USMNT Hits Historic Low in ELO World Rankings Amid Rapid Fall

When the U.S. men’s national team hired head coach Mauricio Pochettino, the hope was that he would be able to turn the team into a bona fide challenger at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

With nine months to go until the tournament, that idea has fallen well short so far, and the team is amid one of its worst spells in recent history, losing seven of 17 matches since he entered the fold. At the same time, the USMNT have lost seven of their last eight matches against teams ranked within the top 30.

Following a 2–0 loss to South Korea on the weekend, the USMNT reached another low point—49th in the world, according to the ELO rankings, the lowest since the turn of the century.

The ELO rankings are an alternative ranking to the official FIFA men’s World Ranking and are regularly updated. The system was invented by Hungarian-American statistician Arpad Elo as a way to assess chess players, and has been introduced to several sports including soccer.

It takes into consideration more recent results and matchups based statistics, and is often lauded as a more accurate representation of current status than the official rankings.

When Pochettino took over, the U.S. ranked 37th in the world, following a loss to Canada. When the USMNT last lifted a trophy at the 2023 Concacaf Nations League, they saw their rating climb as high as 18.

The U.S. also cracked the top 15 after beating Portugal in the 2002 World Cup in South Korea, and rose to ninth in 2009 after beating Spain at the 2009 Confederations Cup. Under previous head coach Gregg Berhalter, the USMNT topped out at 15th.

The rankings have also seen the U.S. drop to low points after some significant losses, such as falling to 32nd after failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup and dropping to 37th after a group stage exit at the 2024 Copa América, which led to Berhalter’s dismissal.

The drop under Pochettino though, has been rapid, and sees the U.S. on the fringes of the top 50, a rank they have not dropped below since May 28, 1995 when they lost 2–1 to Costa Rica in an international friendly.

In comparison to other Concacaf nationals, the U.S. sits fifth in ELO rating, behind Mexico in 16th, Canada in 29th, Panama in 35th and Costa Rica in 48th.

Meanwhile, the official FIFA rankings currently place the U.S. at 15th, but are projected to fall to at least 16th after the loss to South Korea.

Yet, that won’t matter too much to Pochettino and the USMNT as they look to the future with hopes of grabbing a much-needed win when they take on Japan, ranked 13th in the ELO ratings, in Columbus on Tuesday.

“We need to start to win when the World Cup starts,” Pochettino said after losing to South Korea.

“[There are] too many examples of teams that win during five years [before the tournament] and then arrive at the World Cup and they don’t arrive in the best condition. I was involved in 2002 with Argentina, we were winning [for] years and then at the World Cup, and we were out in the group stage.”