Tactical Preview: USMNT have to bring the fight to Paraguay
The US have evolved on a tactical level, but do they have the requisite fight to impose themselves at the World Cup?
Let's start off with this reminder of what happened the last time the USMNT met Paraguay, back in November in a friendly that was hard-fought but not testy... until the very end:
The first USMNT World Cup group match against Paraguay on Friday could be spicy. Last time they met a full on brawl broke out.
— jwriddle (@jwriddle.bsky.social) June 10, 2026 at 9:43 AM
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I went back and watched that game earlier this week, focusing both on the tactics (we'll get to that in a minute) and... that fight. I mean, it's a soccer fight, right? Just some pushing and shoving, nobody in any danger of suffering anything more than the slightest bruise. In the end it means nothing.
Except not really. I think, to Mauricio Pochettino, it actually meant a lot. This fight – this win – came near the end of last autumn's transformational run for the USMNT, a five-and-a-half game stretch during which they finally found themselves, and did so exclusively against World Cup caliber opposition. And I think that Poch looked at who got involved quickest, and, let's say, how enthusiastically.