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After Mexico and Canada have already had their turn, the United States of America will round out a run of opening ceremonies for the 2026 World Cup as they host Paraguay in the Los Angeles area.
The first game of Group D is a throwback to the very first World Cup: the United States ran out 3-0 winners over Paraguay in the group stage in 1930, thanks to Bert Patenaude scoring the first hat-trick in the history of the competition...officially, anyway.
Not that we expect that to have any bearing on this game, of course. So what can we expect?
USA vs Paraguay prediction
The US of course didn't have to go through qualifying thanks to their status as co-hosts, instead playing a series of friendlies to extremely mixed results.
Mauricio Pochettino's side reached the CONCACAF Gold Cup final last summer before losing to Mexico, and have since veered wildly between results like beating Uruguay 5-1 last November, to getting trounced 5-2 at home to Belgium in March.
Pochettino's fluid 3-4-3 will look to Antone Robinson and Sergino Dest to provide the width.
Weston McKinnie has quietly become the pace-setter for the US playing to the right of Folarin Balogun.
But a lot of the creative and goalscoring impetus is likely to fall on the shoulders of Christian Pulisic, who is given something close to a free role playing off the left of the front three.
Paraguay have meanwhile had a bit of a tumultuous few years: a manager sacked, a terrible start to qualifying, and the embarrassment a group stage exit in 2024's Copa America.
But Paraguay overcame all that after poaching Gustavo Alfaro from Costa Rica, beating the likes of Brazil, Uruguay and even reigning world champions Argentina to ultimately ease to automatic qualification. They remain a very low-scoring side - just 14 in 18 in qualifying - but their defensive solidity has been a real hallmark of their more recent form.
One fly in the ointment: these sides actually met in a friendly less than eight months ago, with the United States running out 2-1 winners.
The one asterisk on that is that Paraguay played the entire second half with ten men after Omar Alderete was sent off.
Nonetheless, the US are slight favourites in this one, and with a home crowd behind them, we're going to agree.
- Score prediction: United States 1-0 Paraguay
