What USMNT needs to happen in Paraguay-Turkiye game to win Group D at World Cup

What USMNT needs to happen in Paraguay-Turkiye game to win Group D at World Cup originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The United States has taken care of business in its first two matches at the 2026 FIFA World Cup with a pair of victories.

The next win for the USMNT can come while they aren’t even on the pitch. The U.S. can win Group D with a match to spare if the right result takes place on Friday night when Paraguay takes on Turkiye.

It’s actually two of the three possible match outcomes that would work out for the United States, which has 6 points through 2 matches.

Australia has 3 points, while Paraguay and Turkiye both enter their second match of the group stage with 0 points.

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What does USMNT need to happen in Paraguay-Turkiye?

The USA can win the group in two scenarios:

• Paraguay win
• Draw

In both those spots, the absolute most that can happen is the U.S. and either Australia or Paraguay end up on 6 points. But because the United States already beat those teams, they’d hold the tiebreaker in head-to-head matchup over both.

And a draw means Paraguay has no chance at getting to 6 points, either.

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The one scenario that keeps the group open is:

• Turkiye win

That would give them 3 points, and they play the U.S. on the final group matchday. In that scenario, Turkiye could still end up with 6 points and the head-to-head tiebreaker over the U.S. with a win in these two matches.

So on Friday night, as long as Turkiye doesn’t win, the U.S. wins the group.

Winning the group in advance would be huge because the United States could rest anyone with injury question marks, or with yellow card suspension question marks. That would set up the USMNT as best as possible for the knockout rounds.

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