It’s not an embarrassing position to be in to admit that the final position of the USMNT at the 2026 World Cup is a complete unknown. With some expecting no less than the latter rounds, the pressure is on the side to compete and do so well. With a squad brimming with talent sprinkled out around Europe’s top leagues, this could be the golden generation.

Words like these only fuel the fire around the USMNT, and I’m not even sure I believe them. Thinking about their potential is like buying a watermelon - you don’t know until you crack it open whether or not it’s a dud.

For Pulisic, the pressure is real, with the media the reason, in his words: “I mean, you guys [in the media] want me to feel the pressure, that’s for sure. There’s pressure. It’s a World Cup,” he said on Friday during a press conference. “It’s not because of my position in the team or anything. I’m used to this. I wouldn’t want to be in any other position. I’m so lucky, I feel privileged to be in this position. There’s pressure. I feel it.

“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves”

“Yes. It’s there, but it’s nothing that I can’t handle,” he added. “I’m going to attack it head on. We are as a team. I don’t need to do it by myself. That’s the beauty of it. I have guys like [Weston McKennie], I have my whole team behind me, the staff, a country of fans, and I’m just going to do the best I can. That’s all I can do.”

“I put a lot of pressure on myself. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves and the way we want to perform, how much work we put in, we expect a lot of ourselves,” he said. “And we try to focus on those things, what really matters, the people that affect us directly. And that’s all we can really do.”

The USMNT will play in Group D at the World Cup, and will go up against Paraguay and Australia, as well as one team yet to qualify.

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