It was the U.S. men’s national team’s worst performance in a competitive game since the infamous defeat to Trinidad and Tobago in 2017 that saw them miss the following year’s World Cup.
The performance in question? A 4-1 loss to Belgium in the Round of 16, one that came on home soil in primetime in front of a watching nation. The United States’ latest World Cup run ended in embarrassment, but the result itself is familiar. We know the story: the U.S. emerges from their World Cup group, progresses to the Round of 16, and gets dispatched. It happened in 2014 against Belgium. It happened in 2022 against the Netherlands. And it happened again on Monday.
The defeat did plenty to dishearten but it also made plain the USMNT’s reality. The U.S. hasn’t made big enough strides to truly climb the global men’s soccer ranks.
On Monday, a slew of the United States’ best players showed that they weren’t above having a bad day at a bad time, something that can rarely be said about the sport’s stars. Consistent execution is the sign of true greatness, and the U.S. doesn't have that. The bench options, for their part, proved insufficient to turn a game around.
Simply put, the player pool was tested yet again this summer and it was found lacking.
Joseph Lowery
Coming into the biggest World Cup ever, the USMNT ranked 17th among the 48 entrants at this summer's showdown in total Transfermarkt value. A crowd-sourced monetary value assigned to every player that can then be combined to form a team’s overall squad value, Transfermarkt’s figures are used by some data analysts as a proxy for player and team quality. Before the tournament began, the U.S. sat 17th in the FIFA rankings, too. They were far lower – 38th – in the global Elo ratings.
