USMNT playing for Unofficial World Championship against Australia

The United States had the best possible start into the 2026 FIFA World Cup, beating Paraguay 4-1 in one of the most dominant displays of the tournament so far. As a result of that victory, the team of head coach Mauricio Pochettino is already on the verge of qualification for the knockout round.

A win over Australia on 3 p.m. ET on Friday will allow the USMNT to punch its ticket for the Round of 32. But that’s not all that is on the line: the United States winning would also give them the Unofficial Football World Championship.

What does this mean? Glad you asked.

Unofficial football world championship, explained

You probably wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t know how the FIFA World Cup works, but here’s a quick refresher. Every four years, the best national teams on the planet meet to decide who will be crowned world champion. The tournament was first held in 1930 and last won by Argentina, who lifted the trophy to cap the 2022 World Cup.

Since then, Argentina has retained that world champion title and will only vacate it in case another team wins this year’s World Cup. This means that the title remains with the most recent winner even if it gets beaten in subsequent international non-WC matches. Only through the World Cup can a new champion emerge.

The UFWC, meanwhile, works differently.

Its origins can be traced back to the late 1960s, when Scotland beat England in the British Home Championship tournament. It was the then-world champion’s first loss since the World Cup and resulted in Scotland fans referring to their team as the new, unofficial champions of the world.

It would take almost four decades for the UFWC’s rules to be formalized, but the idea behind it is quite simple. Since the second ever international game in 1873 (because the first ended in a scoreless tie), there always has always been one champion who can be challenged by any other team and either defend or lose its title. Those challenges can come in all shapes and forms and do not have to take place in the World Cup, which, again, only started in 1930.

The first country to earn the championship that way was England, which beat Scotland 4-2 in an 1873 exhibition game. England lost the title to Scotland the following year and only recaptured it in 1879.

For the first 50-plus years, the championship was exclusively a British affair. While international soccer was played elsewhere in the world, including the 1930 World Cup, the unofficial title of champion remained with either England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland or Northern Ireland dating back to that 1873 game.

In 1931, Austria became the first non-British country to win the title after defeating then-champion Scotland 5-0. Since then, 48 more countries have held the UFWC title.

This is where the United States’ game against Australia comes into play.

How the U.S. can become unofficial world champion

Thanks to its 2-0 win over Turkey last week, Australia is the current UFWC title holder. This naturally means that Friday’s bout with the United States is classified as a title match: if the U.S. wins, it will become the new champion. If the game ends in a draw or Australia win, the title will stay with the Socceroos.

For the USMNT, it would only be the third time in its history to hold that illustrious if unsanctioned title. The United States held it briefly in 1950 and then again in 1992, when it lost it to, of all teams, Australia.

The U.S. has since challenged for the crown two more times, but were beaten on both occasions. Now, third time could be the charm to bring the UFWC title belt back to the United States.

And if so, there is a chance it stays there beyond the World Cup. The rules, after all, specify that “extra time and penalty shoot-outs used to decide the outcome of individual matches do count.” This means that, should the U.S. beat Australia and then also win or draw against Turkey to close out the group stage, only a knockout loss in regulation would send the title elsewhere.

Obviously, though, there is plenty of soccer left to be played before that conversation can even be had in earnest. And even so, the Unofficial Football World Championship as a whole remains pretty niche and is not officially recognized by FIFA.

Still, soccer is first and foremost about fun. And the UFWC very much is just that.

Especially if held by the United States for the first time in over three decades.