USMNT's World Cup draw avoids doomsday scenario, but Americans face tough test at Qatar 2022

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The United States men's national team didn't get the toughest assignment for the World Cup, but it's not easy.

The U.S. is in a group with England, Iran, and the winner of the playoff in Europe, which means Wales will play the winner of the semifinal between Scotland and Ukraine. Is the draw worse for the U.S.? Definitely. One could argue that the U.S. has one of the tougher groups if Wales gets through.

Group B has more depth of competition than any other group, even though Group E and G have higher average ELO scores. Iran is the lowest-ranked team in the group, according to the rankings, which should be taken with a grain of salt. The fourth-ranked team in the group has a worse ranking.

Things should be simpler if Wales doesn't get through. The ongoing war will make the Ukrainian team play with an immense amount of emotional motivation. That will present a special kind of challenge.

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The excitement of qualification earlier in the week and knowing at least most of his team's opponents was the main emotion for the U.S. manager.

It was great to have England in our group, they always have a lot of attention around them.

Iran is a difficult opponent given they finished first in their group of qualification in Asia, scored a lot of goals, and then the unknown of Scotland, Wales. Scotland and Wales are similar in how they approach the game. It is completely different with Ukraine. There are some challenges but they are positive. We are looking forward to it.

There is more than one history to consider. Iran is perfectly capable of winning such a match. Iran has reached the semifinals of the Asian Cup as recently as 2019.

Berhalter is a little worried that the public or the media will take Iran lightly. It will be a good opponent.

Even though the U.S. has historically given the English all it could handle, the English will be the favorites to progress. England have a considerable talent edge over the U.S. players in terms of club teams for which they play. Berhalter provided a rundown of England's incredible depth at right-back to show how much quality the Three Lions have. That isn't a guarantee of anything, as the U.S proved at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa when it held England to a 1-1 draw and topped the group via the goals-scored tiebreaker.

The U.S. attacker said there had been a few conversations with his teammates at the English club, but that wouldn't provide any extra motivation for the match.

The World Cup match for our country is all we need, no matter who it is against. I am not going to be thinking about that. Either way, it will be a good test. We are going to give it our all and hopefully we will be on the right side of that.

Should the U.S. finish second in Group B, they will face the winner of Group A. If the U.S. can repeat its feat from 2010 and top the group, it will face a tough match against one of the hosts, with its superstars Sadio Mane, Edouard Mendy and Kalidou Koulibaly. Getting past any of those teams and reaching the quarterfinals would be a great achievement.

That is getting ahead of us. The U.S. will play on the opening day of the tournament, which complicates the team's preparations. The pre-tournament camp in Dubai had to be scrapped because teams need to be in Qatar five days ahead of their first game, and players will only be released a week prior to the start of the World Cup.

The U.S. will need to make the most of the two remaining international windows in June and September. In June, the U.S. has two games in the Nations League, and Berhalter said he would bring in his full team.

He said that guys need to be available for the Nations League if they want to compete in the World Cup.

Weston will be back in full training with the club by the end of April after breaking his foot. He is hoping that some club games will get him ready for the Nations League.

The U.S. is trying to line up teams that are outside of its comfort zone in order to match up with its group-stage opponents.

It is not an exact science, but it will help. I think we are familiar with the body types.

Berhalter has eight months to fine-tune his team. The start of the tournament has begun with the draw complete.