{"id":332579,"date":"2025-12-05T19:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/332579\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T19:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T19:31:07","slug":"2026-world-cup-draw-usmnt-to-face-paraguay-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/332579\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 World Cup draw: USMNT to face Paraguay, Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States<\/a> will face Paraguay<\/a>, Australia<\/a> and the winner of a UEFA playoff featuring T\u00fcrkiye<\/a>, Romania<\/a>, Slovakia<\/a> and Kosovo after a relatively favorable group-stage draw for the co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n

That was the result Friday after soccer’ biggest competition took a major step closer to reality with a star-studded draw at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

The USMNT’s opening game of Group D will be against Paraguay on June 12 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Mexico<\/a> will kick off the tournament a day earlier in Mexico City against South Africa<\/a> — a repeat of the opening game when South Africa hosted the World Cup in 2010.<\/p>\n

The other co-host Canada<\/a> will begin in Toronto on June 12, with a potential blockbuster clash against Italy<\/a>, if the Italians make it through a UEFA playoff route that also features Northern Ireland, Wales<\/a> and Bosnia-Herzegovina.<\/p>\n

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The United States’ other group games will take place in Seattle against Australia on June 19 and against the UEFA playoff winner back at Sofi Stadium on June 25. The U.S. has positive recent experience against Paraguay and Australia, having beaten both by the same 2-1 scoreline in recent friendlies.<\/p>\n

“The reaction is the expectation, already we know we played recently against Paraguay and Australia so what we know is very fresh and the fourth it will be against a very good team in Europe,” USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino told Fox.<\/p>\n

“I Think we need to be optimistic but as we know the teams, we will see what is going on in few months. All is going to be difficult. But I think, full respect, we need to perform and be better every time that we will be together. “<\/p>\n

The U.S. reached the semifinals at the inaugural World Cup in 1930 and has gotten as far as the quarterfinals only one other time, in 2002.<\/p>\n

As co-hosts, the U.S. was seeded in Pot 1 and avoided other top seeds Spain<\/a>, Argentina<\/a>, France<\/a>, England<\/a>, Brazil<\/a>, Portugal<\/a>, Netherlands<\/a>, Belgium<\/a>, Germany<\/a>, as well as fellow host nations Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n

A record 64 nations participated in the draw to determine which 48 teams will take the tournament field this summer. Italy is among 22 nations competing in playoffs for the final six berths to be decided March 31.<\/p>\n

With 48 teams in the tournament, the top two in each group — plus eight of the 12 third-place finishers — will advance to the 32-team, single-elimination knockout round.<\/p>\n

The FIFA World Cup Trophy is displayed prior to the draw for the 2026 tournament at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.\u00a0Hector Vivas – FIFA\/FIFA via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The top four teams in the FIFA ranking — Spain, Argentina, France and England — were drawn in such a way that, should they win their groups, they would not face each other before the semifinals.<\/p>\n

Defending champion Argentina, likely led by Lionel Messi<\/a> in a sixth World Cup appearance, were handed a kind draw — opening against Algeria<\/a>, before facing off with Austria<\/a> and Jordan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

England was handed the toughest opening assignment of the top seeds, with a rematch of the 2018 semifinal against Croatia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

France will open its World Cup against Senegal<\/a> — just as it did as defending champion in 2002 when the African team pulled off a stunning 1-0 win against the defending champions.<\/p>\n

The French and longtime rivals Germany — who played a famous semifinal in 1982 — could meet as early as the round of 16 this time, should each win its group.<\/p>\n

France<\/a> was drawn into Group I and will also face Norway, meaning a potential showdown between two of the world’s great strikers — Kylian Mbapp\u00e9<\/a> and Erling Haaland<\/a>. Germany was placed in Group E with Cura\u00e7ao, Ivory Coast<\/a> and Ecuador<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brazil, Morocco<\/a> and Scotland<\/a> will be in a group together — just as they were in 1998. That was the last time Scotland qualified for a World Cup. The Tartan Army finished last in the group that time. Haiti<\/a> completes the group this time around.<\/p>\n

Retired stars Tom Brady of the NFL, Shaquille O’Neal of the NBA and Wayne Gretzky of the NHL along with three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge assisted in a draw run by former England captain Rio Ferdinand and broadcaster Samantha Johnson.<\/p>\n

For the first time, the match schedule is not being released on the same day as the draw. Instead FIFA will announce the full schedule at another live event on Saturday in order to take into account both the differing weather conditions and time zones for all teams and fans.<\/p>\n

All games from the quarterfinals on will be in the U.S., which is using 11 NFL stadiums.<\/p>\n

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States will face Paraguay, Australia and the winner of a UEFA playoff featuring T\u00fcrkiye, Romania, Slovakia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-332579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}