World Cup 2026: FC Dallas Matchday 3 Roundup
The group stage of the 2026 World Cup has wrapped up with matchday 3 in the books and the knockout stages underway.
Let’s do a quick round-up of all the FC Dallas-connected players from matchday 3.
Chris Richards, Weston McKennie, Ricardo Pepi, Alex Zendejas // USA
The USMNT faced a strange, somewhat awkward situation in their final group-stage game against Turkey: a dead rubber. Because of their two wins against Paraguay and Australia, coupled with Turkey’s very disappointing losses against the same sides, the US could not finish anywhere but 1st and Turkey could not finish anywhere but 4th in the group.
This meant heavy rotation for the US, with only two of the eleven starters from the match against Australia reprising their roles against Turkey in Los Angeles. Funny enough, those two starters were Weston McKennie and Ricardo Pepi. Pepi played the full 90 while McKennie almost got there, coming off in the 86th minute. Alex Zendejas also saw his first minutes of the World Cup, replacing Brendan Aaronson in the 76th minute. Unsurprisingly, Chris Richards did not play after picking up a yellow card against Australia, and it was far too risky to let him risk a suspension for the USA’s round of 32 game against Bosnia.
Unfortunately for the US, despite a strong early start, they lost the game 3-2, conceding a last-second goal in stoppage time and missing out on a draw. McKennie, unsurprisingly, had a great performance and was perhaps the USMNT’s best player on the night. Pepi, for his part, struggled against the physicality of Turkey’s center-backs and stood out as an isolated figure. Zendejas put in some great effort, but unfortunately, his most notable highlight was taking a ball to the… balls.
McKennie and Richards are shoo-ins to start against Bosnia. Pepi, sadly, seems likely to drop back to the bench with Christian Pulisic likely to return to the starting lineup. Zendejas may have done enough to put himself in Pochettino’s mind as a substitute, but he seems most likely to pick up 10-15 minutes near the end of a game at this point.
Either way, they’ve all played their roles in what has been an extremely positive group stage for the USA, and they should expect to advance to the round of 16 given their performances.
Deedson // Haiti
Much like Turkey, Haiti went into their final group-stage game in Atlanta against Morocco with their fate already sealed after losses to Scotland and Brazil. And once again, despite his strong showing against Scotland, Deedson started on the bench. Haiti finally got their first goals of the tournament, with the second from Wilson Isidor being one of the best goals of the entire tournament so far.
With Haiti holding at a surprising 2-2, Deedson entered the field in the 67th minute. Unfortunately, Deedson struggled to make an impact on the game, touching the ball only 10 times in his 23 minutes, and the result slipped out of Haiti’s hands as they conceded two more goals on their way to a 4-2 loss.
It has to go down as a somewhat disappointing World Cup for Deedson personally, despite being one of the best attackers in Haiti’s opener against Scotland. He wasn’t really able to affect the game in any meaningful way in the games that followed and didn’t get on the scoresheet.
All that said, it was a momentous occasion for Haiti to have even qualified, especially given the extenuating circumstances in the nation itself that prevented it from playing a single true home game in qualifying. I had expected FC Dallas to try to sell Deedson on the back of some, hopefully, strong performances, but I’m not sure teams will have seen enough. Any interest in Deedson will be something to watch for through the rest of the summer, but for now, he’ll enjoy some time off before rejoining FCD.
Herman Johansson // Sweden
For the third game running, FCD’s big Swedish wingback did not see the field. At this point, it is pretty clear that Johansson is extremely unlikely to see any minutes, but it was especially disappointing not to see him play against Japan in Dallas.
Sweden’s 1-1 draw against the Samurai Blue was enough to get them into the round of 32, where they’ll face an extremely uphill battle against the 2018 champions, France. At this point, Johansson is probably just in “happy to be here” territory.
Petar Musa // Croatia
After a tough game against Panama that saw him withdrawn at halftime, it wasn’t a big surprise to see FC Dallas’ main man drop to the bench for Croatia’s crucial final group stage game against Ghana. Unfortunately, he did not come off the bench as Croatia sealed their spot in the round of 32 with a 2-1 win, sending them to face Portugal in their first knockout-round game.
With Croatia getting their two big results of the group with Musa not on the pitch, it seems likely that he’ll stay on the bench for Croatia’s matchup against Portugal and have to hope to be the first forward off the bench to provide an attacking spark in what is sure to be a very hotly contested and back-and-forth game.
Which round of 32 matchup are you most looking forward to?
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