are just not capable [of going] past the fifth game, like Mexico and ‘quinto partido.’ They don’t have the belief to go past the fifth game or go into the fifth game — and now you have one more game because of this tournament."

The United States men's national team hasn't won a knockout stage match at the World Cup since 2002, and it has only advanced to the semifinals once, at the inaugural FIFA World Cup in 1930. At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the USA lost, 3-1, to Netherlands in the Round of 16, with a roster that had the second-lowest average age (25.2) at the tournament.

While USA's roster is expected to feature many of the same key players this summer, the expectations will be much higher.

"After Qatar, we liked that team," said Bob Bradley, who coached the U.S. at the 2010 World Cup. "Those guys were really likable. Now, in this next period, we’re expecting more, and there’s been some ups and downs. Of course, Mauricio comes in without a full cycle, they don’t get as many opportunities to play against big teams, but I still think we believe in this group. The optimism that they can come together at the right time and do something that is special — I think we all believe in that."

Some of that optimism stems from the number of Americans playing club soccer in Europe's top-flight leagues and competing in the UEFA Champions League. When Bradley coached the United States at the 2010 World Cup, there were only three Americans playing in the Champions League; this year there were eight, with one — Atlético Madrid midfielder Johnny Cardoso — still competing in the semifinals.

"We look around now, and we see that Christian [Pulisic] is doing so well in Europe [at AC Milan]; Weston [McKennie] is having an incredible year [at Juventus]; we see guys like Johnny Cardoso and what he does at Atlético; that’s a reason that people get excited," Bradley said. "The more guys you have playing in the Champions League, the better."

Playing in the Champions League also gives the stars of the U.S. men's national team a valuable perspective that they wouldn't have otherwise.

"I think the players know now more than ever before what it will take to go all the way until the end; to book your hotel, as we Germans do, all the way to the final, and if you have to cancel the hotels or the flights, we cancel them because we’re flying home after the quarterfinal," Klinsmann said. "It’s a cultural element that I see the U.S. growing into more and more and more.

"Twenty or 30 years ago, [American players] were also in Europe. … But now they’re in the Champions League and the Champions League is different. Now, we have five to seven players there, and that gives me the feeling that, if they really build exceptional chemistry, if they get along, if they help each other when things get nasty and dirty — and it will get nasty and dirty — then maybe they can really surprise one game at a time."

The United States will have two warm-up matches against Senegal and Germany, two teams that are higher in the FIFA world rankings, ahead of its World Cup opener against Paraguay on June 12 at Los Angeles Stadium.

Pochettino's side will be hoping to use those matches as an opportunity to snap their three-match losing streak and build some positive momentum going into the tournament, but form is fallacy at the World Cup, according to former USA coach Steve Sampson.

"I truly believe that when the moment comes that they’re playing against Paraguay, that’s when it all has to come together," said Sampson, who coached the U.S. at the 1998 World Cup and was an assistant for the 1994 tournament in the U.S. "The leadership of this team has to pull the team together and say, ‘Look, forget about what’s happened before.'"

For Klinsmann, that short-term memory is "the art" behind success at the World Cup: "You have to forget about what you just did right away."

And if they do that?

"I don’t think there’s an easy path, but as long as they get some momentum in those first games, I think they can do something special," Sampson said.

The World Cup will run from June 11–July 19, 2026. Spread across three countries, the tournament will culminate with the final on July 19 at New York New Jersey Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. All 104 tournament matches will air live across FOX (70) and FS1 (34) with every match streaming live and on-demand within both the FOX One and the FOX Sports apps. A record 40 matches, more than one-third of the tournament, will air in prime time across FOX (21) and FS1 (19).