Next Up for High-Flying USMNT: Confronting Its European Boogeyman

There is a dark, largely unspoken caveat underpinning any honest assessment of the United States men’s national team when it comes to the 2026 World Cup. No matter how well things have gone to this point — as the best and deepest USMNT roster in history, with the benefit of home-field advantage, it breezed through group play in unprecedented and occasionally overpowering fashion — it comes with one big ol’ “but”:

But can they beat a European team?

With the calendar turning to July, we are about to find out the answer. On Wednesday night in Santa Clara, California, the USMNT opens knockout play with a round of 32 matchup against Bosnia and Herzegovina. Should they survive, the Americans could meet Belgium in the round of 16; should they survive that, they more than likely would see pre-tournament favorite Spain in the quarterfinals.

To a large extent, the legacies of the current members of the USMNT rest on what happens Wednesday night.

“I always like to say it’s just another game of football,” U.S. veteran midfielder Gio Reyna told reporters this week. “But at the end of the day, I think everybody knows what this game [represents]. World Cups only come around every four years. Especially on home soil — this opportunity will never really come back. … I think everyone knows in the back of our minds what this could do for this country.”

Outside of the inspired performance in group play — where the USMNT scored the most goals (eight) in the program’s World Cup history, winning its group with a match to spare — there is nothing in the Americans’ recent history to suggest a deep July run against a potential gauntlet of European sides is possible.

In the past 36 years of World Cup play, the U.S. has faced a European team 21 times and won just once — in its tournament opener in 2002, when it stunned Portugal. That same summer, the Americans took down Mexico in the round of 16, marking the last and only knockout-stage win in program history. (The round of 32 is new to this year’s World Cup, as part of the tournament’s expansion to 48 teams.)

You might argue, with some validity, that such long-ago failures tell us nothing meaningful about this current iteration of the USMNT. But recent history is no more kind: Over the past four years, dating back to a 3-1 humbling at the hands of the Netherlands in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the Americans have lost 10 straight matches to European nations. Most recently, just a week ago in Inglewood, California, the U.S. — resting most of its starters after having already clinched first place in Group D — fell to Turkey on a late, stoppage-time goal.

After Wednesday’s meeting with Bosnia, Malik Tillman and the USMNT could potentially face Belgium and Spain if they make a deep run. Henry Rodenburg/Icon Sportswire/AP

Europe has long stood as the measuring stick for international soccer, producing 21 of the past 30 World Cup finalists and four of the past five champions. This summer, in what is widely viewed as a mark of progress for the USMNT, a record 13 of its players are employed in one of Europe’s five elite leagues. Meantime, coach Mauricio Pochettino is an Argentinian who made his biggest mark in the sport piloting Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea of the English Premier League and Paris Saint-Germain of France’s Ligue 1.

But even Pochettino, whose signing at a reported annual salary of $6 million was seen as a coup for the USMNT, has been unable to get the program over the European hump: The team is 0-6 against European teams under his leadership, having scored just six goals while conceding 18 in that stretch.

While Bosnia and Herzegovina, ranked 61st in the world by FIFA’s formula (compared with 15th for the USMNT), is not one of Europe’s elite sides, it did defeat four-time World Cup champion Italy in March during European qualifying. Nearly three weeks ago, in its World Cup opener, Bosnia went into another hostile atmosphere, facing Canada in red-blanketed Toronto, and led for the majority of the match before the Canadians scored a late equalizer.

On December 18, 2021, in a friendly match mostly forgotten to history, the USMNT scored in the 89th minute in Carson, California, to take down Bosnia, 1-0. Because the game fell outside FIFA’s international competition window, the Americans’ roster was made up exclusively of domestic players, and its goal-scorer, Cole Bassett, never played in another USMNT game before or since.

But that victory stands in USMNT history as its last of any kind against a European side. What has followed has been five years of failure, spanning the last two World Cups — and all sorts of international carnage in between.

If the Americans can’t break their European losing streak on Wednesday — on home soil, in peak form, at something close to full health, with the best roster they have ever amassed, against a Bosnian team that sits comfortably outside the continent’s elite ranks — it might be fair to ask: Will they ever beat a European team again?