The HBO Original five-part sports documentary series U.S. Against The World: Four Years With The Men’s National Soccer Team, produced by Park Stories, was surely created with the intent to unify fans with excitement heading into the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The reality is, there isn’t much to be excited about. The series should’ve served as a rallying cry to unite Americans and support the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT), and some may see it that way. In the end, seeing these guys lose consistently across four episodes doesn’t exactly whet my World Cup whistle.
The docuseries follows the USMNT in the lead-up to the 2026 FIFA World Cup next month. The biggest celebration of soccer football on the planet will be played across the USA, Canada, and Mexico. Filmed over the course of four years, we get insight from players like Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Tim Weah, Weston McKennie, Chris Richards, and more, as the curtain gets pulled back to reveal their lives off the pitch. The series is battling amongst a crowded pool of footy documentaries across platforms like Netflix and even Tubi.
The best part of the series is learning about the players’ personal lives. It does a fantastic job of humanizing the players, as people often lose sight of this online. Matt Turner, Folarin Balogun, and Diego Luna had interesting backstories, along with a few others, who included family members to share testimonies. At the end of the day, the players are human beings with families who have all made sacrifices to get to this point. Playing on a national team is the highest honor in world football, and all of the players echoed this fact. In essence, this creative play on words (U.S. Against The World, like “us” against the world) is great publicity for the individual players on the team. As for the team itself, this series is the last thing anyone being introduced to the game should ever see.
U.S. Against the World consists of five episodes, debuting on Tuesday, May 12 at 9:00 PM/ET, with subsequent episodes airing every Tuesday at the same time. The first episode premieres tomorrow (Tuesday) and has a glowing start. Titled “The Golden Generation,” players like Christian Pulisic and Tyler Adams address expectations and personal goals as they battle through the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Ultimately falling short of their goal (eliminated in the Round of 16), they earned the “Golden Generation” title because of their youth and the caliber of clubs they’re signed to. After their World Cup exit in 2022, they built hype with a pair of trophies under the Concacaf umbrella—the federation governing North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. The entire project goes downhill from there.
We go from the first episode, “The Golden Generation,” to “Not So Golden” (Episode 2), “You Have to Fight” (Episode 3), and “That is Football” (Episode 4). Notice the drop in enthusiasm from the first episode to the latter. The connotation of hope kicks off the series and falls off a cliff from then on. The losses on the pitch only fuel the drama that transpires off it. Two consecutive Concacaf Gold Cup losses, a Concacaf Nations League elimination, and an embarrassing Group Stage exit from the 2024 CONMEBOL Copa America were not commensurate with the title of “Golden Generation”. The cameras roll in the background of the locker room during all of these difficult losses, with one instance of a manager kicking the camera crew out. The losses are only half of the drama.
The series takes us through the replacement of manager Greg Berhalter, but doesn’t go deep into the reasoning. It tiptoes around his domestic abuse scandal and his relationship to the Reyna family, but it gave plenty of coverage behind the scenes of the USMNT veterans taking shots at Christian Pulisic. Arguably the face of the current national team, Pulisic made the bold decision to rest during a summer tournament, which drew ire from USMNT veterans. The craziest part? One of the loudest voices, Landon Donovan, took a four-month break during his playing career back in 2013.
Berhalter’s replacement, Mauricio Pochettino, in 2024, was supposed to bring fresh ideas and a new vision. What actually happened was that the team suffered even more losses. He had two years to implement his vision and tactics since he was hired, and what we’ve seen is an ever-changing roster of U.S. nationals and a handful of wins. After the Gold Cup loss in 2025, cautious hope was renewed after victories against Japan and Australia, but fans and supporters demanded more. The USMNT has a history of scheduling friendlies (exhibition matches) against smaller countries (like Australia), and that’s not going to help the players in the long run.
The team ended 2025 on a high note, beating Paraguay 2-1 and Uruguay 5-1. Both of those wins come with asterisks since both Paraguay and Uruguay had been issued red cards (meaning they were down a player in those matches). But the more telling results came in March of this year. In one way, the U.S. finally sought a real challenge in scheduling European competition. On the other hand, the overconfidence led to a pair of humbling losses (5-2 to Belgium, 2-0 to Portugal). Up next? Two friendlies: one against African Cup of Nations winners Senegal, and European giant Germany. Though these types of results are expected, they’re good for the team and for Pochettino. We need to see how the Americans stack up against the truly good teams to measure the gap in talent/fight between us and those who eat, live, and breathe this sport.
We need more games like this. Even though it’s painful, it’s the only way to prove, the only way to learn, the only way to see how top players and teams compete.”
USMNT manager Mauricio Pochettino after the 2-0 loss to Portugal on March 31, 2026.
The final episode is titled “26 Brothers”, with the series culminating with the final squad announcement for this year’s World Cup. The episode will air on Tuesday, June 9, two weeks after the World Cup Roster Reveal event by U.S. Soccer on Tuesday, May 26. Whether you’re new to the national team or a life-long fan, the best way to end the series is with the roster reveal. Over the course of five weeks, audiences will grow closer to a large swath of players who will be itching to make the cut. In that, the series does itself a favor in stirring excitement to see who will represent us next month. Some players are overcoming injuries, while others face personal challenges. Defender Tim Ream, for example, is fighting for a spot and fighting against Father Time. At 38 years old, he has the desire to play until he’s 40. He could do so in Major League Soccer, but how will a 40-year-old defender stack up against the speed of Miguel Almirón (Paraguay) or Arda Güler (Türkiye), two speedsters who will more than likely feature for their countries in the World Cup? After building an appreciation and respect for certain players across the series, audiences can become personally invested in the final roster announcement.
This series can be seen in one of two ways. The positive, which I’ve mentioned before, will result in new fans of various players and the desire to follow them into the World Cup (or their club teams). The negative would be turning off the masses with too much drama and so many losses. Because at the end of the day, who gets excited for a losing team? The USMNT has a chance to dispel the critics and naysayers and rise to the occasion. In theory, we should make it out of the Group Stage. I shudder to say “with ease” because of a past that has seen losses to Canada, Panama, and Trinidad & Tobago, when they looked like they should’ve been won with ease. Either way, as one of the three host nations competing in the most important World Cup in our lifetime (we’ve never had more Americans watching/interested in soccer football), anything less than a Round of 16 achievement would be perilous for the sport in this country.
U.S. Against The World: Four Years With The Men’s National Soccer Team gets a 7.5 out of 10. You can see the dynamics of the team change once Berhalter is out and Poch is in. This is summed up by Tim Ream, commenting about “the most intense two-hour training session” he experienced. Though the series is unrated, I would say it’s “TV-14” because of the amount of foul language used. Personally, learning about the dual nationals was the most interesting part of the series. Folarin Balogun, Yunus Musah, and Antonee Robinson all shared their football journeys and why they chose to represent the USA. Here’s your fair warning: there’s a lot of heartbreak (losses) in this bad boy. Like a romance drama that stings to the core, the mounting disappointment that some of you will face may roll into your workdays and leisure time. But you can’t say I didn’t warn you.
U.S. Against the World premieres tomorrow, Tuesday, May 12, at 9:00 PM/ET on HBO and streams on Max.
-Jon Jones
Photos: Courtesy of HBO
Genre: Sports Documentary
Rating: N/A
Runtime: 5 Episodes | 58 mins.
Trailer: Watch
U.S. Release Date: May 12, 2026