The South American Team Leads the Series With a 3-4-2 (WDL) Record
The soccer rivalry between the United States and Uruguay spans a century, featuring nine meetings that tell the story of American soccer's evolution against one of South América's most decorated teams. Their first encounter took place during the 1924 Olympics Round of 16 in Paris, where Uruguay defeated the Americans 3-0 en route to claiming the tournament title.
The two nations wouldn't meet again for 62 years, finally reconvening at the 1986 Miami Cup in a 1-1 draw featuring Bruce Murray's goal for the U.S. The series continued sporadically through the 1990s. Peter Vermes scored the winner in a 1-0 American victory in 1991, while Uruguay responded with a 1-0 Copa América group stage win in 1993. A 1995 friendly ended 2-2 after being abandoned in the 84th minute due to severe rain, with John Kerr and Earnie Stewart finding the net for the U.S.
The Americans' most memorable victory came on May 12, 2002, just before the World Cup, when Tony Sanneh and DaMarcus Beasley scored in a 2-1 triumph. More recent meetings have been tighter affairs: Jordan Morris earned a 1-1 draw in 2019, followed by a scoreless stalemate in 2022.
The most painful encounter occurred on July 1, 2024, at the Copa América in Kansas City. Uruguay's Mathías Olivera scored in the 66th minute—a goal that stood after a lengthy VAR review despite American protests about offside. The 1-0 defeat, combined with Panama's simultaneous victory over Bolivia, eliminated the U.S. from the group stage of a tournament hosted on home soil for the first time in program history.
That loss also cost Gregg Berhalter his job and marked a low point for American soccer. The U.S., playing without suspended winger Tim Weah and losing striker Folarin Balogun to injury, struggled to create chances against Uruguay's organized defense. The embarrassing exit raised serious questions about the program's readiness for the 2026 World Cup.
After a Goalless Draw With Mexico, Uruguay Will Travel to Tampa
Uruguay arrives in Tampa for Tuesday's friendly against the United States riding momentum from a solid year, despite their goalless draw with Mexico on Saturday. The South American side represents the USMNT's toughest test in recent memory as they continue preparations for the 2026 World Cup.
Managed by the demanding Marcelo Bielsa, Uruguay eased through South American qualifying and finished third at the 2024 Copa América, where they defeated the United States 1-0 in the group stage. La Celeste has lost just three of their last 16 matches, demonstrating the consistency that makes them such a formidable opponent.
Bielsa's 28-man roster blends experience with emerging talent. Veterans like Atlético Madrid captain José María Giménez, Barcelona's Ronald Araújo, Tottenham's Rodrigo Bentancur, and Flamengo playmaker Giorgian de Arrascaeta anchor the squad. However, notable absences include Real Madrid star Federico Valverde, sidelined due to ongoing back issues following a grueling season, along with Darwin Núñez and Lucas Torreira.
The main surprise inclusion is Santiago Homenchenko, a midfielder currently on loan from Pachuca to Querétaro. The Under-20 World Cup champion has impressed Bielsa with four goals in his last five matches, as well as strong defensive contributions, reflecting the coach's commitment to developing young Uruguayan talent.
Against Mexico in Torreón, Uruguay fielded several Brazilian-based players who impressed despite the scoreless result. Palmeiras left-back Joaquín Piquerez and midfielder Emiliano Martínez started alongside Flamengo right-back Guillermo Varela, seamlessly translating their club form to the international stage. Another Palmeiras player, striker Facundo Torres, provided fresh energy after coming on in the second half.
Uruguay's defensive solidity makes them extremely difficult to break down, though without Valverde and Núñez, they lack some attacking punch. Still, for a USMNT side missing Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams, and others, Uruguay presents the perfect opportunity to measure their World Cup readiness against elite opposition.
On This Day in 2004, the Program's Joint-Top Scorer Makes His First Appearance
Rain fell steadily over Columbus on November 17, turning Crew Stadium into something less than a theater and more like a proving ground. Just over 9,000 supporters scattered themselves across the lower bowl, their presence muted by weather and circumstance. The United States had already secured a spot in the final qualifying round. Jamaica needed victory to survive, but Panama's simultaneous demolition of El Salvador had rendered even that mathematics irrelevant before the evening concluded. What remained was something Bruce Arena valued more than the result itself: an opportunity to examine the futures he might need in six months.
Among those futures sat Clint Dempsey, 21 years old, wearing the Major League Soccer Rookie of the Year honor he had received just the day before. The recognition symbolized his unlikely ascent—from a prospective defensive midfielder buried on New England's depth chart to one of the league's most productive attacking forces, having scored seven goals in 21 matches despite missing five games with a broken jaw that he had initially played through undiagnosed. He had entered the Revolution camp as a reserve behind Shalrie Joseph. He had emerged as essential, a driving force whose hunger Arena had noticed during the national team's training week.
"When you don't make it into the lineup, it makes you more hungry," Dempsey had reflected before traveling to Columbus, "and you want to do that much more to reach the next level."
The evening would test precisely that hunger, though not in the ways Arena might have anticipated. Debuts in meaningless matches carry their own peculiar pressure—the absence of consequence creates a vacuum where evaluation becomes everything. There would be no rescue goals, no dramatic clinching moments to obscure imperfection. Just cold rain, a sparse crowd, and Arena's clinical assessment of whether a rookie midfielder possessed the composure to function when nothing and everything hung in balance.
The match opened with the urgency Arena demanded despite qualification already secured. The Americans pressed forward, and in the 15th minute, they produced a sequence that suggested professional standards would not be abandoned simply because mathematics no longer mattered. Pablo Mastroeni threaded a pass down the right channel where Eddie Johnson—the 20-year-old sensation who had announced himself with four goals in two previous matches—controlled with his right foot before striking left-footed past Donovan Ricketts. The finish carried the poise of a player whose confidence had calcified into certainty. Johnson had now scored in each of his first three international appearances, only the second American since 1937 to achieve that distinction. The ball had barely settled in the net before he nearly doubled the advantage, first pressuring a clearance in the fourth minute, then whiffing an open chance from twelve yards, then hammering a shot directly at Ricketts.
But Jamaica possessed neither the luxury of experimentation nor the willingness to accept elimination passively. In the twenty-fourth minute, coach Sebastiao Lazaroni made his decisive substitution, replacing Damion Stewart with Jermaine Hue, one of the Reggae Boyz's most obscure selections. Hue announced himself with his first touch, spinning away from two American defenders and injecting dynamism into Jamaica's midfield that had been absent. Three minutes later, he disrupted possession again, found Ricardo Gardner advancing from left back, and suddenly the Americans found themselves out of balance. A throw-in allowed Portsmouth striker Ricardo Fuller to drift along the end line, where Ramiro Corrales—one of Arena's experimental selections, a defender earning World Cup qualifying experience for the first time—brought him down inside the penalty area. Andy Williams, the former Revolution midfielder, converted the penalty in the 27th minute, and the scoreline read level.
Arena made his substitution in the 66th minute. Dempsey replaced Corrales and entered a match whose emotional temperature had shifted but whose tactical demands remained unclear. The Americans were playing to win despite having nothing tangible to gain. Jamaica was playing with desperation tempered by distant mathematics. And then, seven minutes after Dempsey's entrance, the variables collapsed entirely. Oguchi Onyewu, cautioned once already, received his second yellow card in the 73rd minute and departed, leaving the United States to navigate the final 17 minutes with 10 men and a midfield anchored by a rookie making his international debut.
Dempsey absorbed the complexity without visible panic. His touches were accurate, his positioning sound, his understanding of when to release possession and when to advance suggesting a player whose tactical intelligence exceeded his experience. And then, in the eighty-sixth minute, he produced the moment that would define his debut in the memories of those witnessing it.
Receiving the ball deep in American territory with Jamaica committed forward and space materializing ahead, Dempsey accelerated. 50 yards stretched before him—open grass, retreating defenders, the penalty area drawing closer with each stride. He drove forward with the kind of audacity that separates players who survive from players who impose, his legs churning through fatigue, his vision fixed on the goal that grew larger as defenders converged from multiple angles. He reached the penalty area, defenders closing, the angle narrowing, his lungs emptying, and finally—finally—the accumulated exhaustion caught him. The shot never came. The moment dissolved not from poor decision-making or technical failure but from the simple reality that a twenty-one-year-old midfielder playing his first international match had run out of fuel at precisely the moment opportunity demanded more.
"I made some rookie mistakes, giving the ball away," Dempsey said afterward, his assessment characteristically direct, "but I got positive feedback. I did some good things, as well. We were playing to win and [Arena] told me he wanted me to get involved in the attack, that the defensive midfield was a little too conservative, and to take it at them a little."
The final whistle confirmed what Panama's three-goal victory over El Salvador had already guaranteed: Jamaica would not advance. The Reggae Boyz, expected by many to join the United States in the final round, finished their campaign at one win, six losses, and three draws under Lazaroni—a collapse that stood as one of qualifying's most surprising narratives. Panama, improbably, would join Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States in February's hexagonal, where the top three would secure passage to Germany.
For the Americans, the evening carried significance that transcended the draw. Arena had extended the unbeaten streak against regional competition to twenty-nine matches. More importantly, he had gathered intelligence on players who might be required when the qualification transformed into tournament play. Jonathan Spector, the 18-year-old Manchester United defender and grandson of original Boston Celtic Art Spector, had looked composed in his debut. Dempsey had demonstrated hunger and tactical understanding even as fatigue overwhelmed ambition in the final minutes.
And Johnson, departing for a training arrangement with Manchester United the following week, had now scored five goals in his first sixty-one minutes of national team playing time—a conversion rate that bordered on absurd and suggested European clubs monitoring his progress had sound reason for their attention.
Yet Dempsey's 50-yard run lingered in a way Johnson's goal did not. Goals in blowouts and goals in dead rubbers carry their own weight, but they rarely reveal character. That sprint—desperate, audacious, ultimately unsuccessful—had revealed something Arena valued more than clinical finishing in a match without consequence. It revealed a player who understood that debuts without drama still demanded everything, that evaluation never ceased, that the absence of stakes created its own pressure more revealing than any scoreboard.
"Playing for the national team is something I used to think about when I was little," Dempsey had said before the match, reflecting on practices that felt faster than games, on preparation that would serve him when he returned to New England for the following season.
In Columbus, on a cold November evening, that had been enough. The road to Germany continued, and Dempsey—rookie of the year, future consideration, 21-year-old midfielder from Nacogdoches who had learned the game in a trailer park among Hispanic immigrants—now traveled it as well. Not as a passenger, but as someone Arena had judged capable of contributing. The work of building a World Cup team, Arena understood, rarely announced itself with coronations. Sometimes it revealed itself in rain, in front of 9,000 supporters, in a 50-yard sprint that ended without a shot but confirmed everything a coach needed to know about hunger.
