Alex Morgan won two World Cup titles in her legendary U.S. women’s national team (USWNT) career, so she knows a winner when she sees one.
Americans should take heed of Morgan’s expectations for the U.S. men’s national team at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, beginning this week across Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
“I think that making it to the Round of 16 is probably kind of the threshold for this team,” Morgan, who retired in 2024, said on “SportsCenter” on Tuesday. “If we make it there, and we advance, that’s a huge success. If we make it there and we don’t [advance], I wouldn’t say that it’s a failure by any means.”
Morgan continued:
“But I think that that’s kind of like the threshold where, like, OK, we’re in the U.S. They have that momentum that they should feel — the excitement and that 12th man energy — so now it’s kind of leaning into that.
And also, using the previous World Cups from those 13 players to be like, ‘OK, we’ve been here; we’ve done this before. Now, how can we continue to take this team even further?'”
Morgan was referencing the overlap of 13 players — half of the roster — who were on the USMNT team that reached the Round of 16 before losing to the Netherlands at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Among them is star attacker Christian Pulisic, who spoke with Newsweek last week and defined what a successful World Cup run looks like in his mind, as excerpted below.
“To be honest, I just want to be able to look back on it whenever it’s done and have zero regrets and feel like we gave everything as a team. I don’t think it’s necessary to pick how far we have to go for it to be a success or not. I think there’s so many other metrics that we can judge it by. Of course, we want to win the World Cup. You’re never gonna be excited anytime you go out. For us, I just think it’s looking back with no regrets and feeling like we left everything out there. If we do that, I feel like we can look back and at least be proud.”
The United States has not advanced beyond the Round of 16 since reaching the quarterfinal and losing to Germany in 2002, the USMNT’s second-best World Cup finish behind a semifinal appearance in 1930 (via ESPN).
The USMNT will open 2026 World Cup play against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, at 9 p.m. ET on Friday night. See the full schedule here.
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