Reyna and Ream embrace opportunity over pressure as USA face Bosnia in World Cup last 32

The United States face the most consequential match in recent memory when they meet Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32 at San Francisco Bay Area Stadium on Wednesday, with a place in the last 16 — and a potential clash with Belgium or Senegal in Seattle on July 6 — on the line.

Despite the enormous stakes, the American players have consciously chosen to frame the contest as an opportunity rather than a burden. “I think everybody knows what this game is,” midfielder Gio Reyna said before the U.S. delegation flew from Orange County to San Jose on Monday. “World Cups only come around every four years and, especially on home soil, this opportunity will really never come back.”

The pressure is real enough. Losing at home, with arguably the most talented U.S. squad ever assembled, after winning their group comfortably, would represent a historic low — worse, many argue, than the 2017 defeat in Trinidad and Tobago that kept the United States out of the 2018 World Cup entirely. The Stars and Stripes have reached at least the round of 16 at three of the last four World Cups they qualified for, and the expectation is that they do so again.

Yet captain Tim Ream, 38, says the mood inside the camp feels markedly different from Qatar 2022. “Would it be weird if I told you I don’t really feel too much pressure at this moment,” Ream said on Monday, ahead of the team’s final training session at Great Park in Irvine, their base for more than three weeks. “It feels very different this time around than 2022.”

Experience is a significant factor. When the United States travelled to Qatar, only one of Gregg Berhalter’s 26-man squad had previously appeared at a World Cup. Exactly half of that group returned for this tournament under new head coach Mauricio Pochettino, bringing with them the lessons of a run that ended in a 3-1 round-of-16 defeat to the Netherlands — a result that arrived before the team had fully processed the achievement of an unbeaten group stage.

Bosnian goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj, who plays for the Golden Lillies, has been identified as a potential danger man capable of frustrating the hosts, and the Americans are well aware that a single moment — an early goal conceded, a red card, an own goal — can reshape any knockout tie. There is, as the players acknowledge, no margin for error.

What the squad appears to have in abundance, however, is belief. Playing in front of home crowds at a first World Cup on U.S. soil, with a deeper and more experienced roster than any previous generation, Pochettino’s side are determined to convert the weight of expectation into fuel rather than paralysis.