Top five USMNT World Cup performances, from Howard to Balogun

The U.S. Men's National Team has appeared in 11 World Cups, producing moments that reshaped expectations and created lasting memories. Across generations there have been defining individual nights, and this list focuses on the five most memorable performances on football’s biggest stage.

Claudio Reyna’s showing in the 2002 quarterfinal loss to Germany stands out for the way he controlled midfield, earning the only American spot on that World Cup All-Star team. Nearly a century earlier, Bert Patenaude’s hat-trick against Paraguay in 1930 became the first in World Cup history, a fact FIFA confirmed decades later.

And in 2026, Folarin Balogun made history in his first World Cup game, scoring a brace against Paraguay in front of a sold-out crowd in Los Angeles to become the first American to score multiple goals in a World Cup match since Patenaude. Landon Donovan’s stoppage-time winner against Algeria in 2010 delivered a moment of high drama that many fans still recall, a defining instant in American World Cup memory.

United States, Los Angeles

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