The U.S. men’s national team’s opening match at the 2026 FIFA World Cup will come against one of their opponents from last fall’s preparation schedule; Paraguay.
Mauricio Pochettino’s men played out a 2-1 home victory over Paraguay at Subaru Park last November, a match which saw goals scored by Gio Reyna and Folarin Balogun. The match also concluded with a fracas near the USMNT sidelines that Alex Freeman, Tim Ream, Gustavo Gomez, Sebastian Berhalter and others were involved in.
Although Friday’s showdown from Los Angeles is expected to be a bit more clean, the USMNT know that they cannot get baited in by their South American opponents.
“The Paraguay game was a little bit extra,” Ream told reporters on Monday. “It had a feel that the game meant something more and now you look at it and it was a perfect test for us in that moment.”
“Being smart with not taking it overboard and not feeding into what they do,” USMNT midfielder Cristian Roldan said Tuesday to reporters. “[It’s] really important for us to be able to manage the game.”
Dutch referee Danny Makkelie has been tasked with being in the center circle for Friday’s Group D opener. Makkelie has only refereed one USMNT match in his lengthy history on the job, a 2-1 U.S. victory over Germany back in 2015.
While many of the USMNT players don’t have a history with Makkelie and his style of refereeing, it won’t stop their quest in not falling for Paraguay’s tactics both during and after the whistle. Roldan hinted that the USMNT will need to manage the game differently this time around, using examples from November’s showdown as learning lessons.
“I think that’s one thing that we can get better at for sure,” Roldan said. “I think being a little bit more savvy, being too honest at times is probably too much of a fault for us.
“We need to be a little bit savvier in the way we manage games, the way we take fouls, stay on the ground a little longer,” he added. “I think these are things that we can learn from different nations, but Paraguay does a really good job of that.”
It will mark the second-ever World Cup meeting between the USMNT and Paraguay and the 10th overall in all competitions.