АНУ-ын шигшээ багийн ДАШТ-ий дараах ирээдүй ба сорилтууд

There are a couple of stark realizations that hit, both for participating personnel and fans, when the final whistle blows on a team’s World Cup campaign.

First, for all but one competing country, there’s the sheer and utter disappointment that the dream has ended. No matter how realistic a deep and sustained run may have been, and regardless of how spirited the time in the tournament was, it’s over. Immediate closure.

Then, there’s the harsh reality that not only is this World Cup done, but it’s going to be four years until the next one, if you’re lucky. It’s hard to take solace in any positives there may have been when the only opportunity to seize those feelings again won’t present itself for a while. Its quadrennial cycle is what makes the World Cups so special, and it’s what makes these endings so tough to take. For anyone who went to sleepaway camp as a child, it’s that eerie and abrupt feeling of going home and sitting in the quiet, knowing that the energy you were just surrounded by for the previous weeks or months won’t be obtainable again for a painfully long time.

To that end, there’s only one choice right now for the U.S. men’s national team, and it’s to look forward.

Some players, in their Instagram recollections of the 2026 tournament, referred to this as just the beginning for this group, but that’s a bit off the mark.

The beginning for this particular iteration of the national team came in the aftermath of failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. It was the next World Cup, Qatar 2022, that represented the foundation, and while this one ended at the same last-16 stage as that one did (and with an objectively worse result in that match), there was progress. No U.S. men’s team had ever won three games in a single World Cup before, and no U.S. men’s team had clinched top of the group after just two matches. And while it’s harder to measure and quantify, there’s no denying the connection that was restored between players and fans.

So, no, this wasn’t a beginning.

In some ways, it was a moderate step forward. In other, more black-and-white, terms, it represented lateral movement. That leaves plenty to strive for in 2030, when the World Cup shifts to Spain, Portugal and Morocco (after a scattering of initial group games in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay to commemorate the centennial of the first World Cup, which was hosted by Uruguay). And while the United States simply getting there is not a given, the road is already paved.

Here’s a logistical look at what awaits the U.S. men — and how, if you fell hard for this team over the last month, you can maintain your fandom and follow throughout the 2030 World Cup cycle.

The first post-World Cup matches

Details are light regarding the opponents in the USMNT’s first set of post-World Cup games and the exact dates and locations of said friendlies, but as long as they’re somewhere on U.S. soil, they should serve as a setting for fans to dole out their final thank-yous for the summer while also turning the page.

The biggest question is less about which players will be involved and more about who will be coaching the team. Mauricio Pochettino is now out of contract, and while U.S. Soccer put out a statement after elimination saying that the two parties would continue conversations about how they’d like to proceed, there ought to be a resolution by then.

The first FIFA window after this World Cup is a combined September-October edition (Sept. 21-Oct. 6), which would provide any new head coach a golden opportunity to set the foundation for the entire cycle. If Pochettino returns, it would give him a nice, long time with the squad to re-establish the standards he has set while getting a more holistic look at the player pool. There’s a maximum of four matches that can be played in those three fall weeks — ample sample size for a review of players new and old.

Conversely, if an interim coach is at the helm because the federation and Pochettino can’t get things sorted, it’ll go down as a wholly wasted window.

U.S. Soccer has done the interim thing after dragging its feet on significant sporting hires and been crushed for it before. History should not repeat itself if the federation would like to capitalize on this summer’s forward momentum.

So when are the next competitive matches?

Say what you want about the Concacaf Nations League — and how the U.S. may be better off playing friendlies against top opposition rather than the umpteenth competitive matches with the likes of Jamaica, El Salvador, Guatemala, etc. — but they’re games with stakes attached, and also official fixtures that can cap-tie dual-nationals. The competition also serves as qualification for the 2027 Gold Cup, the region’s actual biennial championship, though Concacaf hasn’t yet revealed the criteria to determine next summer’s tournament field.

As one of the four highest-ranked teams in the region, the U.S. bypasses the Sept.-Oct. group phase and has a place set in the quarterfinals, a home-and-away series slated for the Nov. 9-17 FIFA window. Victory there would secure a place in the semifinals at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles next March.

The same cadence will repeat in the fall of 2028 and spring of 2029, though the location for that final four hasn’t been set.

What about a January camp?

Earlier this year, U.S. Soccer passed on the annual winter exercise that almost exclusively benefits home-based players and takes place outside of the FIFA international calendar. It’s due to return, albeit brought forward into December, according to The Athletic’s reporting last year.

Concacaf’s 2030 World Cup qualifying details

For the first time since the U.S. punched its ticket to Qatar 2022, World Cup qualifying will be required.

Concacaf’s new format and increased allotment of teams due to FIFA’s World Cup expansion mean that the qualification process will be a bit more diluted than American fans have seen in the past.

As was expected (and, in some corners, feared) after the tweak to the World Cup, the U.S. and Mexico will almost certainly not be playing qualifiers against one another home and away due to the nature of the seeding and distribution of teams. That robs fans of two of the best and biggest scenes this region can feature every cycle, while also simplifying each nation’s route to the big dance.

For Concacaf overall, 2030 World Cup qualifying will begin in September 2027, but the USMNT’s participation won’t start until the latter half of that window. There, it’ll be one of 24 teams split into six groups of four. The top two in each group after a home-and-away, six-match round robin that concludes in March 2028 will advance to the final round.

Presuming there’s no U.S. debacle, the Americans will be part of that 12-team rodeo, which will begin in June 2028 but then not resume until the September-October 2029 window — a massive 15-month lag time between the first two matches and the remaining four. If those two initial games don’t go well for any competing nation, that’s when a mid-cycle coaching change would be most likely to happen. Like the prior round, it’ll be split into groups of four, though this time the top two finishers in each one qualify directly for the World Cup.

The top two third-place finishers will have a lifeline — they’ll play each other in a home-and-away series in November 2029, with the winner advancing to FIFA’s interconfederation playoff round, which would figure to be held in March 2030, as the 2026 World Cup’s was this year. Concacaf will have six World Cup finals teams guaranteed at the next tournament, with the potential for a seventh (presuming FIFA doesn’t expand the field yet again after going from 32 to 48 for this one).

Stripping away the convoluted machinations and simplifying it all down: if all goes smoothly, U.S. qualification for 2030 will be secured sometime in the fall of 2029.

How does the Gold Cup factor in?

In the summers of 2027 and 2029, there will be Concacaf Gold Cup tournaments, though details are lacking. There’s no host or qualification criteria yet, though in 2024 Saudi Arabia was invited as a guest nation for the 2025 and 2027 editions (the U.S. played them in the group stage last year). A small June friendly window precedes each Gold Cup, just like it did last year, when the U.S. faced Turkey and Switzerland at home before embarking on the tournament.

What about Copa América?

The biggest unknown is what happens two years from now, in between those Gold Cup summers. There is no clarity yet about any aspect of Copa América, the South American regional championship, that has been hosted in the U.S. twice recently, in 2016 and 2024, with the USMNT competing as guests on both occasions. The Athletic reported last December that Concacaf and CONMEBOL, the South American confederation, are in talks about a potential U.S. return. If that happens, then the USMNT would be back in the field.

It’s the best prep the U.S. can have to face the level of competition that it yearns to beat on the biggest stages. The summer of 2028 won’t be barren if a Copa América invitation does not materialize — the U.S. is guaranteed a place at the 12-team soccer tournament at the Los Angeles-based Olympics (stadiums nationwide will be used), but that’s an under-23s event save for the three over-age players permitted per side and is not on the FIFA calendar, meaning clubs are not compelled to release players for it.

A select few friendlies

It’s staggering to consider, but the United States’ men have not played a match outside the Concacaf nations since losing to the Netherlands in the 2022 World Cup’s round of 16 in Qatar.

It makes sense when you actually think about it: the next World Cup was going to be on home soil, so aside from lightening the travel on Europe-based players, what reasoning, in terms of prep, would there have been to seek out friendlies abroad? Beyond that, top teams overseas were all tied up with their various qualifying and Nations League windows, so the pool of potential home-run bookings was quite shallow.

Now, for those limited friendly windows this time around, it feels like it’s time to hit the road, even if it costs U.S. Soccer some matchday revenue.

The 2030 World Cup will not be staged amid the hospitable confines of West Coast NFL stadiums. “Country Roads” may stick as a postgame tradition, but four years from now it’ll be for a smaller traveling contingent rather than over 60,000 partisan supporters. In order to gain the road-game nous required to beat top teams abroad, you have to… actually beat top teams abroad.

It’s complicated, though. Between all the various Concacaf commitments, the only real chance the U.S. has to seek out those kinds of opponents anytime soon would be in the four-match September-October 2028 window — and the desired European targets will all likely be tied up with their UEFA Nations League tournament then.

Much like the four-game pre-World Cup gauntlet the U.S. set up against Belgium, Portugal, Senegal and Germany this March and June, the March and June 2030 windows leading into the finals will be the likeliest time frame to play the world’s top teams away from home. Though it’s possible it will either have already failed to qualify by then or have an interconfederation playoff to deal with.

Regardless, it’s going to take some hardening outside of Concacaf to ensure the USMNT’s 2030 cycle doesn’t end the same way the 2026 one just did.