USMNT opens World Cup 2026 against Paraguay on home soil

The United States stepped onto home soil for a World Cup match with more than 90 minutes at stake. Against Paraguay in Los Angeles Stadium, the USMNT opened its 2026 FIFA World Cup campaign with the pressure of a host nation, the memory of 1994 and the expectation that a fast start could steady both the team and the country’s mood.

The match kicked off Friday, June 12 at 9 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. PT, with FOX and Telemundo carrying the broadcast. It was the U.S. men’s first FIFA World Cup match on home soil since July 4, 1994, when Brazil beat the Americans 1-0 in the Round of 16 at Stanford Stadium. Three decades later, the setting had changed, but the stakes remained familiar: the opening result would help shape how this team was judged before the group stage even settled.

Paraguay arrived ranked No. 41 in FIFA’s men’s rankings and back at the World Cup for the first time since South Africa 2010. Gustavo Alfaro’s 26-man squad, announced June 1, 2026, brought attacking threats in Julio Enciso, Miguel Almiron and Antonio Sanabria, along with center backs Gustavo Gomez and Fabian Balbuena. The U.S., though, held the history. It owned a 5-2-2 all-time edge over Paraguay and had won the last three meetings, including a 2-1 result in Chester, Pennsylvania, on Nov. 16, 2025, when Gio Reyna and Folarin Balogun scored.

That history also reached back to the beginning of the tournament itself. In the 1930 World Cup, Bert Patenaude scored the first hat trick in World Cup history in a 3-0 U.S. win over Paraguay, a reminder that the matchup has long carried symbolic weight for American soccer.

Mauricio Pochettino’s 26-man U.S. roster included Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Gio Reyna, Tyler Adams, Tim Weah, Chris Richards, Sergino Dest and Antonee Robinson, a core built from the group that carried the Americans in Qatar in 2022. Cristian Roldan captured the mood before kickoff with a blunt assessment: “This game sets the tone for the tournament.” For a team trying to prove it can handle the host-stage glare, that first step mattered as much as the standings.