Brazil’s Aura, Scotland’s Return, and the U.S. Group D Test: Cup of Cups Preview 06/05/26

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2:12Roger Bennett:It does feel as though to kind of reassert himself as being the standard bearer of the prince who was promised. He maybe needs to play that role for the US in this tournament. it feels like it might be a defining moment in how we perceive Pulisic. I'm not sure how much pressure there will be to play Neymar every minute of every game, but I agree with you, it does create a burden for Ancelotti. If anyone can deal with the burden, it's Carlo Ancelotti. He's a real advert for the Mediterranean diet, Scott McTominay. That's the first and most important thing. That man is living until he's 103.

2:44Welcome to our Cup of Cup preview pod. every team, every nation in this Shaq-sized tournament is dreaming the American dream. And to break it all down, I'm joined by the remarkable Rory Smith.

2:56Roger Bennett:How are you doing, Rog? We are going to break down Group C and D, like a Terry's chocolate orange, one piece at a time, and then all at once. We're going to talk about Mauricio Pochettino and his US side tactics, players, maybe even the lemons, and the laptop. We'll also ask whether Carlo Ancelotti packed enough chewing gum to take Brazil deep into this tournament. We'll get into our players to watch the boldest predictions a little later. You ready for all of this, Rob? Just about, Rog, just about. We'll find out. Let's open with your World Cup winners, 2026 in Fox promos. The United States who kick off Group D, D for dented dreams.

3:35We face clean sheet obsessives, Paraguay, low block passionistas, Australia and in their stealth, sneaky good Turkey. This is not the sexiest group,

3:44Roger Bennett:but it might be the most balanced group in there, Rul. Yeah, there's no really weak team, I think. As you say, Paraguay and Australia aren't like sexy, exciting, glamorous names necessarily, but they're solid, they've got pedigree, they will know what they're doing. And then in Turkey, you have the eternal dark horse of every World Cup since 2002. You're not telling us what we want to hear from the top. I will say, when the draw went down in December, we US fans lost our minds. we were like bring this on but then we saw footage of every other team in the other three nations looking at America not getting Brazil or France or England and they felt exactly the same about us they will see it as like a manageable seed because if you run into Spain or France or maybe even England then you kind of have to write one of those games off whereas with the US like you say it is more balanced but that works both ways Rog so I was in Boston with you for the draw and the US fans when they got Australia and Paraguay There was a degree of confidence there.

4:44Roger Bennett:Turkey's a little bit different than that came later. I don't think that confidence is completely misplaced. Let's dig deeper. Today's episode is presented by our good friends at Camarena Tequila. Wherever you enjoy the beautiful game, be sure to kick off with Camarena. Let's dive in like an autopsy as if we're on CSI Raw. First and foremost, the USA hosts with the most. Most doing a little bit of heavy lifting. I adore this team. When I first saw them swagger onto the field in that stonewashed denim kit in 1994, it felt like we were on an inextricable rise. No one could stop us to becoming a real world force.

5:19But then we failed to qualify for the 2018 tournament. It felt like the connection to the fan base was severed and the United States fans had permission to become Liverpool fans or Arsenal fans or Barcelona fans with all of that passion. And it wasn't just the default to the US team. So it's now up to this US team to make enough noise to reweave themselves into the hearts of the nation. In our US soccer bubble, we often have an outsized perception of our own importance. So level set with us, Roar, from a distance, objectively, outside. What's our weight class as you see us from a European POV?

5:52Roger Bennett:It's interesting. I think in terms of the players in Pochettino's squad, if you compare that to everyone except the main contenders to actually win the tournament, it's pretty solid to be honest look at the teams they're playing for the calibre of games they're playing it's fine good, solid, dependable middle class tell the people what they want to hear people want to hear their middle class that's all it is no I think that if you go through the team there is that sense of you've got Champions League experience you've got experience in most of Europe's major leagues and I don't want to sound Eurocentric but that matters you need to have players who are exposed to the cutting edge of the club game and the US do I think the problem might be that it might not look like that from inside the US.

6:37We only have two gears here. Why are we hosting the tournament? Give us the trophy now and just catastrophizing as if we're Arsenal fans. Look, I just taped an interview with the greatest who ever do it here, Clint Dempsey, and he agreed this squad player for player is the best we've ever assembled in terms of club accomplishments. Four players from the Premier League, three from the Bundesliga. Silverware means something. We've got Chris Richards, European champion. We've got Sergino Dest and Ricardo Pepe. Just won back-to-back Era Divisie titles with PSV in the Netherlands. But our team revolves in our imagination and in reality around the mood of one man.

7:13It's Christian Pulisic, the prince who was promised. And our man has had a very, very bipolar year. Touching the heavens in that first half of the season. 10 goals in 21 games for AC Milan. Named Serie A player of the month. making us all dream. And then the second half, don't like to speak bad vibes into the world, but no goals for his club in 2026, a barren 19-game darkness. But then Sunday against Senegal, sun shone down on Charlotte, an assist, a roar, and then a goal. And Pulisic was able to say post-game, hopefully people will stop asking me about the drought now. Again, roar, objectively.

7:55You know, Christian Pulisic, there was an outcry from the United States when he wasn't named in the Guardian as one of the 100 best players in the world. He is a confidence player who needs to be loved to soar. Lay it on us. Honestly, not too honestly, but tell us how you see him.

8:09Roger Bennett:Placing him outside the top 100 in the world is probably fair, Rog. There's lots of good footballers in the world. Imagine being like the 107th best at anything. That's amazing. But the thing with Pulisic for me, there's an American player who has been in Europe for, I mean, getting on for 10 years now at some of the biggest clubs in the world, Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea, and now AC Milan. And yet it feels disappointing that he's not the star at AC Milan. He's not the only star at AC Milan. He's an American creative player playing for AC Milan. That is a measure of the progress, that it feels kind of normal and in a way a little bit disappointing that Pulisic is only at AC Milan rather than Manchester City or Arsenal or wherever.

8:50Roger Bennett:But I'd be lying if I said that in the last couple of years, he hasn't faded slightly from view, partly for being in Italy, partly because his form has been a little bit up and down. It does feel as though to kind of reassert himself as being the standard bearer of the prince who was promised. He maybe needs to kind of play that role for the US in this tournament. It feels like it might be a defining moment in how we perceive Pulisic this tournament. And his legacy one way or another. Essentially what you've just told me is in the list of 100 top Americans in football today, Christian Pulisic will be right up there.

9:24Roger Bennett:He is the one that people expect the most of, and that is an opportunity, but it's also a pressure. I totally agree with you. I do believe this World Cup, one way or another, will be Christian Pulisic's legacy tournament. Let's talk about another massive figure. Mauricio Pochettino arrived with fanfare in October 2024. Six million dollar salary announced in the media storm by US soccer as an eternal winner, which is a little bit hyperbolic, But he seemed to be, for us, the guy who'd taken a very young, raw Tottenham team, forged them into a hard-running collective, an overachieving culture. Exactly what it felt we needed, fight for him, grinter.

10:02And the US has played 25 matches under Poch, won 15, drawn one, lost nine, including the Gold Cup final defeat to Mexico. More than anything, whenever we play a European team, this is a crazy stat, eight games straight, we have played and we have lost. I say Potch, knowing him quite well, liking him, he seemed pretty distant while he's been here. He's kept American journalists very much Heisman at arm's length, giving us assurances of trust the process and sprinkling random soundbites from Miracle on Ice. Why not us? I know Potch has been meeting with the English journalists while he's been here and off the record, been pretty candid about how unimpressed he is with many facets of American soccer culture.

10:44Also met with Milan already, trying to line up his next role. But Ruhr, win four or five games in this World Cup and he'll be seen as a king. What's your take on the Poch American Odyssey from a Fock?

10:54Roger Bennett:That's the gamble he took when he took the job was. It felt like a coup for the US and maybe not a step down for Pochettino, but like a slightly left field move. And his calculation was, if you can get the US to the round of 16, to the quarterfinals, as much as it becomes like a legacy tournament for Pulisic, it kind of redefines Pochettino as well. that it turns him into this, the guy who made the World Cup work in the US. And that does bring with it commercial opportunities, Rog. And like all of us, Maurizio Pochettino's thinking about his commercial opportunities. Camarena. I think it has been a mixed couple of years for Pochettino.

11:29Roger Bennett:He would say, I suppose, that he's very rarely had his full strength squad available, that he's had to kind of get to know different sets of players to work out his options, to kind of formulate his ideas. But it does all sort of have to come together now. Or the risk is that it kind of works against him. So it's not the World Cup that he made work. He's the man who gets the blame for the US disappointing on home soil. And very different commercial opportunities. Got to say, World Cups are strange beasts, particularly on home turf. Teams can gel. They can find a sense of destiny in tournament, in group play.

12:03We don't know how good this US team are. Keep getting asked on every show I'm on, how good are we? The honest truth is, because we qualified as hosts, all we've been playing are friendly, friendly, friendly. It's like trying to judge an NFL team after just pre-season exhibition games. You saw South Korea on home turf and a little bit of referee assistance go all the way to the semifinal. Last World Cup, Morocco, the Cinderella run. Can you make the case, looking at our squad, looking at our reality, in Potch's words, Roar, why not us?

12:36Roger Bennett:Let's take it stage by stage. You can absolutely make the case the US get out of the group. That's not a problem. It's a decent draw for getting out of the group. It's really hard after that because of the structure of the tournament to figure out when anyone will play, who they'll play, where it will be. We have no idea. It will depend a lot on the run. But you're right. In tournaments, teams do kind of get a little bit of magic or they get a bit of momentum. And that changes the way we see them. Pochettino will be backing himself that at almost the last minute he can craft this into a proper team that can go deep.

13:08Roger Bennett:I don't think they can win the World Cup. But I'm very sorry. Every single World Cup, there is a team that comes out of the group and suddenly kind of surges. It is possible that's the US. Rory's bedside manner is terrible. But I will say for more, breaking down every single position on this US team, we created an in-depth preview with the great Clint Dempsey. Go and find that now. One more truth, the US men's national team opened up against Paraguay at SoFi in Los Angeles, June 12th. Paraguay, a football mad nation in their own right. 7 million people, 1 ,700 local clubs spread across 163 leagues.

13:46On the map, Paraguay sandwiched in between footballing powerhouses, Brazil and Argentina. A bit like being a slightly bookish middle child in a Kachuk family. But La Abiroja refuses to be bullied. Paraguay like to believe it punches up, not down. They have an Argentine coach, Gustavo Alfaro. They've notched historic victories against both Brazil and Argentina in the World Cup qualifiers. They're defensively organised. They're combative. Essentially, when you watch them, it's like watching a team of terriers. And our old friend and Dragon Ball Z obsessive, Miguel Almiron, now of Atlanta United.

14:20They're game-changer. They have 22-year-old attacking midfielder Julio Enciso, shown for Brighton in the Premier League before being snapped up by Bluco. and parked at Strasbourg. They're physical, they're intense. This game rule, is it a trap game, as we call it here, for the US to open with?

14:36Roger Bennett:It's a really pressurised occasion, Roger, because it's the opener, and you need to get off to a good start. Even with that kind of backdoor entry to the knockouts through finishing third, you need a decent start. And particularly for the US, I think they need a win to energise the nation, don't they, to kind of illuminate the tournament, to make sure that everyone kind of sees, okay, this is, the World Cup has started. Paraguay aren't ideal for that. They do have, as you say, in N.C.s and Almiron, they've got quality. In Alderete from Sunderland, they've got defensive kind of naus and stability.

15:05Roger Bennett:They're not a pushover by any stretch of the imagination, but they're also not Brazil. They're not Spain. They're not the Netherlands. It's a game that the US can win. And on home soil, an opener against Paraguay, you kind of need to deliver at that point, I think.

15:24Australia share for me so many parallels with the United States both former British colonies barbecue is a religious institution and sporting interest for our friends down under soccer ranks fourth most popular sport fighting against Aussie rules tennis rugby we're third here according to The Economist but the Socceroos been a World Cup fixture for the last 20 years made their debut Germany 74 wasn't until 2006, they actually scored the goal. Of course, it was Everton legend Timmy Cahill seizing the moment, propelled the Socceroos into the round of 16, where they succumbed eventually to winners.

16:02Italy, but how the turntables. Australia went on to qualify for each of the successive World Cups. Italy has failed 2B at the last three tournaments, and incredibly, Tullington are defecting down under. Christian Volparto, Sydney-born 22-year-old attacking midfielder for Italian side. Sassuolo has been included in this squad days after he turned up and said, I'm willing to change my identity from Italian to Australian. Benvenuto, as they say in Australia. He's joined, would you say, a workmanlike squad where all no Premier League stars, a lot of domestic A-League talent, three MLS players, but they are a fierce collector.

16:38The manager, Tony Popovich, known as Popper. He's missionary position. He's absorbed the pressure. He's counter. It's unglamorous football, but we should never underestimate There's an Australian phrase I love here, Ro. We're not here to F spiders.

16:52Roger Bennett:Yeah, which says a lot about the Australian mindset, the number of things that are trying to kill you at any point in Australia. Aren't we all here just to F spiders at the end of the day? As much as the quality of the player maybe has changed a bit, you never have any doubt about the Australian mentality. You know exactly what they will do when they turn up in any sport. As a British person, Rog, I know that's my cost, that they want to win. They will do anything they can to win, including messing them out with cricket balls. They have that elite sporting mentality, even if they don't necessarily have the most kind of exclusive level of talent at the moment.

17:21Roger Bennett:I think the parallel with the US is really good. If you look at the Australian team, say in 2006, you had this core of Premier League players, not just kind of jobbing workmen like industrious Premier League players, but really high quality Premier League players. They aren't there anymore. And I think from a US point of view, you almost have to take a little bit of credit that they've been able to kick on in their player development in a way that hasn't really happened in Australia. So yeah, I don't think they are going to be the most exciting team in the World Cup, the Aussies. I don't think that they're going to be a powerhouse as they threatened to be for a little while when Cahill and Veduta and Schwarzer were there.

17:56Roger Bennett:But they'll be difficult to beat because it's Australia and they don't like losing. It's so true. It's not about winning. It's just hating losing. And winning at the end of the day only so you have an excuse to smash the lagers, which should never be underestimated. final team to qualify were through the playoffs but are perhaps I mean almost certainly the true quality of the group Turkey have made it to the World Cup for the first time in 24 years an agonising run perhaps the most underperforming side in Europe in that period despite being Europe's second most populous country the dark horse reputation began to fade Euro 2024 they made it to the quarter finals under Italian manager Vincenzo Montella on the field they're part lit up by one man 21 year old attacking midfielder Arda Goulair, day job, providing the assist for Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius at Real Madrid.

18:46Goulair became the youngest player to score on his debut in the Euros record, formerly held by one Cristiano Ronaldo. You might have heard of him. He's the key for Turkey to break down the low blocks they're going to face en masse in this group. Rour, tell me what he represents for this nation as a generational talent actually born and developed in Turkey.

19:04Roger Bennett:That's the big thing that for a long time Turkey's been really reliant on its diaspora community to produce really high quality players. You have Ken Anjildiz, the Juventus midfielder, who was the other big creative hope born in Germany. That's been typical of Turkey for a long, long time, that despite the population, despite the talent in Turkey, they haven't had the, I guess, the organisation of the major teams to produce that talent. Arda is a suggestion that that is changing. He's a playmaker at Real Madrid in his early 20s. That shows you the quality that he has. This has felt like his coming of age season, really, at Real, despite the fact they didn't win the leader, they didn't win the Champions League.

19:38Roger Bennett:so it's been a massive failure. He has been the success. And I think he'll go into this tournament as Turkey's creative hub. But crucially, as just one of several really high quality players, Turkey coming through the playoffs was kind of false, to be honest, Rog. They're in the same group as Spain. They lost out in those head-to-heads and that's why they were there. They're a really good team. This is a Turkey side that deserves to be thought of as a dark horse, despite the fact that whenever you describe Turkey as a dark horse, they inevitably let you down. This time, I feel confident in saying it.

20:09Roger Bennett:There's quality throughout. There's loads of experience. And in Yildiz, and particularly in Arda, there's all this talent. They won't just be good. I think they'll be really good to watch. I mean, the way they play with Yildiz and Goulair as inside forwards, the overlapping runs from the fullbacks. Is this Turkey team the one that is going to score buckets and also concede buckets in this tournament? I don't even know if they'll concede buckets, to be honest. As you say, the challenge will be, how do they perform against teams that will just sit in against them, particularly Australia and Paraguay.

20:37Roger Bennett:I'm not sure the US can do that because they're at home. I think the US might have to be a little bit more forthcoming in their attacking endeavours. But the Aussies and the Paraguayans will just sit there and challenge Turkey to break them down. If you look at the squad they've got, they've got so many ways of hurting you. They've got so many high-quality players. They've got so many creative players in so many positions. I think they could go really far, Turkey. They have enough players to get through most problems. I don't like this part of the conversation, so I'm going to draw a line under it.