On 19 No­vem­ber 1989, in our fi­nal qual­i­fy­ing match for World Cup 1990, one point sep­a­rat­ed the two teams. The match end­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go 0:1 USA. The dream of one na­tion died while the am­bi­tion of an­oth­er soared like an ea­gle.

Since 1989, USA has heaped sev­er­al Gold Cup hu­mil­i­a­tions up­on us, even if we did en­joy some World Cup re­venge in 2017, beat­ing them 2:1 in the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um (Cou­va) and elim­i­nat­ing them from Rus­sia 2018 - a rare win that al­ways haunts US fans.

Foot­ball in USA un­der­went a sea change af­ter 1990. Us­ing any met­ric, that No­vem­ber 1989 one-point gap has grown in­to a yawn­ing chasm be­tween the two na­tions to­day. 2026 will be USA's ninth World Cup ap­pear­ance since 1990, while Trinidad and To­ba­go has one soli­tary out­ing (2006). We are cur­rent­ly ranked 102 by FI­FA, while USA is ranked 16. And the lev­el and qual­i­ty of both coun­tries' do­mes­tic game bear no re­sem­blance to each oth­er. USA has long left us in its rear-view mir­ror.

Most peo­ple saw the his­toric de­ci­sion to award the 1994 tour­na­ment to USA as a FI­FA mon­ey grab in the world's most lu­cra­tive sports mar­ket - then a glob­al foot­ball out­lier. In pre­ced­ing decades, US "soc­cer" was a niche sport played main­ly at youth, col­lege and lo­cal lev­els, strug­gling to com­pete with Amer­i­can foot­ball, base­ball, bas­ket­ball, and ice hock­ey.

Even the star-stud­ded North Amer­i­can Soc­cer League of the 1970s (in which Trinidad and To­ba­go icons like Steve David, War­ren Archibald and Leon Deleon played along­side Pele, Beck­en­bauer and oth­er age­ing glob­al icons) did lit­tle to per­ma­nent­ly riv­et foot­ball in­to US con­scious­ness. But 1994 dra­mat­i­cal­ly in­creased pub­lic in­ter­est, trans­form­ing mil­lions of ca­su­al fans in­to foot­ball fol­low­ers and ce­ment­ing USA's place on the world stage.

To­day, cul­tur­al is­sues per­sist. Foot­ball is still not the main sport - it re­mains fourth be­hind Amer­i­can foot­ball, bas­ket­ball and base­ball. And the "pay to play" mod­el, which elim­i­nates tal­ent­ed chil­dren who can­not af­ford thou­sands of dol­lars in an­nu­al fees to play the game, sti­fles its true po­ten­tial as a glob­al pow­er. Yet foot­ball in USA has be­come a sta­tis­ti­cal jug­ger­naut and the Unit­ed States Soc­cer Fed­er­a­tion (USSF) is the fi­nan­cial heavy­weight in CON­CA­CAF with an op­er­a­tional bud­get of USD 295 mil­lion.

Mex­i­co is a poor sec­ond at USD 120 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly. (By com­par­i­son, the Brazil­ian Foot­ball Con­fed­er­a­tion spends over USD 400 mil­lion, while the Eng­lish FA rolls out well over USD 700 mil­lion). The num­ber of USSF-reg­is­tered play­ers has sur­passed four mil­lion, with al­most three mil­lion of them youth play­ers in a com­plex, mul­ti-tiered sys­tem of leagues.

This is a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in par­tic­i­pa­tion as the sport con­tin­ues to grow in pop­u­lar­i­ty. And USA has won sev­en men's CON­CA­CAF Gold Cups and two Na­tions League ti­tles, while its women have claimed ten CON­CA­CAF Gold Cups/W Cham­pi­onship ti­tles, as well as four World Cup and five Olympic ti­tles.

All of this is root­ed in a strong do­mes­tic game. Sunil Gu­lati, for­mer USSF pres­i­dent, said last week, “In the top-lev­el coun­tries around the world, it is the do­mes­tic leagues that play a big role in play­er de­vel­op­ment. Ma­jor League Soc­cer (MLS), when it start­ed, wasn’t re­al­ly in a po­si­tion to do that...That’s changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly.”

When USA host­ed the 1994 World Cup, it had no pro­fes­sion­al league. MLS came along in 1996. To­day, MLS is sec­ond in CON­CA­CAF's league rank­ing be­hind Liga MX (Mex­i­co), while the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pre­mier League is ranked 14th be­hind the leagues of Ja­maica (10), Haiti (11), Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic (12) and Suri­name (13). In the 30-odd years since 1994, MLS has ex­pand­ed from ten to 30 teams. The av­er­age MLS fran­chise is cur­rent­ly val­ued at USD 767 mil­lion, with the most valu­able club, In­ter Mi­a­mi CF, val­ued at USD 1.5 bil­lion.

A po­tent cock­tail of new sta­dia and huge me­dia deals fu­eled by the ar­rival of Li­onel Mes­si and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al stars with a few last miles in their legs has trans­formed MLS from a fi­nan­cial risk in­to a fi­nan­cial rock­et. The league's match day at­ten­dance now av­er­ages 25,000 spec­ta­tors and its view­er­ship across all plat­forms av­er­ages al­most four mil­lion for a week­end slate of match­es. USA al­so has ad­di­tion­al lay­ers of low­er-lev­el pro­fes­sion­al and se­mi-pro­fes­sion­al leagues (in which Trinidad and To­ba­go play­ers find a niche), such as the USL Cham­pi­onship, Leagues 1 and 2. And, of course, there is the NWSL for women, ar­guably the best women's league in the world. This com­plex web of leagues cre­ates more op­por­tu­ni­ties for play­ers. For the 2025/2026 sea­son, there were over sev­en­ty USA play­ers com­pet­ing in var­i­ous Eu­ro­pean leagues.

Amer­i­can ex­cep­tion­al­ism

"Amer­i­can ex­cep­tion­al­ism" is the be­lief that the Unit­ed States is dis­tinc­tive and ex­em­plary com­pared to oth­er na­tions. The con­cept dates back to the 1830s. Pro­po­nents ar­gue that the val­ues, po­lit­i­cal sys­tem, and his­tor­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of the US are unique in hu­man his­to­ry, which en­ti­tle it to play the lead­ing role on the world stage.

For this rea­son, Amer­i­cans tra­di­tion­al­ly call their do­mes­tic sports cham­pi­ons "world cham­pi­ons". Af­ter all, if USA is the best in every­thing, the best in USA is the best in the world. Right? The ef­fect of this self-con­cept and self-be­lief (much of the world sees it as ar­ro­gance) is that Amer­i­cans strive to "boss" every­thing in the in­ter­na­tion­al are­na. (I will say this - Trinidad and To­ba­go could use a dose of this at­ti­tude to coun­ter­act our ge­net­ic ac­cep­tance, in­deed cel­e­bra­tion, of medi­oc­rity. But I di­gress).

The be­lief that it should be Num­ber One con­sis­tent­ly push­es USA to the top spot on the podi­um in most sports - ex­cept men's foot­ball. This is why Bob Bradley, for­mer US na­tion­al team coach, re­cent­ly said, “Cer­tain­ly, in a lot of ways, we’ve made strides. But when you’re stack­ing up play­ers against the best play­ers in the world, the best clubs in the world...we’re still play­ing catch-up.” De­spite the suc­cess­es of the last decades, he wants more.

Jozy Al­ti­dore, for­mer US na­tion­al team for­ward, has said any­thing less than a quar­ter­fi­nal or semi­fi­nal place in the World Cup would be fail­ure for USA, but I ex­pect that is a bridge too far for them. On­ly eight na­tions have won the World Cup and USA will not make it nine.

While USSF ex­pects the sec­ond com­ing of the World Cup to gen­er­ate a com­mer­cial boom, height­ened pub­lic in­ter­est and in­creased youth par­tic­i­pa­tion, do­mes­tic pol­i­tics, in­ter­na­tion­al geopol­i­tics and FI­FA's ra­pa­cious be­hav­iour have com­bined to un­der­mine the ap­peal of the World Cup among the US pub­lic. More­over, the US na­tion­al team has stag­nat­ed. Sup­port­ers see the team as unin­spir­ing. In the March 2026 FI­FA win­dow, play­ing against Bel­gium (a hu­mil­i­at­ing 5:2 loss) and Por­tu­gal (a 2:0 de­feat), the team looked ter­ri­bly out of its depth.

A cat­a­logue of prob­lems af­flicts the out­fit - fans' lack of con­fi­dence in its coach, Mauri­cio Pochet­ti­no; no dis­cernible team iden­ti­ty; poor form; con­stant for­ma­tion changes; in­jury to im­por­tant play­ers and, im­por­tant­ly, lack of com­pe­ti­tion games. Pochet­ti­no ad­mits the last, say­ing, “We knew it would be a prob­lem, how to ap­proach the games, be­cause we have al­ready qual­i­fied. Friend­ly games are what you play with your friends." So what do I ex­pect of USA and its co-hosts?

Tour­na­ment prospects

The tour­na­ment looks very un­pre­dictable with sev­er­al teams hold­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties. Will USA win its group? That is an open ques­tion. It will be pushed by Turkey (ranked 29 by FI­FA), Aus­tralia (ranked 40) and even Paraguay (ranked 36) but should do enough to get in­to the Round of 32. Tour­na­ment co-hosts Cana­da and Mex­i­co (with its al­ti­tude ad­van­tage) al­so look to have pos­si­bil­i­ties for es­cap­ing their group in­to the knock-out phase, if on­ly be­cause two-thirds of all teams (the top two from each of twelve groups plus the eight best third-placed teams) will ad­vance.

For USA to get to the Round of 16 (its usu­al stum­bling point), and be­yond to a quar­ter­fi­nal, will prob­a­bly mean cross­ing paths with a gi­ant - maybe the reign­ing cham­pi­ons Ar­genti­na, or maybe Bel­gium. That will be the end of their road. And who will emerge cham­pi­on? Most of the usu­al sus­pects - Spain, Ger­many, Brazil, Ar­genti­na, Por­tu­gal, etc - dis­played in­dif­fer­ent form in the last FI­FA in­ter­na­tion­al win­dow, so, giv­en its stel­lar cast of char­ac­ters and dom­i­nant per­for­mances in the FI­FA March win­dow, I re­con­firm France as my favourite to lift the tro­phy, with a caveat - favourites sel­dom win this tour­na­ment.

Ob­vi­ous­ly, Mo­roc­co will chal­lenge, but keep an eye on Sene­gal and Japan, my "spoil­ers". Though the odds may be against them, they are cer­tain­ly ca­pa­ble of a ma­jor up­set and a deep run. World Cup 2026 is a long tour­na­ment and what hap­pens will be a coin toss. Bring it!