Mauricio Pochettino was blunt in his assessment of American soccer talent.
“We are USA and competing against Belgium, Portugal," the U.S. coach said after a pair of March losses in friendlies. “I think for sure Belgium and Portugal have in the top 100 players few, or some players playing in that top 100. I think we don’t have.”
No Americans were listed among the top 100 when The Guardian published its annual list in December. Christian Pulisic was 116th in the voting by a panel of 219 former players, coaches, technical staff and media. Tim Weah was next at 183rd.
Spain placed 14 in the top 100, France 10, Brazil and England nine each, and Argentina and Portugal eight apiece.
“I don’t think our talent is far —- or much less than any other country in my humble opinion,” retired American forward Jozy Altidore said. “I think we’re just as talented. So for me, I’m that crazy guy. I believe and I know the players believe, but, why not? Why not us?”
U.S. players and staff are thinking big, hoping the red-white-and-blue can win its first World Cup title or at least reach the semifinals for the first time since 1930.
Americans still have to prove themselves to much of the soccer world.
“We want to do this for ourselves. We want to do this for our own country. We don’t need to prove to anyone else,” Pulisic said. “We have good players, really good players playing in top clubs in the world. We have a good team and, yeah, we’re going to do the best we can to prove ourselves right more than anything.”
Tyler Adams, the captain in 2022 and the team's top defensive midfielder, sees the goal as to go as far as any team has before."
“It’s just been a while, I feel like, since we’ve knocked off a big boy,” he said. “I think we need to try and find that in our character and I think that we will.”
Dreams and reality have collided for the U.S. in the World Cup. The Americans are 1-7 in World Cup knockout games, their only win over regional rival Mexico in 2002 before a quarterfinal loss to Germany.
Since then, they lost in the round of 16 in 2010, 2014 and 2022, failed to advance from the group stage in 2006 and didn't even qualify for 2018.
Despite the lack of pedigree, Pochettino told players in March they can win the title.
“Why not us? Why not us? Why not us?” he said. “We need to really believe that we can be there. We need to dream.”
Pulisic in 2021 became the first American to play in and win a European Champions League final, helping Chelsea to the title. He is one of six American World Cup-bound players on clubs ranked among the top 40 by UEFA coefficient, spending the past three seasons with No. 30 AC Milan.
That list includes midfielder Malik Tillman (No. 9 Bayer Leverkusen), midfielder Weston McKennie (No. 25 Juventus), defender Sergiño Dest and forward Ricardo Pepi (No. 26 PSV Eindhoven) and defender Alex Freeman (No. 39 Villarreal).
Goalkeeper, once an American strength with Kasey Keller, Brad Friedel and Tim Howard all starting for English teams, is now a weakness. This will mark the first time a Major League Soccer goalkeeper appears for the U.S. at a World Cup.
“Goalkeeping is definitely a concern,” said former American midfielder Stu Holden, now a Fox commentator. “We haven’t had a standout goalkeeper now for a number of years, but yet you have an opportunity to change the perception of who you are by one tournament.”
Matt Freese, the likely starter, made his international debut last June and has just 15 appearances.
“Not really, not really listening to anyone outside of the guys with me and the coaching staff,” he said.
The U.S. team often plays home games in front of crowds with a majority cheering on the opponent, which happened during games against Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Morocco, South Korea and Turkey.
“Americans are some type of fans that show out and show up for the big things even if they don’t love soccer,” McKennie said. “Any big event, we know how to put on a show and we know to show up, so I think it’s a huge advantage.”
AP World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup
United States' head coach Mauricio Pochettino talks with members of the media as he arrives with his teammates for the World Cup soccer tournament in Santa Ana, Calif., on Saturday, June 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Brehman)
United States head coach Mauricio Pochettino reacts during the first half of an international friendly soccer match against Germany in Chicago, Saturday, June 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Less than two hours before President Donald Trump was set to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports, the United States and Canada reached a deal Tuesday that delays the sanctions, buying time for more negotiations and avoiding for now another strain in already-tense relations between the historic allies.
Trump posted late Tuesday on social media that he had paused the tariffs “based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL!”
Trump’s import taxes would have hit about 5% of what Canada ships to the United States every year, including products ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors.
But the political impact would likely have been bigger than the economic one. Canada had threatened to retaliate against any new tariffs with levies of its own, aggravating a trade fight between countries that sold each other $880 billion worth of goods and services last year.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and Canada are negotiating in an effort to reach a truce on tariffs before a 12:01 a.m. Wednesday deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump.
If no deal is reached, Trump has threatened to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products, ranging from hockey sticks to tongue depressors.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump have spoken twice by phone in the past two days about the ongoing negotiations, including another call Tuesday afternoon, Carney’s office said, underscoring the last-minute push for a deal.
″We are negotiating,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters Monday, speaking in French. “The negotiations are very intense and delicate. This is not the time to talk about negotiations in public.”
The two countries have wrangled for decades over trade, poking each other over sore spots like Canadian softwood lumber imports and U.S. access to Canada’s protected dairy market.
Somehow they still managed to remain friends, allies and trading partners. Canadian soldiers fought alongside Americans in Afghanistan after 9/11. The 5,525-mile U.S.-Canada border is undefended, and nearly 330,000 people and $2 billion worth of goods cross it every day; 800,000 Canadians live in the United States.
Trump’s approach to dealing with Canada marks an extraordinary departure from the traditionally cooperative relationship between the two countries. Trump has hit Canadian goods with tariffs — in a push to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. — and has repeatedly made inflammatory comments about turning Canada into America’s 51st state.
The Canadian public is fed up. A petition to expel the U.S. ambassador, a Trump ally, has collected nearly 218,000 signatures since July 21. It accuses Ambassador Pete Hoekstra of having “normalized’’ Trump’s talk of annexing Canada, among other complaints.
Nearly 72% of Canada's goods exports last year went to the United States. And the Trump administration might be wary of imposing a hefty new tariff — paid by U.S. importers who try to pass along the cost to consumers via higher prices — ahead of November’s midterm elections. U.S. voters are already frustrated with the high cost of living.
“I don’t think either side really wants these tariffs to come into effect,’’ said Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official. “There’s a pretty strong push on both sides to find an off-ramp here.’’
Majerus said the United States is aiming to get Canada to buy more U.S. military equipment, including F-35 fighters; to take part in Trump’s “Golden Dome’’ missile defense; and to give the United States more access to critical minerals, thereby reducing America’s reliance on tenuous supplies from its geopolitical rival, China.
The Canadians would like relief from U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum as well as softwood lumber, which the U.S. says receives unfair government subsidies.
Trump has made tariffs the centerpiece of his second-term economic agenda. Last year, he imposed double-digit import taxes on almost every country, justifying them by declaring the longstanding U.S. trade deficit a national emergency. The Supreme Court in February ruled that he’d overstepped his authority, striking down those tariffs and setting the stage for the federal government to pay refunds to importers.
Trump immediately looked for other ways to rebuild his tariff wall. Last month, he imposed import taxes of 10% to 12.5% on 59 countries and the European Union — which together account for 99% of U.S. imports — for allegedly failing to have or to enforce restrictions on imports made from forced labor.
Then he reached back to the Great Depression to find a cudgel with which to whack Canada.
Trump invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to impose 50% tariffs on products that account for about 5% of Canadian exports to the United States.
Nearly a century ago, with the U.S. and world economies in collapse, Congress passed the 1930 tariff law, imposing hefty taxes on imports from around the world. Known as the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, named for their congressional sponsors, they are notorious among economists and historians for limiting world commerce and making the Great Depression worse.
Section 338 tariffs have never been used before. U.S. trade negotiators traditionally have favored another tool, Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 — the provision Trump invoked to impose last month’s forced-labor tariffs.
Section 338 authorizes the president to impose tariffs of up to 50% on imports from countries that have discriminated against U.S. businesses. Unlike Section 301 sanctions, no investigation is required. Nor is there any limit on how long the tariffs can stay in place.
In announcing the Section 338 tariffs, Trump claimed that Canada discriminates against American exports of autos, alcohol and cheese. Trump is angry because Canada and China were the only countries that punched back with retaliatory tariffs of their own when he slapped levies on their products last year.
“If a country retaliates against us, we’re obviously not going to tolerate that,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters Friday at the Iowa State Fair. “We’ll take action. My sense is the Canadians, they want to have a more conciliatory approach, but we’ll see.”
The U.S. is renegotiating a North American trade pact — the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement — that Trump strong-armed America’s neighbors into accepting in his first term. The threat of Section 338 tariffs gives the United States leverage to seek fresh concessions from Ottawa.
“From Carney's perspective, you need (USMCA) to be renegotiated," said Christopher Gundermann, a fellow in the economics program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "You can't renegotiate it with a massive trade war going on.''
But the Canadian public’s furor over Trump’s policies may limit Carney’s ability to cut a deal. Canada could retaliate again if the new 50% tariffs take effect, potentially aggravating a trade fight.
Canada’s government “cannot look like it is simply caving to the Trump administration’s demands,’’ said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal.
“Making further concessions without getting something meaningful in exchange would probably lead to a strong backlash ... The risk is for the Carney government to make Canada look weak and, therefore, even more vulnerable to future trade and geopolitical bullying on the part of the Trump administration.”
Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister for U.S. trade, met with Greer on Monday. He was tight-lipped afterward.
“The work is continuing,’’ he said. “We continue to do our job.’’
Gillies reported from Toronto.
Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc makes brief comments to reporters outside the U.S. Department of Commerce following a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in Washington, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (Kelly Geraldine Malone/The Canadian Press via AP)
United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, center, leaves the U.S. Department of Commerce following a meeting with Canadian officials, in Washington, Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (Kelly Geraldine Malone/The Canadian Press via AP)
