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The USMNT best World Cup performance came in 2002 when they reached the last eight and former striker Brian McBride says the Class of ‘26 have to at least match that.
McBride played in three World Cups for the USMNT - 1998, 2002 and 2006 - and believes that success this summer will come down to the players sticking together and playing as a team rather than relying on any individual.
“Getting to the quarter finals is success,” McBride exclusively told FourFourTwo. “Typically you say getting out of your group is classed as success but I think this time around the quarter finals, because you're at home, would be a success.
'USMNT need to reach quarter finals for World Cup to be a success'
“I think that the squad itself is extremely talented. But it's really going to come down to how much continuity they have and how they fight together and how they get through those hard, gritty periods of a World Cup. If they can do that and stick together and have the same goal, I think they'll do well.”
Much has been made of the form of AC Milan’s Christian Pulisic who had not scored a goal for club or country for five months before finding the back of the net against Senegal in last week’s 3-2 friendly win. Pochettino’s side followed that up with a narrow 2-1 defeat by Germany.
And McBride does not believe the pressure to perform should solely fall on Pulisic's shoulders and says that other players need to step up as well for the USMNT to have a successful World Cup.
McBride, who is now working as Director of Soccer at USL side Brooklyn FC, added: “At any World Cup you need high performing players. And if you don't have three or four high performing players, you're not going to be able to achieve the heights that you would.
“So definitely we need Christian to be at his best, but also we need Folarin (Balogun), and we need Weston (McKennie), and Chris Richards to all be at their best too.
“And then you fill in around with with guys that can make an impact, and you get some success.”
When McBride was playing up front for the USMNT the one thing he always knew is that there was a top class goalkeeper behind him - whether it be Kasey Keller, Brad Friedel or Tim Howard. But this time around he says there is not a keeper of that calibre in the squad.
There is healthy competition between New York City FC's Matt Freese, the New England Revolution's Matt Turner, the Chicago Fire's Chris Brady who are all vying for the No 1 shirt for the USMNT opener against Paraguay at the Los Angeles stadium on Friday.
Freese looks like he will get the nod from Pochettino, but whoever it is, McBride hopes they can emerge as a star this summer.
He said: “I think it's the first time we're going into a World Cup where we don't have a considered world-class goalkeeper. And that's not to say that the guys we have are bad.
“It's just more, there's more weakness with this goalkeeper pool. Whenever you go into a World Cup you hope that there's going to be two or three surprise players, and I hope one of them's a keeper because we're going to need it.
“We've seen it at every World Cup that we've done well in, our goalkeeper has saved us a few different times and I’m sure that will be the case this time as well.”
The last time the USA hosted the World Cup was 32 years ago in 1994, and the immediate impact of that tournament was the birth of MLS two years later.
This time around with MLS already established, it is projected there are 32 million new football fans in the USA alone and McBride is excited about what this World Cup can do to boost the sport.
The former Fulham and Everton striker added: “The biggest impact from the World Cup could be the corporate sponsorship. As soon as you have that sort of money coming in then things can change.
“If you look at the start of MLS in 1996, they had Mastercard and Snickers as sponsors, top Fortune 500 companies. That kind of influx of money allows teams to build infrastructure and to buy better players.
“For the United Soccer League (USL) to grow and keep getting better players an keep having a better product on the field that is what we need.”
