{"id":51955,"date":"2026-07-12T15:42:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T15:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/51955\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T15:42:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T15:42:18","slug":"seven-reasons-why-u-s-soccer-keeps-crashing-out-of-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/51955\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven reasons why U.S. soccer keeps crashing out of World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text”> \"U.S. <\/p>\n

U.S. forward Christian Pulisic heads to the locker room at halftime during the loss to Belgium.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

More Americans are playing for bigger clubs and having more success in Europe than ever before, but that pipeline has yet to produce a true superstar. Many of the teams that have had success in this tournament have at least one player \u2014 Mbapp\u00e9, Haaland, Lionel Messi, Harry Kane \u2014 who can change the game on their own.<\/p>\n

The U.S. doesn\u2019t have anyone who would be sure to start on any of the World Cup semifinalists and until it does, closing the gap will be difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are USA and [we\u2019re] competing against Belgium, Portugal,\u201d Pochettino said last March. \u201cI think for sure Belgium and Portugal have [players] in the top 100. We don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

He is right. When the Guardian published its annual list of the world\u2019s top players last winter, Christian Pulisic<\/a>, the top American, didn\u2019t make the top 100. And he didn\u2019t play a full game in this tournament, missing one to injury, leaving three early and entering another as a late second-half substitute. He played just 223 minutes \u2014 19 more than Ricardo Pepi \u2014 and finished with one assist.<\/p>\n

Landon Donovan was arguably the closest thing to a game-changing player the U.S. had, so it\u2019s no surprise he scored key goals in the team\u2019s most important World Cup games in the last 32 years: one against Algeria in stoppage time in 2010 that allowed the Americans to finish atop their group for the first time since 1930, and another against Mexico in the round of 16 in 2002, sending the team to the quarterfinals for the only time.<\/p>\n

If those are structural things that have long held U.S. Soccer back, there also were issues specific to this team, a supposed Golden Generation whose core was formed in the wake of the failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.<\/p>\n

The talent was undeniable, which led to great expectations. But what has this generation accomplished? Two round-of-16 exits in the World Cup, one Gold Cup title in the last four tournaments \u2014 the team\u2019s worst stretch this century \u2014 a fourth-place finish in the last Nations League and a group-stage departure in the last Copa Am\u00e9rica.<\/p>\n

Impressive wins over Paraguay and Australia to start the World Cup gave the Golden Generation a bit of a shine and suggested progress. But when the Americans met a top-10 team in Belgium, the matchup proved a mismatch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to have higher hopes,\u201d Pulisic said. \u201cWe want to be able to go and compete with some of the best in the world. We just still have that next step to climb.\u201d<\/p>\n

Against Belgium, that step looked as steep as Mt. Everest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text”> U.S. forward Christian Pulisic heads to the locker room at halftime during the loss to Belgium. (Allen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[11950,8318,28383,533,8,18611,27398,9,21623,28384,7003,7,5750,1186,26651,1913,28382,1349],"class_list":["post-51955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-americans","tag-coaching","tag-country-roads","tag-france","tag-headlines","tag-high-school","tag-mauricio-pochettino","tag-news","tag-player","tag-quality","tag-team","tag-top-stories","tag-tournament","tag-u-s","tag-u-s-soccer","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cups","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116907772683332292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}