Brilliant or Ridiculous? Commercial Campaign Predicts Dramatic U.S. Victory at 2026 World Cup

Let’s hope none of the U.S. men’s national team players are superstitious.

FOX Sports predicted a dramatic USMNT victory at the World Cup in their latest ad campaign. | Omar Vega/USSF/Getty Images)

As questions intensify surrounding how far the U.S. men’s national team can really go this summer at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, one commercial ad campaign has set the record straight: all the way.

FOX Sports’ new World Cup ad for the USMNT opens with forward Christian Pulisic stepping up to take a corner kick in the waning seconds of stoppage time of the 2026 World Cup final against Brazil, which is tied 2–2. Fans around the nation donning red, white and blue are shown glued to their televisions, waiting for the U.S.’s last-ditch attempt to score and earn global glory.

Pulisic then performs a miracle. His dramatic corner kick—taken in slow motion and igniting Elvis Presley’s inspirational ballad “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” (1972)—curves into the side-netting, a rare goal known as an Olimpico, to win the World Cup and send American fans into a joyful frenzy of cheers and sobbing.

In the ad, the historic victory—for a team that, in reality, has only reached the quarterfinal stage once in the modern World Cup era—completely transforms the nation, seeing a trucker replace his dashboard bobble head of NFL legend John Elway with one of USMNT star midfielder Weston McKennie. A boy then covers his football and baseball posters with a giant one of USMNT star winger Tim Weah, serving as a symbol of soccer’s newfound importance among the ranks of the U.S.’s most popular sports.

From there, the ad takes a more comical turn, showing NFL legend Tom Brady shaving the head of Zlatan Ibrahimović, stating, “Told you we’d win,” having seemingly won a World Cup bet against the soccer icon. Texas is shown to have run out of beer, while McKennie is printed over George Washington on the one dollar bill.

The theatrical World Cup victory ultimately proves to be just the envisioning of one optimistic fan at a bar, prompting a nearby Mike Eruizone, the captain of the “Miracle on Ice” 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, to chime in and say, “What? You don’t believe in miracles?”

The ad, capturing the attention of both the most skeptical and confident U.S. fans ahead of next month’s tournament, left them wondering if it was completely ridiculous or absolutely brilliant.

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USMNT World Cup Victory: Brilliant or Ridiculous?

The World Cup kicks off next month. | Kevin C. Cox/Mandel NGAN–Pool/Getty Images

There were some very realistic elements to FOX Sports’ ad, such as Ibrahimović calling himself handsome and Texas running out of beer—both of which might not even require the U.S. to win at all.

There’s no doubt that the USMNT winning the World Cup is nearly impossible. In fact, the team is given just over 1% chance of making that happen, but the ad had a compelling argument: miracles do happen, and they are what the U.S. has prided itself on for decades.

Eurizone and his hockey teammates were just as written off at the 1980 Olympics, but they famously won anyways, defeating the heavily favored Soviet Union and Finland en route to gold, leading to the creation of the “Miracle of Ice” (1981) movie, a film USMNT Mauricio Pochettino has taken inspiration from as he prepares his own squad for a Cinderella run.

Hosting the World Cup could also give the U.S. an advantage. Take South Korea for instance, who made a remarkable semifinal run while co-hosting the World Cup in 2002.

The most insightful aspect of the ad campaign was the transformation for Americans that the U.S. World Cup victory caused, exemplified by the change of heart from both the trucker and the young boy.

For a nation aiming to grow soccer’s popularity to the levels enjoyed by football, baseball and basketball, there’s no doubt that simply co-hosting the World Cup—the sport’s greatest stage—is tremendous start; however, should the USMNT actually advance far, making even a quarterfinal or semifinal run this summer, it could lead to astronomical growth in interest for the sport.

This means the pressure is on for the USMNT, not only to make a compelling bid for the World Cup trophy, but to earn the respect and interest of a nation still coming to appreciate the sport.

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