Who Does the USA Play Next? Currently: the Team That Held Canada to a Draw

SPORTS OSINT | Prime Rogue Inc. | Kevin J.S. Duska Jr. Calgary — June 25, 2026

Full disclosure up front, since we’re a Canadian firm writing about the team that beat us to top spot on the continent’s biggest co-hosted stage: we have a vested interest in this one being funny. We’ll keep the analysis straight anyway. The bracket doesn’t need our help to make a point.

What’s Settled

The United States has won Group D outright — 6 points from wins over Paraguay (4-1) and Australia (2-0), with the head-to-head tiebreaker in hand over both remaining challengers regardless of tonight’s dead-rubber finale against Türkiye. First group win for the Americans at a World Cup since 2010. Credit where it’s due: that’s a clean, professional two-game stretch of work, and Mauricio Pochettino’s side has looked the part doing it.

The reward for topping the group is a Round of 32 match against the best third-place team out of Groups B, E, F, I, or J — at Levi’s Stadium, San Francisco Bay Area, on July 1.

The Projection

According to FOX Sports’ own bracket-projection model — not us editorializing, their numbers — the current favourite to be that third-place team is Bosnia and Herzegovina.

That’s the same Bosnia and Herzegovina that drew 1-1 with Canada in Toronto on the opening matchday. The same Bosnia and Herzegovina that then lost 4-1 to Switzerland. The same Bosnia and Herzegovina that needed a third-place lifeline because they couldn’t finish above either of the teams that beat or drew with Canada in our own group.

To be clear about what we’re not saying: Bosnia are a perfectly live World Cup side. Edin Džeko is still leading the line at 40 years old and still finding the net; Kerim Alajbegović has been the breakout name of their tournament with the goal that kept their hopes alive against Qatar. This isn’t a minnow. It’s a team with real quality at altitude in a knockout match.

What we are saying: the mighty co-hosts, top seed of their own group, home advantage at essentially every venue in the country, federation budget the size of a small nation’s GDP — and the projection has them drawing the team that finished third in Canada’s group. Not Switzerland, who topped it. The team that finished behind both Canada and Switzerland.

The Honest Caveat

This is a projection, not a result, and the usual rules apply: nothing here is final until the group stage closes on June 27. Two matches still genuinely move this needle:

• Ivory Coast vs. Curaçao and Ecuador vs. Germany (today, Group E) — Ecuador needs a win over Germany to chase a third-place berth and could leapfrog Bosnia on goal difference if they get it.
• Sweden vs. Japan (today, Group F) — Sweden missing out on second place would put them straight into this same third-place scramble, and Sweden’s attack (Gyökeres and Isak) is a considerably scarier proposition than Bosnia’s.
• Algeria’s situation in Group J is still unresolved heading into the weekend, and if they fall to third instead of leapfrogging into second, they join this pool too.

So the honest version of this piece is: as of right now, with real group-stage matches still to be played today and through the weekend, Bosnia and Herzegovina is the projection — and if it holds, it’s a touch deflating for a co-host that’s otherwise had a tidy, professional group stage. If Sweden or Ecuador overtake them, the Americans get a noticeably harder draw than the bracket gods currently have on offer.

Bottom Line

No shade intended toward the players doing the actual work on the pitch — Pochettino’s group has earned their group win clean. The shade, gently, is reserved for the bracket itself, and for anyone south of the border inclined to read “Group D winners” as evidence of a smooth road ahead. As of this filing, the smooth road runs through a team that took exactly one point off Canada and lost to everyone who beat us too. We’ll update if Sweden or Ecuador make it interesting.