Published June 16, 2026, 5:00 p.m. ET

The World Cup is a big deal every time it happens, but when you’re the home team, it’s an extra-big deal. U.S. Against the World: Four Years With the Men’s National Soccer Team, a new five-part documentary miniseries now streaming on HBO Max, follows the US Men’s National Team for the four years leading up to the 2026 Men’s World Cup in North America. We get a close look at the USMNT’s stars starting with their first-round knockout stage loss in Qatar and all the way up to this summer’s home-turf tournament.

US AGAINST THE WORLD: FOUR YEARS WITH THE MEN’S NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: A familiar device from sports documentaries: the key figures in the drama you’re about to see — in this case USMNT stars Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Tim Weah, Weston McKennie and others — posed in front of a stark black background, speaking seriously about the gravity of the challenge they face. It’s provocative! It gets the people going!

The Gist:  Did you know there’s a World Cup coming? The Shakira out front shoulda told you. Anyways, it’s true! The biggest quadrennial event in men’s soccer is mere months away, and it’s going to be played (mostly) in the United States (along with some early-round games in Canada and Mexico). The US hasn’t hosted the men’s World Cup since 1994, and there’s been a sea change in American soccer in 32 years. It’s no longer peripheral to the attention spans of American sports fans, and the expectations are higher than ever. The big question is: can the USMNT, a squad long seen as a potential sleeping giant, finally break through into the top tier of international teams? 

US Against the World, a new five-part documentary series on HBO Max, takes the long road toward addressing this question, one that won’t truly be answered until the team takes the pitch this summer. It’s a long build to each World Cup, though, and this series starts with the last one: the 2022 competition in Qatar, which saw the US make it out of the group stage only to lose in the first knockout round to the Netherlands. There’s long biographical segments with some of the team’s biggest starts — Tim Weah, Christian Pulisic, Weston McKinnie, Tyler Adams, and so on — and ample behind-the-scenes footage assembled over the past four years. 

There’s a lot of downtime and anticipation between World Cup years, but that doesn’t mean there’s no drama. One of the bigger plot points here is the 2024 dismissal of USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter and the hiring of Argentine skipper Mauricio Pochettino to replace him. 

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? I really struggle not to compare every HBO sports documentary I watch to Hard Knocks, but there’s a little bit of those vibes here. Perhaps closer is Drive to Survive, with its dramatic as-they-happened looks inside events that we mostly already know the outcome to. Of course, it could be the first season of Sunderland ‘Til I Die, which was meant to follow a team on its path to glory, but ended up watching them fail miserably. Only time will tell!

Our Take: The United States isn’t a country that wears an underdog suit comfortably. We’re at ease when we’re swaggering giants, and happy when that self-image is reflected in international competition by teams like USA basketball or the US Women’s National Team in soccer. Sure, the men’s hockey team stirred up some echoes of the Miracle on Ice at this year’s Winter Olympics, but at least there was a template there. 

The U.S. Men’s National Team has always felt awkwardly positioned, at least to me, a casual viewer and borderline soccer idiot. They’re decidedly an underdog when faced with the likes of France, Argentina or Brazil, but they’re weighted down by the seriousness of (somewhat unrealistic) expectations from their countrymen.

This tension is an undercurrent in US Against the World, right down to the title: there’s a compelling story here, but one that can be hard to truly buy into if you’re not a die-hard. If you are a die-hard, this series will be the perfect primer for this summer’s competition. If you’re looking for a reason to root for this team other than the stars and stripes on their kits, though, it might be harder to find here.

Performance Worth Watching: Access is the big story here: we’ve got all the big names, and they’ve all got ample screen time to let us know who they are. That’s an important part of every good sports documentary, and they check the box here.

Sex And Skin: None, but there is some language that’s unfortunate, considering the potential appeal of this to sports-obsessed younger viewers. 

Parting Shot: We end with the USMNT’s dramatic group-stage win over Iran in 2022, a hard-fought match that advanced the US to the knockout stage. Shots of big crowds celebrating in Times Square and in bars remind us what we could be in for if the boys can deliver this summer.

Sleeper Star: One of the most touching parts of the first episode is meeting Tyler Adams’ family: a single mom determined to give him a good life, and then the supportive step-dad who stepped up to help him achieve his dreams.

Most Pilot-y Line: “We want to change soccer in America forever,” Christian Pulisic states dramatically, “and there’s no better opportunity than a World Cup on home soil.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. The buzz leading up to this year’s World Cup has felt a bit muted to date, but it’s sure to pick up soon. US Against the World is a great way to get your Ibelievethatwewillwin juices flowing–and to get caught up on all the storylines leading up to it.

Scott Hines is a Louisville-based writer and publisher of the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter.