ATLANTA — With the World Cup just over two months away and two high-profile friendlies on the horizon, the U.S. men’s national team is feeling the pressure that comes with hosting the tournament. The Americans face No. 9 Belgium on Saturday and No. 5 Portugal on Tuesday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium — tough tests before the roster is finalized.
Players say they are trying to tune out distractions, logging off social media and locking into training, but they acknowledge the stakes. Midfielder Weston McKennie said hosting “on home soil… comes with its pressures.” Christian Pulisic, the team’s marquee player, admitted: “There’s pressure. I feel it. Yes, like, it’s there. But it’s nothing that I can’t handle. I’m going to attack it head on. We are as a team.”
Those matches were selected deliberately. Head coach Mauricio Pochettino said the federation scheduled top opponents “because we wanted to play against the good teams, teams that can show our reality.” Strong results against Belgium or Portugal would reinforce the belief that the U.S. can advance deep into the knockout rounds; Belgium could even be an early knockout-stage opponent at the World Cup.
Optimism has returned after a disappointing 2024. Since last September the U.S. has gone unbeaten against a string of World Cup-bound sides, beating Japan, Australia, Paraguay and Uruguay and drawing with Ecuador. That run has raised expectations, and these friendlies will be a sharper measure of whether that form holds up against elite European opposition.
The matches are also the final audition for players hoping to make Pochettino’s World Cup roster, due in late May. Pulisic and McKennie are essentially locks, but decisions over younger contributors — including Diego Luna, Gio Reyna and Sebastian Berhalter — remain unresolved. Pochettino acknowledged the difficulty of trimming the squad: “It’s going to be tough to pick the right players for the final roster. It is a big, big job. I am suffering two months in advance.”
Hosting World Cup games in the U.S. for the first time since 1994 adds a broader significance. The 1994 tournament helped accelerate soccer’s growth in America; a deep 2026 run could create similar, lasting momentum. The team’s best modern result came in 2002, when the U.S. reached the quarterfinals with upset wins over top teams. Reaching that stage again is a reasonable target; a semifinal would be transformative.
“These friendlies are not friendlies,” midfielder Cristian Roldan said, summing up the urgency. He added that hosting brings responsibility: with pressure comes a duty to show up and “create those long-lasting memories for the next generation.” The upcoming tests against Belgium and Portugal should clarify whether this U.S. squad is ready to meet those expectations.