After three decades of waiting, the United States is finally set to step onto its home turf for a World Cup opening match, kicking off their Group Stage campaign against Paraguay on Friday night at Inglewood’s iconic SoFi Stadium. This tournament marks the first time the U.S. has hosted the men’s World Cup since 1994, and the third of three co-hosting nations to get their home opener underway, alongside Mexico and Canada.
The stage for this historic encounter is nothing short of spectacular: the $5 billion-plus SoFi Stadium, which opened in 2020 as the shared home of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers. While the cutting-edge arena usually plays host to American football on an unpopular artificial turf surface, tournament organizers pulled out all the stops for the global soccer showcase, laying down a fresh natural grass pitch to meet player and competition standards.
Long before kickoff, the energy in Southern California was electric. Thousands of jubilant fans flocked to the stadium and its surrounding grounds hours early, filling the area with chants, team colors, and creative displays. Supporters clad in red, white and blue US jerseys packed the stands, while many went all out with elaborate costumes ranging from the Statue of Liberty to America’s Founding Fathers, turning the pre-match buildup into a full-blown celebration of the nation’s return to the World Cup host table.
Headed by star midfielder Christian Pulisic and a core of seasoned veteran players, the USMNT enters the tournament ranked 17th in the world by FIFA, with legitimate on-pitch ambitions. The team is targeting a group stage victory, and if successful, a knockout round win would mark only the second such advance in the program’s entire World Cup history. This opening match is also the first for the USMNT under new head coach Mauricio Pochettino, adding an extra layer of narrative to the historic matchup.
The 2026 World Cup, the largest edition in the tournament’s history with an expanded 48-team format, kicked off one day earlier with co-host Mexico notching a 2-0 win over South Africa in the tournament’s opening fixture. Earlier on Friday, the third co-host Canada earned a hard-fought 1-1 draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina in their opening match in Toronto.
For the USMNT’s group stage run, the team will play two of its three preliminary matches right here at SoFi Stadium, with a single away trip to Seattle for the middle group fixture sandwiched in between.
Much has changed for American soccer since the US last hosted the men’s World Cup back in 1994, when Brazil claimed the tournament title and the US men won just one of their four group matches. In the 32 years since that historic event, soccer has exploded in popularity across the United States: youth participation has surged year over year, and the domestic Major League Soccer, launched just two years after the 1994 World Cup, has grown into a stable, competitive professional league that attracts top talent from across the globe.