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There is a particular kind of pre-tournament limbo that every major football competition produces — that strange fortnight when the fixtures are set, the squads are named, and yet the whole thing still feels faintly theoretical. The 2026 World Cup, which technically began its organisational life on 13 June 2018 when Fifa delegates voted in a conference hall in Moscow, is apparently still stuck in that limbo. At least, that is the impression coming out of the United States, the co-host nation whose opener against Paraguay is now just days away.
The Guardian reports that in New York — host city for the final, no less — the tournament has yet to feel fully real, for fans and, remarkably, even for some players. That is a curious state of affairs for a country that has spent the better part of eight years being told this is its moment to fall properly in love with football. Whether the sport obliges is one of the more genuinely interesting subplots of the summer.
For a fuller picture of what the tournament structure looks like and how to follow every match, our World Cup 2026 guide covers the essentials.
Why Does the US Still Feel Detached From Its Own World Cup?
The sheer scale of the host nation is part of the problem
The United States is not a small country that can be consumed by a single tournament atmosphere. Mexico City hosts the opener; New York hosts the final; matches are spread across sixteen venues from Vancouver to Miami. When a World Cup is everywhere, it can paradoxically feel like it is nowhere in particular. The energy that concentrates in a smaller host nation — think Germany 2006 or Qatar 2022, whatever your feelings about the latter — simply dissipates across a continental landmass.
American football culture remains genuinely fragmented
This is not a new observation, but it bears repeating: the United States does not have a single football culture. It has pockets — New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, the Pacific Northwest — where the sport has genuine roots, and vast stretches where it remains an afterthought. A World Cup cannot manufacture overnight what decades of grassroots development have not yet fully produced. The tournament may well accelerate things. It may not. The evidence from 1994, the last time the US hosted, suggests a short-term spike followed by a long plateau.
Group D: The US Have a Navigable Path, If They Can Find Their Footing
Sky Sports’ Group D guide confirms that the United States open their home campaign against Paraguay before facing Australia and Turkey. On paper, this is a group the US should be qualifying from. Paraguay are organised and difficult to beat but lack the individual quality to dominate; Australia, without their peak-Cahill generation, are rebuilding; Turkey are a side of considerable talent that has historically found ways to underperform at major tournaments.
The danger for the US is precisely the occasion. Playing a World Cup opener on home soil, with all the attendant expectation and noise, is a different proposition from a routine qualifier. Gregg Berhalter’s side — or whoever has inherited the technical direction — will need to manage the emotional weight of the moment. xG-based analysis of their recent qualifying campaign suggests a team that creates chances at a reasonable rate but remains vulnerable to well-organised low blocks, which is exactly what Paraguay will offer.
The Groups That Will Actually Determine the Tournament’s Shape
Group F: Netherlands carry the weight of expectation
Sky Sports note that the Netherlands — three-times runners-up and perennial nearly-men — open against Japan before facing Graham Potter’s Sweden and Tunisia. The Dutch have the squad depth to advance comfortably, but Japan are no longer the side that can be dismissed. Their 2022 group-stage wins over Germany and Spain were not flukes; they were the product of a coherent defensive structure and ruthless counter-attacking transitions that would trouble most sides in world football. The Netherlands-Japan fixture could be the group stage’s most tactically interesting match.
Potter’s Sweden is the wildcard. His club work at Brighton and Chelsea demonstrated a capacity to build well-organised, positionally sophisticated sides that are difficult to break down. Whether that translates to international management, with its compressed preparation windows and inherited personnel, is an open question. Sweden’s squad has genuine quality in the final third, and if Potter can impose any semblance of his preferred 4-2-3-1 or back-three structure, they could trouble the Netherlands.
Group G: Belgium’s final generation faces its last examination
Group G — Belgium, Egypt, Iran, New Zealand — looks, on the surface, like a comfortable draw for Roberto Martínez’s side. Sky Sports’ group guide confirms the fixture list, and the arithmetic suggests Belgium should qualify with points to spare. The more interesting question is what happens afterwards. De Bruyne, Lukaku, Courtois — this is genuinely the last tournament for the golden generation that promised so much and delivered a third-place finish in 2018. Egypt, with Salah in what may be his final World Cup, are the one side in the group capable of causing a genuine upset, particularly if they can keep the game tight and allow Salah to operate on the counter.
Injury News: Austria Lose Baumgartner, Retain Alaba
Away from the group-stage arithmetic, the BBC reports that Austria will travel to the tournament without midfielder Christoph Baumgartner, ruled out after picking up an injury, though captain David Alaba has been passed fit following a muscle problem sustained on Monday. Alaba’s fitness is significant — Austria’s defensive structure is built around his reading of the game and his ability to step into midfield when possession is won. Baumgartner’s absence is a different kind of blow: he provides the creative link between midfield and attack that Austria’s more direct players depend upon. It is the sort of squad news that rarely makes headlines but quietly reshapes a team’s ceiling at a tournament.
What to Actually Expect From the Opening Weeks
The 48-team format — which you can read about in detail in our 48-team format explainer — means the group stage will feel sprawling, occasionally incoherent, and will produce a handful of dead-rubber matches that nobody asked for. That is the trade-off Fifa made when they expanded the tournament, and it is worth being honest about it rather than pretending the format is an unqualified improvement.
What the expanded format does offer is more football from more nations, which is genuinely valuable if you approach the group stage with the right expectations. The tactical variety across the 48 participating sides is considerable. You will see high-press 4-3-3 sides from northern Europe, deep-block 4-4-2 variants from parts of Asia and Africa, and the kind of chaotic, high-energy football that makes the early rounds of a World Cup genuinely unpredictable.
The US, for all the ambient uncertainty about whether the tournament has truly landed there yet, will find that football has a way of making itself felt once the first ball is kicked. The sport does not wait for the culture to catch up. It simply happens, and the culture adjusts around it — or it does not. Either way, the 2026 World Cup is here, whether New York has noticed or not.
For the full breakdown of every group, fixture list, and how to follow the action, visit our World Cup section. And if you are looking at your broadcast options, our how to watch football online guide covers what is available across different markets.
