USA v Bosnia and Herzegovina: World Cup 2026 last 32 - live

Key events

Alexander Abnos

Hello from San Francisco Bay Area Stadium, where as you might expect an extremely pro-USA crowd is filing in. There are certainly more than enough Bosnia and Herzegovina fans here to make some noise should they give them a reason. It’s a beautiful day, sunny and cool in that special Bay Area way (unless you’re in the famously hot upper decks here).

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Pre-pregame email …

“Hi Beau! I am very excited because I think it’s a very cool match-up - I cannot imagine two countries that are more different, except in soccer where I think they’re very evenly matched. Though I base this opinion mostly on Bosnia’s elimination of Italy in the qualifiers. Is Bosnia that good or was Italy just very bad? Well we’ll find out very soon, won’t we!” – Vlado

“Balogun is the best reason to keep the 14th amendment (birthright citizenship) as it is. If the Mad King had his way, Balogun would be playing for England.” – Mary Waltz

Maybe then they could beat Mexico.

“When the stadium announcer said, ‘Here is Team USA!’ with all the music and everybody cheered, only the starting 10 came out. (The 3 goalkeepers were already warming up). The whole Bosnia team came out together. After several minutes the USA subs came out and warmed up together, but they were not announced and nobody cheered. The USMNT has historically had a problem with team cohesion, and the decision to bring out only the starters when announcing the team seems like an easy way to create a division within the team that doesn’t need to be there.” – Kathryn Cehrs

“When isn’t a World Cup knock-out match considered a ‘must-win’ game? They all are, or else your tournament is over. But NOW, as the co-hosts with the most (matches), USA surely has to match the progress of on-form Mexico as well as Canada, or else the team and USSF will have egg all over their collective faces. On top of that, should USA fail to get past the Bosnians tonight, Jesse Marsch will become a total monster! (Well, an even bigger monster in the eyes of the USSF and its friends than he already is.) They have the talent to win, but can the USA handle the psychological pressure? I hope so.” – Jason Elliott

Should the USA reach the quarterfinals, I’d argue the “must” factor drops steadily. No one is going to complain if this team go out gracefully against a Spain or a France. This one? There’ll be questions.

“If it were either Bosnia or Herzegovina I would pick an easy US win. Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the other hand, might not be so straightforward. Did you hear the one about the US fans who wanted to bang drums, blare death metal and honk horns outside the Bosnians’ hotel, but couldn’t find it on the map?” – Peter Oh

Funny how “Bosnia and Herzegovina” gets truncated to “Bosnia,” “Trinidad and Tobago” is “Trinidad,” but “William and Mary” is never just “William.”

I’m thinking of a different way to shorten the country name, but “B and H” seems flippant. Maybe I’ll just go with their country code “BIH.” The “I” actually stands for “and” in the country’s local languages.

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The pregame show on Fox Sports 1, which is distinct from the pregame show on Fox, is hyping this as a can’t-lose game for the USA.

Dax McCarty, who has a serious playing resume, is reminding his chest-puffing co-host that Paraguay beat Germany.

Question: Do the USA play better when they’re not expected to win? England 1950, Colombia 1994, Portugal 2002, Mexico 2002, Italy 2006, Spain 2009, England 2010, Belgium 2014 (even in defeat), England 2022. When they are expected to win? Iran 1998. Poland 2002. Trinidad and Tobago 2017. Panama, Panama and Panama.

Or do they just have England’s number? Good news if they face off in the final.

(What? The USA would have to go through Spain and France, and England would have to go through Mexico and Argentina? Never mind.)

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This evening’s officials …

Referee: Raphael Claus (Brazil). ARs also from Brazil; fourth and reserve officials from Uruguay.

VAR: Juan Soto (Venezuela), with Nicolas Gallo (Colombia) and Jerome Brisard (France).

(Saying “evening” because it’s a 5 pm kickoff in Santa Clara, Calif., known in soccer circles mostly as the destination of the two protagonists in Bend It Like Beckham, the breakthrough film on women’s soccer that … hasn’t aged well?)

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Lineups

No surprise whatsoever for the co-hosts …

USA: Freese; Ream, Richards, Freeman; Robinson, Dest; Tillman, McKennie, Adams, Pulisic; Balogun

Fotmob calls it a 3-4-2-1, with Pulisic and McKennie as twin attacking mids.

Wait …

3-4-2-1? …

IT’S A THREE-SIX-ONE!! (Cue nightmare flashbacks of 1998.)

But honestly, the difference between a 3-4-3 and a 5-4-1 is how well a team is controlling the ball. It might be a mistake, though, to let Robinson spend too much time forward and leave Ream vulnerable. The US captain didn’t look comfortable when he had to leave his comfort zone alongside Richards in central defense and go out to the wings.)

FWIW, Fotmob says Bosnia also will be in a 3-4-2-1. No one believes they’ll play with that many players forward. But we’ll list them that way for now.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Vasilj; Muharemovic, Radeljić, Katić; Kolašinac, Bašić, Gigovic, Dedić; Alajbegović, Demirović; Džeko

Dedić started the first two games but was out injured for the win over Qatar. Muharemovic returns from a red-card suspension.

But the surprise is Gigovic, the former Swedish international now with Young Boys in Switzerland. He played 61 minutes in the tie with Canada and hadn’t appeared since then. Šunjić, a former Croatian international, makes way.

There’s no place for Wisconsin-born Esmir Bajraktarević. Not yet, anyway.

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And it’s done.

That’s a result that just goes to show how brutal the fates can be. There’s no such thing as karma in soccer. The most impressive team over 90 minutes doesn’t always win. One save or one deflection can make one manager an idiot or a genius.

So the pundits who are already drawing up their previews of the USA’s Round of 16 game might want to cool their jets.

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We pause now for the denouement of Belgium-Senegal.

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Familiar face

For many years, Wisconsin-born Esmir Bajraktarević was part of the US soccer pipeline. He played for youth national teams. He worked his way up through the youth ranks at the New England Revolution and overlapped just slightly with US goalkeeper Matt Turner.

But Bajraktarević was the child of Bosnian refugees. One of his heroes was Edin Džeko, the Sarajevo-born player who distinguished himself at Manchester City, Wolfsburg and Roma.

At age 40, Džeko is still on the team. At age 21, so is Bajraktarević, who converted the winning shot in the penalty shootout that sent his country to the World Cup ahead of Italy.

Jeff Rueter writes:

double quotation markHe didn’t miss, slotting his attempt just underneath Donnarumma’s gloves as the keeper dove to his left. Bajraktarević peeled off to the corner flag and held his Bosnia aloft for the home supporters to admire: Zmajevi were back in the World Cup at Italy’s expense.

That sort of fearlessness in the big moment, coupled with experience scuppering a 2026 World Cup co-host’s home-field advantage, makes Bajraktarević and his team a compelling first knockout adversary. for the US.

And he has had an impact in this Cup. Jeff notes:

double quotation markBajraktarević started against Canada and Qatar and came off the bench against the Swiss, logging 214 minutes (including stoppage time) and operating as a recipient for progressive passes. Only Ivan Bašić has played more passes into the box than Bajraktarević’s five for Bosnia and Herzegovina, per Futi, while his 70 attacking-third touches trail his opposite winger, Kerim Alajbegović.

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Preamble

Welcome to one of the biggest games in US men’s history.

Such sentiments are often overstated. But this game will have one of two possible outcomes ...

1. A third win in the same World Cup for the first time in US men’s history. Even the semifinalists of 1930 only won twice. The win would be validation that the team’s start to the tournament was no outlier – though seeing Paraguay knock out Germany just three games after the US ran riot over the South American side provides ample demonstration that this US team should officially be rated “not bad.”

2. A national deflating.

Should the USA win and then lose to Senegal ... wait, what just happened? Oh. Should the USA win and then lose to Senegal or Belgium, that would be yet another in a succession of losses in the round of 16, but again -- they would have won three games and would probably stake a claim as one of the better teams to miss out on the quarterfinals. A loss to Bosnia and Herzegovina would be less palatable among US sport fandom.

Which may be unfair, because this is absolutely the biggest game in the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Until this year, the only points the young nation had managed in the World Cup final tournament were in a dead-ish rubber against Iran in 2014. In theory, Iran could’ve wiped out the World Cup debutants and advanced past Nigeria on goal difference, but the Iranian team put up little resistance and collapsed to a 3-1 defeat.

Last year, Bosnia and Herzegovina put up a credible performance in group-stage qualifying, finishing second behind Austria. Then they won two nail-biting affairs in the European playoffs, eliminating Wales on penalties after a late goal from grizzled veteran Edin Džeko, then shocking Italy on penalties after another second-half equalizer.

Then in their return to the Big Dance after 12 years away, Bosnia and Herzegovina stunned co-host Canada with a first-half goal and held on for an impressive draw. Switzerland picked them apart, but they advanced with a solid 3-1 smackdown over Qatar.

And Bosnia and Herzegovina absolutely will not be intimidated. Nor should they. This is a country that endured the horrors of the years of war that followed the collapse of Yugoslavia. Some of the players are the children of refugees from that conflict.

They also happen to have a lot of players who’ve been through pressure cookers in European football, along with some tantalizing prospects.

The USA will be playing to shed the tag of underachievers that has dogged the so-called “golden generation” ever since the failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Bosnia and Herzegovina will be playing for a long-awaited breakthrough on the international scene.

On paper, perhaps this is a game that favors the USA. Ask England if being favored on paper meant the game was easy. Or ask Germany if such a designation kept them from being swept out of this Cup.

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Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from Graham Ruthven’s daily World Cup watch guide about this matchup:

What to watch for

Pochettino’s decision to rest most of his first-choice players for the USA’s dead-rubber group finale against Turkey will have paid dividends if the co-hosts are able to keep up the intensity of their play against a Bosnia and Herzegovina team who will sit deep and ask to be broken down.

Bosnia and Herzegovina embrace the slog. They made it to this World Cup by winning back-to-back penalty shootouts against Wales and Italy and will attempt to make the USA’s life a misery in Santa Clara by closing space between the lines, staying compact at the back and playing for set pieces.

Player to watch: Christian Pulisic, USA – The Milan winger made his return from injury against Turkey and could be in line to start this match. Pulisic’s direct running and one-v-one ability could be critical to breaking down the Bosnia and Herzegovina backline.

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