Concacaf Gold Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\nFreese’s strong form over the past year may have earned him the starting job in between the posts.<\/p>\n
This will be Freese’s first World Cup appearance.<\/p>\n
\n World Cup schedule<\/p>\n
The United States\u00a0are in Group D alongside Paraguay, Australia and T\u00fcrkiye.<\/p>\n
June 12:\u00a0USA vs. Paraguay, 9 pm ET | Los Angeles, California
\nJune 19:\u00a0USA vs. Australia, 3 pm ET | Seattle, Washington
\nJune 25:\u00a0USA vs. T\u00fcrkiye, 10 pm ET | Los Angeles, California<\/p>\n
The 2026 World Cup, which runs from June 11 to July 19, has expanded from the usual 32 nations to 48 total.<\/p>\n
The top two teams advance from each group, and the top eight third-place finishers also make the knockout phase (Round of 32).<\/p>\n
\n World Cup history<\/p>\n
This will be the United States’ 12th World Cup appearance and second time hosting the tournament (1994).<\/p>\n
The program’s best-ever finish came in the inaugural 1930 edition (third place), though their best result of the modern era was a quarterfinal finish in 2002.<\/p>\n
\n How USA qualified<\/p>\n
As co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup, alongside Canada and Mexico, the US automatically qualified for the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MLS background Originally a Philadelphia Union homegrown, Freese backed up three-time MLS Goalkeeper of the Year Andre Blake…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[33304,9,24,14242,55,54,56,96292,12687,901,14771],"class_list":["post-246551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-matt-freese","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-football-club","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-player-profiles","tag-sendtonews","tag-united-states","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}