2026 World Cup draw: Here's who the US will face in Group D

Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News on Dec 5, 2025

Published in Soccer

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The World Cup draw went the United States’ way.

The U.S. men’s national team will be joined in Group D by Paraguay, Australia and a yet-to-be-determined European team, FIFA revealed Friday during a star-studded ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

The final spot will go to the team that emerges from a playoff between Turkey, Romania, Slovakia and Kosovo in late March.

It’s a fortunate outcome for the U.S., which should be the favorite to win Group D, especially with all three matches set to take place on American soil.

“We need to respect all the opponents,” Mauricio Pochettino, head coach of the USMNT, said on the Fox broadcast after the draw was revealed. “All [are] going to be difficult. … Full respect, but yes, believing we can go through. But we need to perform.”

Next year’s World Cup, which the U.S. is co-hosting with Mexico and Canada, will be the first to feature 48 teams. The expansion from 32 has somewhat diluted the group stages, thus preventing a true “group of death,” but Friday’s result remained favorable for the U.S. even when factoring the new set of circumstances.

The United States, the world’s 14th-ranked team, is set to begin its World Cup run against 39th-ranked Paraguay on June 12 at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium.

The U.S. defeated Australia, 2-1, in an October friendly in Colorado, then beat Paraguay, 2-1, in Pennsylvania a month later.

And while the USMNT lost to Turkey, 2-1, in East Hartford in June, it kicked off its ongoing hot streak later that month.

“Teams turn up at the World Cup, often buoyed by a bunch of energy and goodwill and optimism, so you never know entirely who is gonna catch lightning in a bottle,” Leander Schaerlaeckens, author of “The Long Game,” an upcoming book about the history of the USMNT, told the New York Daily News.

“It’s really hard to say just from a draw how a World Cup’s gonna turn out. Big teams crash and burn. Little teams punch above their weight. But you have to feel pretty good about the way that this turned out.”

The draw portion of the bloated two-hour ceremony began when President Trump, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney pulled the names of their respective countries.

The Yankees’ Aaron Judge was among the big-name sports stars on stage who drew team names Friday, as were Tom Brady, Shaquille O’Neal and Wayne Gretzky. Former Giants quarterback Eli Manning hosted a red carpet show.

Mexico is joined in Group A by South Korea, South Africa and the winner of a playoff between Denmark, Czechia, Republic of Ireland and North Macedonia.

Canada is joined in Group B by Qatar, Switzerland and the winner of a playoff between Italy, Wales, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Northern Ireland.

Many consider Group I — which consists of France, Senegal, Norway and the winner of a playoff between Iraq, Bolivia and Suriname — to be the most difficult.

Group H, meanwhile, is the only one with two former champions in Spain, which is the world’s top-ranked team, and Uruguay.

Argentina, which won the 2022 World Cup, headlines Group J, which also features Algeria, Austria and Jordan.

Another ceremony Saturday is set to further unveil the locations and kickoff times for every team.

This is the second time the U.S. has hosted a World Cup. It also did so in 1994 and surprisingly advanced to the Round of 16 before being ousted by eventual champion Brazil.

The USMNT will look to advance further than its Round of 16 exit at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Christian Pulisic, New York’s Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie are among the key players returning from the 2022 team.

The 2026 World Cup final is scheduled for July 19 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

“A lot of things have to break right, but if [the U.S. can] catch the momentum as they’ve obviously been planning and training to for the last few years, I think quarterfinals is probably feasible. And from there, it’s really a coin toss,” Schaerlaeckens said.

“This U.S. team, in the last six months, has rediscovered the feistiness that always made the U.S. competitive, before they really had the talent to compete at this level. But now, they don’t just have that grit. They also have a lot of talent.”