The Athletic details USMNT World Cup run: BBQ bonding, shock over Balogun, exit depression

By Paul Tenorio, Henry Bushnell and Tom Bogert July 8, 2026 — 2:49 pm EDT | Updated

SEATTLE — They collapsed or wandered around the turf at Lumen Field, equal parts exhausted and stunned.

On a Monday night that began with so much hope and hype, with history waiting to be made, suddenly, painfully, their World Cup was over.

Players who just last month walked around this same field singing “Country Roads,” absorbing an atmosphere they never could have dreamed because it never previously existed, now sank their foreheads into grass. Some cried. Some tried to blink their way out of the nightmare that was a 4-1 loss to Belgium, or stare past a set of piercing, perplexing questions.

How, after so much glee over the past month, had it suddenly turned so sour? How, after so much dynamic soccer, could each thought seem so slow and each touch look so sloppy?

U.S. players entered Monday’s round-of-16 match with confidence — so much confidence that the prospect of a World Cup exit on the banks of the Elliott Bay barely registered.

“We all had in our minds that we were definitely gonna be heading back to L.A. tomorrow (for a quarterfinal).” — Midfielder Gio Reyna

Instead, they rode a bus back to their team hotel, and over the 24 hours that followed, they said emotional goodbyes. They shared a last night of drinks and debriefing at the team hotel; sent farewell messages in their WhatsApp group; then trudged through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and went their separate ways.

They were devastated, then disappointed, then reflective. Eventually, they’ll fondly recall their summer in a bubble at the heart of a nationwide party. They’ll treasure the singalongs, the intimate locker-room moments, the idyllic afternoons on Salt Creek Beach. They’ll remember how they flew around fields, and inspired young kids, and captured the imagination of their country. Their star, Folarin Balogun, would frequently wonder aloud: “Is this real life?”

All of which is why the end was so deflating.

To those on the inside, the U.S. run at the 2026 World Cup was every bit as magical as it seemed — until, abruptly, it was the polar opposite.

Pre-World Cup Culture Shock

The story of this run, in many ways, begins back in 2024 when head coach Mauricio Pochettino arrived to find a culture that shocked him.

“The situation was worse than we really believed,” Pochettino said last month. Ahead of their first training camp in Austin, Texas, that October, he and his staff expected to meet players who “would be so desperate to help (and) come to the national team.” Instead, “we received a big punch,” he recalled.

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Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Dirk Waem / Belga / AFP via Getty Images, Luke Hales, Alex Grimm, Carl Recine, Charlotte Wilson / Getty Images