The USMNT in the March 2026 window once again finds itself facing questions about scope and strategy in advance of this summer’s World Cup. Like we saw in October and November, while the door may be all but closed on new players entering the conversation for spots on the World Cup roster, that doesn’t necessarily mean roles are set.
After a week of training in Atlanta, the USMNT opens its March friendly schedule against Belgium on the 28th and Portugal on the 31st. Both games are at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on TNT, and both carry a particular weight that only exists prior to the naming of the final roster scheduled for May 26. With the World Cup warmup games happening after the roster announcement, this is the last time for players to show not just why, but where they belong in the USMNT’s technical setup.
There’s also the missing piece of the USMNT’s World Cup puzzle waiting to be resolved over the March window. World Cup group D contains the USA, Paraguay, and Australia, with those three nations waiting to see what happens with Path C in UEFA’s World Cup qualifying playoff round. That plays out on March 26 and the 31, with either Turkey, Romania, Slovakia, or Kosovo advancing.
The knowns for the USMNT in March are simple, at least on the surface. Show that they can compete with two giants of UEFA, both of whom had few issues seeing their way through World Cup qualifying.
Belgium won UEFA Group J without dropping a point, which looks dominant until you consider that Wales, North Macedonia, Kazakhstan, and Liechtenstein were the competition. What qualifying told you about Belgium was less about results and more about the shape of a team working through a real transition.
The players who defined Belgium for a decade aren’t all gone, but the window has narrowed. Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku are back in this camp after injury and are still capable of changing a game. Jeremy Doku offers genuine speed. But Thibaut Courtois is out, and Leandro Trossard — one of Belgium’s most consistent contributors through qualifying — has pulled out with a hip issue.
Belgium coach Rudi Garcia has used this window to bring in three uncapped players under 21, which says something about where Belgium is in its own process. For the USMNT, the test isn’t whether Belgium’s names are as formidable as they once were. It’s whether this team can play through a disciplined European defensive structure against opponents who know how to stay in a game.
Portugal presents a different kind of problem. They won UEFA Group F, though not without a stumble — losing to Hungary before recovering and finishing on top. Roberto Martinez has built a squad that controls games through midfield and creates problems from multiple positions in attack.
Cristiano Ronaldo is out with a hamstring injury, and Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva have been rested for this camp. None of that fundamentally changes what Portugal does. They will have possession, they will be comfortable with it, and they will find the spaces when a defensive shape starts to crack.
The midfield combination of Bruno Fernandes, Joao Neves, and Vitinha is capable of controlling any game, and the options in attack mean the pressure doesn’t ease when the ball moves wide. Maintaining defensive organization for ninety minutes against a team that creates from everywhere is the challenge, and then finding moments to make Portugal defend.
Both games test something the USMNT needs to answer before the World Cup begins. Belgium will look to work transitions and exploit any inconsistency in the middle third. Portugal will try to control tempo and stretch the defense horizontally. These are recognizable problems for a team that will face a range of tactical approaches in group D this summer, and Atlanta is the environment to work through them with most of the first-choice group available. The opponents are running their own pre-tournament processes, which means neither game is a window into what Belgium or Portugal expects to do in June. The value for the USMNT is in the problem-solving, not the scoreline.
With the squad announcement less than two months away, March is the last window where the work still has selection stakes attached to it. What Pochettino sees in Atlanta is the clearest picture he’ll get of who these players are before making his roster decisions.
