Where the USMNT stand as World Cup inches closer
Pro Soccer Wire’s Seth Vertelney breaks down the current state of the USMNT after a solid finish to an up and down 2025.
Sports Pulse
Some of the greatest at hitting homers, pinpointing a pigskin pass and thwacking a hockey puck will team up Friday, Dec. 5, to help select which men’s national soccer teams battle each other in the 2026 FIFA World Cup’s opening-group stage.
Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, former hockey titan Wayne Gretzky, and former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal are among those who will assist at the cup draw that sorts countries’ teams into four-nation groups, FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, said on its website.
At the cup, which starts June 11 and hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, each nation in a group plays the others in that group to decide which countries advance to the tournament’s next round. Eventually, that leads to quarterfinals and semifinals, then the cup comes down to two nations vying at the July 19 final at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium.
Former Giants quarterback Eli Manning will be the World Cup draw’s red-carpet host on Dec. 5, FIFA said.
Rio Ferdinand, a former captain of England’s national soccer team, will co-host the draw with Samantha Johnson.
Live television overage of the draw, at Washington, D.C.’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, is scheduled to start at 11:30 a.m. ET on FOX and streamed on Fubo. It’s the first time the draw will be broadcast live in the United States. The draw is scheduled to begin at noon ET.
The cup will be the first to expand to 48 competing nations from 32.
Friday’s draw will sort the 48 teams into the 12 groups that will start the cup.
The nations have already been placed into four pots, from which the draw will create the 12 groups. Because the U.S., as a host country, was placed in a pot that features many of the world’s highest-ranked teams, the Americans will avoid playing those teams in the opening group stage. That said, the U.S. team could still face challenging routes to advance from the group stage.
Brady is a seven-time NFL Super Bowl champion; O’Neal is a four-time NBA championship winner and Hall of Famer; Gretzky is an NHL Hall of Famer and four-time Stanley Cup champion; and Judge is a seven-time MLB All-Star. Manning is a two-time NFL Super Bowl champion.
Contributing: USA TODAY
