How good is the USMNT really? Pochettino, Pulisic lead surging USA into World Cup's Round of 16

The USMNT has electrified the nation as they push through the 2026 FIFA World Cup, having impressed through the group stage of the tournament.

Golfers drive for show and putt for dough, and that's the case at the World Cup too where a strong groups stage performance is nice but legends are made in the knockouts where one slip can mean the sudden end of a team's tournament.

To that end, the U.S. continued its strong tournament with a Round of 32 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Americans found a way to advance with a 2-0 win that saw striker Folarin Balogun sent off after receiving a controversial straight red card.

Nevertheless, the USMNT marches on to a Round of 16 matchup with Belgium. So how good is the USMNT right now? The Sporting News breaks down what the team's World Cup results so far mean for the United States and discusses just how far it can go.

2026 WORLD CUP HQ: Latest World Cup news | Full World Cup schedule | Buy World Cup tickets

How good is the USMNT?

The United States men are in as good of form as they've ever been during a FIFA World Cup.

Records have fallen throughout this tournament. In the group stage, they won two World Cup games in a row for the first time since 1930, and they won their group for the first time ever.

Then, in beating Bosnia & Herzegovina, they won their first World Cup knockout game since the Round of 16 win over Mexico in 2002.

Still, there are weaknesses. The back line features 38-year-old Tim Ream, who has been clean so far in this tournament but has a propensity for errors over the past few years since moving back to MLS.  The midfield is exceedingly thin, a self-imposed weakness after Mauricio Pochettino elected to take an extra defender and leave Tanner Tessmann off the tournament roster.

But there are also strengths here that did not exist one or two years ago. First and foremost, after spending years searching for a competent striker, Folarin Balogun has answered all those questions, providing great hold-up play, world-class off-ball movement, and competent finishing. They have three useful full-backs in Antonee Robinson, Sergino Dest, and Alex Freeman who all bring different qualities to the table. The starting midfield trio in Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams, and Malik Tillman are all strong performers who are individually great and combine to become greater than the sum of their parts.

And of course, they are elevated significantly by the level of their best player Christian Pulisic, who is in the form of his life. Pulisic was arguably the best player in Serie A through the first half of the season, and while he struggled mightily for end product in the second half, his revival this summer with the national team makes it clear the issues ran much deeper than CP at AC Milan.

Finally, the USMNT has a head coach with more tactical knowledge and coaching ability than any previous manager in national team history. Pochettino's setup of a hybrid 4-2-3-1 has been a masterstroke in maximizing the talent pool, and his man management skills mean there has been team-wide buy-in from the entire squad.

Can the USMNT win the World Cup?

The short answer is yes, anything can theoretically happen. The longer, more reasonable answer is almost certainly not, unless they play out of their minds and literally everything falls into their lap. Getting by Belgium without striker Folarin Balogun, who will miss the match due to the red card he received against Bosnia and Herzegovina, will be a tall task on its own.

Winning the entire World Cup? Well, that still feels like a bit of a pipe dream.

The USMNT will almost surely not win the FIFA World Cup. They are not at that level yet, and they will very likely have to beat two, maybe three top-five teams in the FIFA rankings to get there.

The only realistic chance the USMNT has to win the 2026 World Cup is if multiple top teams are upset before reaching the stage where they would have to play Mauricio Pochettino's team. If the U.S. have to go through Spain, France, and Argentina to win the World Cup, it's not happening. 

While this team is capable of beating any given team on any given day if it minimizes its mistakes and gets a few bounces to go its way, generational upsets like that don't happen in bunches. Beating one of Spain, France, or Argentina is certainly possible on current form, but stacking upsets like that on top of one another isn't just unlikely, it's unprecedented.

The only real shot the U.S. has of winning the World Cup goes like this: it upsets Spain in the quarterfinals, plays Morocco in the semifinals after the Moroccans stun France, and then faces Colombia in the final after the Colombians upset Argentina. Even that pathway feels unlikely, but it's far more manageable than the alternative.

When you put it all together, the U.S. will not win the World Cup. It doesn't need to do that just yet to elevate the sport in this country.