As the World Cup inches closer by the week, the time will soon come when the United States men’s national team will know who will accompany them in Group D. On Friday, Dec. 5, the World Cup Draw will take place at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., revealing the path for the USMNT. They’ve done their part to close out 2025 on a high note as they’ve been unbeaten in their last five games of the year under Mauricio Pochettino, despite spending a large portion of matches without regular members of the side being available.
Draw restrictions
No group will have more than one team from the same federation in it, except UEFA, which is required to have two groups of two UEFA teams in it, due to the fact that 16 teams will be participating in the tournament. Then there’s the challenge of the intercontinental playoffs, which will not be held until after the draw. For the playoff tournament teams, the confederation restrictions will be applied to all teams involved in the playoff, which would keep the host nations from drawing a team involved in the FIFA playoff tournament due to Jamaica and Suriname being involved as Concacaf teams.
USMNT worst case draw
The way the draw works is that the teams are divided into pots. You can check out the full pot by pot breakdown here. When looking at draws, most roads lead to a reunion between the USMNT and Ghana at the World Cup, but it’s the increase of UEFA teams that can turn the draw upside down. If the USMNT are to get a team like Morocco or Japan in pot 2, it almost locks them into getting a UEFA side in pot three, as well as one of the UEFA playoff path winners (in yet another undecided part of the draw the final European teams will be decided in a playoff that ALSO has yet to be played).
Scenario A:
- USMNT
- Morocco (CAF)
- Norway (UEFA)
- Italy (UEFA playoff winner)
Scenario B:
- USMNT
- Croatia (UEFA)
- Egypt (CAF)
- Denmark (UEFA playoff winner)
Erling Haaland bearing down on the USMNT defense feels like the stuff of nightmares. While you can’t bet on Italy to actually make it through the playoff unscathed, that’s a team that no one will want in their groups. There’s a similar issue with Denmark as their balanced midfield can give teams trouble. Croatia and Egypt are aging sides, but they’re also organized, while Morocco and Norway are sides on the rise. When it comes to Morocco, they’ve enjoyed knocking the United States youth teams out of FIFA competitions, so why not extend things to the senior side too.
USMNT best case draw
The World Cup is about facing the best talent in the world to prove yourself as a nation. But what if we saved that for the knockout stages, especially since the USMNT would now go to a newly minted round of 32 before even getting to the proper round of 16 with the tournament expanding to 48 teams.
- USMNT
- Austria (UEFA)
- South Africa (CAF)
- Jordan (AFC)
Going by rankings, this is close to the weakest group that the USMNT could end up in. Drawing a team like Australia could lock them into a stronger pot 4 team and Ghana also makes pot 3 tough. This is when you see how few draws there are for a team like the USMNT, but avoid those sides and you get a group that looks like this. Not winning a group of this caliber would be a massive disappointment.
