Stats behind USMNT win vs. Paraguay signal deep World Cup run possible - ESPN

Here is a list of things: live television, color television, microwaves, radar, commercial air travel, ballpoint pens, the notion of a «tech company,» red cards, yellow cars, credit cards.… We could go on.

What do the random items on this list have in common? None of them existed the last time the U.S. men's national team looked that good at the World Cup.

Back then, Bert Patenaude was playing for the Fall River Marksmen, a team that was not actually located in Fall River because Massachusetts still had «blue laws,» which prevented soccer games from being played on Sundays. Instead, they played across the border in North Tiverton, Rhode Island. In 1930, Patenaude scored a hat trick in the USMNT's last three-goal win at a World Cup, in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Funny enough, it was against the same team it just happened to again on Friday, when the U.S. beat Paraguay, led by a pair of goals from Folarin Balogun.

Soccer beginner, former pro, AYSO mom, annoying person who was born in Ohio but insists on calling it «footy» — everyone could see it: the U.S. looked incredible in its 4-1 win against Paraguay to open the 2026 World Cup. But just in case you need a little context, that's roughly the equivalent of a 20-point win in the NBA or a 23-point win in the NFL.

Though it feels like a high-water marker in the century-long, always-fledgling history of the U.S. men's national team, how does it compare to other dominant wins in modern World Cup history? And more importantly, how much does one dominant World Cup win typically tell us about how far a team is likely to go?

For as ephemeral and complex as it might seem, there are really three main phases of soccer that both teams are battling to achieve: controlling territory,