The U.S. Men’s National Team’s all-time joint leading goal scorer, Clint Dempsey , who holds the benchmark along with Landon Donovan , has warned Mauricio Pochettino’s side of a potential “nightmare” scenario awaiting them at this summer’s FIFA World Cup.
Set to be hosted in the U.S. as well as in Mexico and Canada , the newly expanded 48-team, 104-game tournament will kick off in Mexico City on June 11 and come to a conclusion in New Jersey on July 19.
The USMNT enters the competition ranked 16th globally as per FIFA, down one spot in the most recent adjustment, swapping places with Javier Aguirre’s El Tri.
Mauricio Pochettino will be aiming to lead the USMNT to its first World Cup knockout round win since 2002 -Credit:Ryan Pierse/Getty Images
Set to start off the competition in Group D, the USMNT will go up against Paraguay on June 12 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, before traveling to Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington, to take on Australia six days later.
Their group stage will conclude on June 25 back at SoFi when they face Türkiye. The USMNT will make it through to the Round of 32 should they finish in the top two in their group, or as one of the eight highest performers in third place.
Looking ahead to the World Cup, Dempsey told CNN he believed that “A nightmare would be not getting out of the group.
“I don't see that happening. I don't see that happening at all, especially with eight of the third-place teams now getting out of the group.
“You only need to win one game, really, and have a good goal differential, so things start getting interesting in the Round of 16, and who's to say how far you can go and do something great?
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“So, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed for them, and they do have the ability to do something special. It's just they got to make it happen.
“They got to inspire this country, kind of like what you saw in the Winter Olympics, where the people really got behind our women and men's hockey teams. I think that's something that you could see happening with a strong run.”
Along with inspiring the nation and with it, the next generation of potential soccer stars, the USMNT’s primary goal will, of course, be to go as far as possible in the tournament.
The first major hurdle staring them down will be to win their first World Cup knockout round game since 2002, when Japan and South Korea co-hosted the competition. But as it turns out, it's not the 2002 USMNT Dempsey hopes today's team can imitate, but rather one of that year's hosts.
“I would like to see them do something special like South Korea did when they were the host country in 2002, where they were able to go to the semifinals,” he said. “If the U.S. can do something like that, man, I think that would be crazy scenes around every city. That would be a great thing to happen, but you would need all the stars to align, I think, for that situation.
