Who will the US play in the knockout round of the World Cup?

By winning Group D, the United States has already booked a spot in the Round of 32 at the 2026 World Cup.

So who will they play in the knockout round?

That … is a complicated question. A complicated question that involves brackets, Annex C of the FIFA Rules and Regulations, a matrix, and 495 potential combinations of the eight third-place teams advancing out of group play and into the knockout round.

So, let’s try to answer that question the best we can, starting with the World Cup bracket itself.

The 2026 World Cup bracket

Let’s start here, with this World Cup bracket courtesy of USA Today.

If you look down to the bottom-left quadrant of this bracket, you will see where the United States will be slotted in when the Round of 32 is finalized. As the winners of Group D, they will slide into that “1D” spot, and play a third place team from Group B, E, F, I, or J.

With the expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams, the top two teams from each group advance to the Round of 32, plus the eight best third-place teams. More on that in a moment.

Who are the potential opponents for the US?

So, who might the United States see in the Round of 32?

Here are the teams in each potential group. For more on each group, you can visit the link, which takes you to the full standings and knockout-round scenarios for each of those groups.

As of publication, these are the third-place teams in each of those groups: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ecuador, Sweden, Senegal, and Jordan. However, only Ecuador and Sweden. However, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Senegal, and Jordan are not among the eight best third-place teams, so if the Round of 32 began today, the options for the United States would be down to Ecuador or Sweden. More on that in a second.

You can read more about the ranking of the third-place teams here, where we are updating the third-place standings after each match.

Prior to the World Cup, FIFA published Annex C to the FIFA Rules and Regulations, which outlines the 495 possible combinations for the third-place teams. That matrix, and those 495 possible combinations, dictate the matches involving the third-place teams.

At the time of publication, with Groups B, I, J, and L sitting at the bottom of the third-place standings, that combination is found in Annex C as combination 283. In that scenario, the United States would play … the third-place team from Group E.

Which right now is Ecuador.

Another good method of visualizing these combinations comes courtesy of Wikipedia.

So for the moment, the United States is set to take on Ecuador. But as the third-place standings shift, the combination will change, the matrix will be adjusted, and we will offer the updates accordingly.

In looking at the 495 possible combinations, it should be noted that 329 of those result in the United States playing Group B, 39 combinations result in the United States playing Group E, 11 combinations result in the United States playing Group F, 52 combinations result in the United States playing Group I, and 64 result in the United States playing Group J.

So it is no wonder that many believe that ultimately, the United States will play the third-place team from Group B, which could come down to the winner of Wednesday’s match between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Qatar.

Another way to look at the scenarios? According to the experts at Expecting Goals, there is a 60% chance that the United States plays Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Round of 32, and a 17% chance the United States plays Qatar:

Senegal and Ecuador round out the options, with Senegal at 6% and Ecuador at 4%.

We will know for sure in a few days.