When does the USA play in the World Cup? The USMNT gets that answer Wednesday, when it meets Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. The task is plain: end a 10-game losing streak against European opponents and keep moving in the knockout bracket.
Tim Ream and the Europe problem
Tim Ream was told last week that the U.S. had won just once in 18 tries against full-strength European teams. His answer was blunt: “It is what it is,” and “Not really anything we can control.”
The numbers explain why Wednesday carries more weight than a typical knockout match. Over the past decade, the U.S. has won just once in 18 tries against full-strength European teams, and the only win in that stretch came against Northern Ireland in 2021. That drought has run alongside a more basic problem: the U.S. has lost 10 straight games against European opponents.
Levi’s Stadium and the bracket
The U.S. has still found ways through teams from four continents, and it matched England at the last World Cup in a 0-0 draw. But the knockout path now sends it straight at Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the burden is familiar. The U.S. lost 3-1 to the Netherlands in the round of 16 at the 2022 World Cup.
If the U.S. wins Wednesday, it would beat a European team at a World Cup for the first time since 2002. It would also be only the second such win since 1950, and the first in a knockout match. That is the edge of this game: one result, and the U.S. clears a hurdle it has not cleared in more than two decades.
Sergiño Dest sets the standard
Sergiño Dest put the assignment in one sentence on Sunday: “If you want to win this World Cup, you gotta be able to beat everyone.” That is the test now, with Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. The U.S. has already beaten Japan in September, along with Paraguay, Australia, Senegal and Uruguay in matches described in the article, but Europe has been the wall it keeps hitting.
European nations have dominated men’s World Cup history, with 21 of the 30 finalists and 44 of the 60 semifinalists coming from Europe. The U.S. does not need a history lesson to know what Wednesday means. It needs one win to change the shape of its tournament, and one clean night to answer the record that has followed it into Santa Clara.
