ATLANTA — The preparation of the United States men’s national team for the World Cup has entered its final phase. Not only will individual performances be scrutinized, but teamwide cohesion will be as well.

As such, Saturday’s match against Belgium provided a sobering assessment of where the USMNT currently stands, with the Americans enduring a heavy 5-2 defeat. Granted, it was one game, but the U.S. doesn’t look remotely ready for when the games start for real in June.

The U.S. looked competitive in the first half. Weston McKennie continued his fine run of form, scoring the Americans’ goal to put them up 1-0. But while the U.S. back line held up well into the second half, it had no answer for an electric performance from Belgian winger Jérémy Doku and saw its five-game unbeaten streak come to an abrupt end.

– USMNT player ratings: Weah poor as U.S. suffer heavy Belgium defeat
– O’Hanlon: Can USMNT’s depth at the 2026 World Cup make a difference?
– USMNT players speak up about what Mauricio Pochettino is like

It was a match where the deployment of the USMNT’s center backs was the main area of focus. FC Cincinnati‘s Miles Robinson and Crystal Palace‘s Chris Richards were out injured with groin and knee ailments, respectively, while FC Augsburg defender Noahkai Banks remains noncommittal to the U.S. squad. There are other reasons to be worried about the back line. Charlotte FC‘s Tim Ream hasn’t been at his best this season, while Mark McKenzie still has a few levels to climb in consistency with the USMNT. Those factors left manager Mauricio Pochettino to revert to the old standby formation of 4-3-3, with Ream and McKenzie anchoring the defense.

In the end, it wasn’t so much the center backs that were the issue. This was a teamwide humbling that will do little to inspire confidence in this U.S. side. In particular, the Americans’ defending on the flanks was abysmal. Belgium repeatedly found Doku isolated out wide either in transition or via a big switch of the point of attack and, even when he was double-teamed, he still found a way to torment the USMNT. Case in point was Amadou Onana‘s go-ahead goal in the 53rd minute. McKenzie didn’t do badly to contain Doku’s run, but the Belgian managed to suck nearly the entire U.S. defense toward him, leaving space for others. Doku played the ball to Charles De Ketelaere, who laid the ball off to Onana to fire home.

To be fair, Doku is an outstanding player. He wouldn’t be on the books of Manchester City if he weren’t. But this is a USMNT side that has set big goals for itself at this summer’s World Cup. If the U.S. is to make a deep run, it needs to beat a team of Belgium’s caliber, probably more than one. That Timothy Weah was the player usually victimized by Doku is somewhat surprising given he has played as an outside back plenty of times this season. It leaves one to wonder if anyone on the U.S. squad could have done better. Alex Freeman certainly couldn’t have done any worse.

That said, the U.S. also needed to do a better job of providing help out wide while also picking up late runners into the box and not resort to just watching the ball. This falls on the entire team, not just the back line, and is a fairly basic defense concept. That the U.S. seemed so incapable of executing in this area is probably the most concerning aspect of the performance. A return to three at the back — even with the depleted complement of center backs — is probably in order.

There are questions to be answered about the U.S. midfield as well. With Tyler Adams not even making the trip stateside due to a quad injury, an opportunity beckoned for Johnny Cardoso. After a rough first five months of the season with Atletico Madrid due to ailments of his own, Cardoso has ramped up his performance level at his club to the point that he appears indispensable. The problem with the USMNT is that Cardoso has never come close to replicating that level of form.

On Saturday, Cardoso showed flashes. He was 13 for 13 with his passes. His clever pick allowed McKenzie to break free on his goal and redirect Antonee Robinson‘s corner. He also had a vital tackle in the 17th minute that thwarted a Belgian counterattack. It was a surprise then to see him substituted at halftime with Cristian Roldan taking his place, although Pochettino explained after the match that the change was pre-planned due to discomfort the player felt earlier in the week.

For a team that didn’t possess the ball that well in the first half it was a strange decision, one that calls into question the level of the team’s depth. The second half witnessed a deluge of goals from Belgium with the U.S. continuing to show its inability to defend one-on-one situations. Goalkeeper Matt Turner, who was a surprise starter in place of Matt Freese, was continually left exposed. What will also give Pochettino pause is that he made liberal use of his bench, and things actually got worse. The only bright spot was when Ricardo Pepi deflected a pass out of the back that allowed Patrick Agyemang to score a consolation goal.

Is there reason to panic? Not yet. Four years ago, the U.S. fell 2-0 to Japan in its penultimate friendly prior to the 2022 World Cup that wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicated. In that instance, then-manager Gregg Berhalter got some data on who he could count on to deliver at the World Cup and who he couldn’t. Pochettino will need to do the same.

HOUSTON — Illinois coach Brad Underwood got the traditional honors of the final snip of the scissors cutting down the nets in the Toyota Center after Illinois’ 71-59 win against Iowa to win the South Regional title and secure a spot in next weekend’s Final Four. He climbed to the top of the ladder, cut the net and took a moment to celebrate the achievement. Not as a moment that cements decades of ladder-climbing through the coaching ranks with decades in junior college and as a mid-major assistant, but as a moment for Illinois. 

For the first time since 2005, Illinois is headed to the Final Four. And just like that group which was led by Deron Williams, Dee Brown and Luther Head, this year’s Fighting Illini have a group with undeniable chemistry and resilience. It’s a group that the Illinois fans similarly adore, and so when Underwood paused at the top of the ladder, net in hand, he turned to both sides of an orange-clad lower bowl let them in on the celebration with a couple hearty “I-L-L” calls. 

“One of the most fulfilling moments personally that I just had was standing on the ladder with the net, and then seeing our fans,” Underwood said still soaking wet from yet another Super Soaker battle with his team in the locker room celebration. “That wasn’t about me. That was about our fans, and that was about what’s probably going on in Champaign right now, because that’s what you believe this to be.” 

Earlier in his career, Underwood told an staffer that being at Illinois was his “dream job.” His wife bought his son, Tyler, who is now an assistant on the team, a Brian Cook jersey when he was two years old. He’s been intimately aware of what Illinois can be, and how badly Illini fans want to embrace a big-time winner. 

“I don’t want to sound arrogant,” Underwood said. “I’ve never doubted us getting to a Final Four would happen, I have thought we have had other teams capable. But I also know how doggone hard it is to do it. For that, I just say thank you. I say thank you to everybody involved. And I’m going to get emotional, but I’ve been doing this 39 years, and you dream about this as a kid, and I dreamt about doing it at Illinois.”

Saturday’s win against Iowa is a true “program win” for a group that has been as adaptable to the modern times as anyone in college basketball. Underwood and his staff are utilizing European connections and the transfer portal while also remaining true to traditional methods of roster building with high school recruiting and player development. Every box is checked with this 2026 team in terms of how they arrived at Illinois, but once they did get together for the first time it did not take long for them to gel into the lovable Final Four-bound squad that’s now two wins away from the school’s first-ever national championship. 

A freshman star that makes the right plays 

Keaton Wagler had a game-high 25 points in the win vs. Iowa and was named the South Regional’s Most Outstanding Player. It’s yet another honor to go with the All-Big Ten and All-American and Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors that have come from a stunning debut for a player who was a four-star prospect but ranked outside the top 100 in his recruiting class. Underwood knew quickly in the recruiting process that Wagler would be a difference-maker for the program based on the way he played. 

Interestingly enough, Wagler only scored two points the first time Underwood came to see him live in high school. Yet the Illinois coach couldn’t wait to call his son and assistant coach, Tyler, to rave about what he had just seen. See, Underwood’s relationship with Wagler’s AAU coach, Victor Williams, clued him into what an undersized guard out of Kansas could be at the next level. 

“The night before he had had 36. The night I went to see him he had two,” Underwood said. “They blitzed him, they got it out of his hand, but he made every right play, he was not selfish, he was not a pig, he wasn’t trying to force things. He just let the game come to him. Very, very mature as a senior in high school when you’re the guy. And he just played the game. 

“And so I felt great about it. Did I know a 178-pound kid coming in was going to be this? I didn’t. To be the South Region MVP and an All-American is, you know, I would be lying. I’m proud as heck of him, because no one works harder than him, and no one’s a better human being than him.” 

You could see on film that Wagler could shoot it well and had skills that could translate, but the intangibles of how he handled adversity offset any of the concerns about his size that may have led to him being overlooked by other top programs. Whether it’s recruiting out of high school, recruiting overseas or recruiting out of the transfer portal, a competitive spirit and the ability to handle adversity are timeless X-factors still valued as Illinois’ builds its rosters. 

Unruly horn causes 11-minute delay in Illinois vs. Iowa Elite Eight game inside Houston’s Toyota Center

David Cobb

Tapping in to a European connection 

It’s taken years, but Illinois has truly established a pipeline to Europe that has helped lead a run at a national championship. It’s a great marriage of styles for how Underwood wants to coach, utilizing positional side and great shooting that has come with many of the players who’ve come through in recent years. He credits the work of assistants Geoff Alexander and Orlando Antigua for building those relationships overseas, but also using NIL resources to help enhance their ability to attract top talent. 

“I’m a spoke in the wheel,” Antigua said Saturday night in the celebration, deflecting the credit Underwood was handing out earlier. “It’s an unbelievable program, we’ve got a lot to sell, and [Underwood] has allowed us to go do what we do.” 

Antigua was interrupted in the moment, mobbed by Tomislav Ivisic who jumped in with a surprise bear hug and a loud “Que Pasa?!?”

All those years of making connections overseas and establishing those relationships with players and coaches in Europe is starting to pay dividends. Any school can try to offer NIL money to a skilled player abroad to bring them to the program, but the relationship-building is how you know what kind of player you are adding when it comes ot the team chemistry. 

This year’s team obviously has David Mirkovic (Montenegro) and the Ivisic brothers Tomislav and Zvonimir (Croatia), but the success also includes Second team All-Big Ten forward and NBA Draft pick Kasparas Jakucionis (Lithuania). Underwood said  they plan to continue looking overseas for talent, noting that it’s a great fit for Illinois but “not for everybody.”  

“They fit our university,” Underwood said. “We’re a diverse university with a lot of international students, so it’s a perfect fit for them. Basketball-wise it’s a great fit for me, and I like coaching them. The way we’re playing with positional size and shooting, it’s just — it’s a great marriage and a great fit. So we’ll continue it.”

How the pieces fit together 

With college basketball being transient and transactional, every season is filled with teams who spend spend resources on their roster construction only to find the pieces don’t fit together. Illinois is blessed with a resource advantage that comes from its commitment to basketball success and the revenue machine that is life in the Big Ten, but not every Big Ten team that spends finds itself having the kind of consistent success that Underwood has established as the standard in Champaign. 

To make sure he was getting the right personalities, Underwood leaned on his players that knew the program best. Tomislav Ivisic was a big key, he said, as was Kylan Boswell in getting background on new additions to the squad and helping get those players acclimated to how Illinois runs its program. Guys like Ben Humrichous and Jake Davis, too, who although they started their careers elsewhere have now become pivotal to the chemistry in the locker room as they have opted back in to the program when there were opportunities to transfer elsewhere. 

“I think our chemistry is off the charts. This team, very special on and off the court. We’re a great group of guys,” Davis said on the court at the after cutting his piece of the net. “You couldn’t ask for anything more.” 

And that chemistry travels.. 

On the court as Illinois’ was celebrating the win was Coleman Hawkins, a four-year player who transferred out of the program prior to last year. He was a great player for the Fighting Illini and helped the team make four NCAA Tournaments. Hawkins had a huge smile on his face watching the team take a group picture, and he rushed to grab a photo with his old coach to commemorate the moment. 

“I’m probably different than most coaches. When guys leave for whatever reason, if they have been a part of us, they’re still part of my family,” Underwood said. “He’s a diehard Illinois guy. He comes back every chance he gets. And he’s always welcome.” 

‘We’re coming to win two more games’

When Illinois fans think back to that 2005 team and the run to the national championship game, which is certain to happen often throughout the week leading into next weekend’s events in Indianapolis, they are going to remember a lot that is reflected in this group in 2026. That Fighting Illini team, memorably, stormed back from a double-digit deficit against Arizona in the Elite Eight. This year’s team just flipped the script on Iowa after trailing by 10 points in the first five minutes of its Elite Eight win. That group was also the culmination of years of building across two different coaches, and while this year’s team has four of its top eight players as new additions to the roster the chemistry and competitive standard has been years in the making. 

That 2005 team will no doubt be represented in Indianapolis, but it will also be represented on the court. Because while the makeup of Illinois’ roster is extremely modern and different from the way college basketball was 21 years ago, the chemistry, energy and charm of the 2026 squad has a proud Illinois fan base finally seeing their program climbing back to the top of the sport. 

In a college basketball landscape that’s changing all the time, Brad Underwood has found advantages on the margins of roster construction. With European talent, overlooked diamonds in the rough and program-first players who help set the tone and the culture, Illinois has pulled together a unique group that’s capable of pushing the program to heights it has not seen in decades. But while tonight is filled with Super Soakers and celebrations in Houston and Champaign, the internal drive of this team remains focused. 

“I think last thing I’ll say is I don’t want anybody to think that this is it,” Stojakovic said after the game with a load-bearing certainty in his voice. “We didn’t get to the Final Four just to get there. We’re coming to win two more games and we’ll take it one game at a time.”