Türkiye

Türkiye are the most upwardly mobile team in Group D and, on talent ceiling, the closest match for the USMNT. Vincenzo Montella has not yet finalised the 26-man squad — the FIFA deadline is 2 June, with nine of the 35-man provisional list still to be cut — but the spine is locked in. Uğurcan Çakır (Galatasaray) in goal; Merih Demiral (Al-Ahli) and either Abdülkerim Bardakcı or Ozan Kabak at centre-back; Ferdi Kadıoğlu (Brighton) and Zeki Çelik (Roma) as full-backs; Hakan Çalhanoğlu and Orkun Kökçü as the double pivot; Arda Güler, Kenan Yıldız, and Kerem Aktürkoğlu rotating across the front three behind Baris Alper Yılmaz or one of the young centre-forwards (Deniz Gül, Semih Kılıçsoy).

The structural strength is also the structural risk: the system is built to give the young front four creative license, and that depends on the double pivot of Çalhanoğlu and Kökçü winning the midfield possession battles. Against the USA’s high press — the exact tactical profile Pochettino has spent six months sharpening — Türkiye’s pivot can look exposed, with Demiral and Bardakcı physical but slow to recover behind a high line. Montella has the option of dropping into a 4-3-3 with Salih Özcan (Borussia Dortmund) added to the pivot, and almost certainly will against the USMNT. The other open question is the No. 9 role: no one in the squad scored consistently for club this season, and Aktürkoğlu’s wide-forward goal-scoring may have to compensate.

Group difficulty rates as medium. Türkiye open against Australia in Vancouver on 13 June — the highest-leverage match of their group, given the route options it opens. Win it, and a draw with the USA in LA on 25 June probably seals second place. Lose it, and the Paraguay match in the Bay Area on 19 June becomes a near must-win. Ceiling: a quarter-final run, repeating the Euro 2024 trajectory and equalling the 2002 World Cup ceiling. Floor: a group-stage exit if the press-vulnerability bites in the USA match and the team fails to break down Paraguay’s low block. Most likely: second place in Group D with five points, into the Round of 32 with a draw against an Asian or African qualifier, and a Round of 16 ticket. The bigger question is whether Güler and Yıldız are ready to carry a tournament — they are still 20 and 21 respectively, and have never started a knockout match at a World Cup.

Türkiye’s first World Cup in 24 years carries a generational weight that the 2002 third-place finishers — Şükür, Şaş, Belözoğlu, Rüştü — handed down without anyone obviously equipped to receive it. That has changed. The squad Vincenzo Montella will finalise by 2 June from his 35-man provisional list arrives with two of Europe’s most-coveted under-22 talents at its tip: Arda Güler, the 21-year-old Real Madrid midfielder who is finally a regular in Carlo Ancelotti’s rotation, and Kenan Yıldız, the 20-year-old Juventus winger born in Regensburg who chose Türkiye over Germany in 2023. Around them, captain Hakan Çalhanoğlu — the Inter Milan regista — anchors a midfield that asks the youngsters to roam rather than fixate.

Montella’s tactical model is a 4-2-3-1 that he is willing to drop into a 4-3-3 against stronger opposition by adding Salih Özcan (Borussia Dortmund) to the double pivot for additional defensive cover. Çalhanoğlu and Orkun Kökçü (Beşiktaş) are the default pivot; ahead of them, the front four rotates fluidly — Güler is given license to drift across the line, Yıldız operates on the left as a touchline winger or inverted forward depending on the matchup, Kerem Aktürkoğlu (Fenerbahçe) tends to start on the right, and Baris Alper Yılmaz (Galatasaray) is the closest the squad has to a classical centre-forward in the starting XI. The structural problem — and Montella has been candid about it — is the absence of a true 20-goal No. 9. Deniz Gül (Porto) and Semih Kılıçsoy give him youth options; İrfan Can Kahveci is the experienced veteran call.

Defensively, Merih Demiral (Al-Ahli) is the most experienced centre-back and scored four goals in a single Euro 2024 group match against Austria — the kind of set-piece weapon every team wants. He pairs with either Galatasaray’s Abdülkerim Bardakcı or Hoffenheim’s Ozan Kabak. The full-backs are excellent on paper: Brighton’s Ferdi Kadıoğlu on the left and Roma’s Zeki Çelik on the right. Three credible goalkeepers — Uğurcan Çakır (Galatasaray, the likely starter), Altay Bayındır (Manchester United), and Mert Günok (Fenerbahçe, hero of the Euro 2024 round-of-16 win over Austria with a last-minute save) — gives Montella unusual luxury in that room.

Qualification itself was a near-disaster. Türkiye stumbled to a UEFA play-off place rather than direct qualification, then survived a tense, single-match path on 31 March 2026 to seal the ticket. That history matters: this is a squad that knows it can’t sleepwalk. Türkiye reached the Euro 2024 quarter-finals (lost 2-1 to the Netherlands) and the cohort in this squad has banked tournament experience that the 2002 generation didn’t have at their first World Cup. Ceiling: Round of 16 and a credible shot at the quarters in the expanded bracket if Güler delivers. Floor: a fourth-place group finish that even in the new 48-team format ends the run early. Most likely: second in Group D, into the knockouts, with the USA waiting on the other side of the draw.

Vincenzo Montella, born 18 June 1974 in Pomigliano d’Arco near Naples, was one of Italian football’s most clinical strikers of the late 1990s and early 2000s — “L’Aeroplanino” (the little plane), nicknamed for the celebration of arms outstretched after his many goals. He won the 2001 Serie A title with Roma alongside Francesco Totti, finished his playing career at Fulham and Sampdoria, and moved straight into coaching at Roma’s youth setup. His route to the Türkiye job has gone through nearly every level of Italian football and a transformative two-season stint in the Turkish Süper Lig that fundamentally repositioned his career.

The Italian managerial record is uneven. A spectacular start at Catania, where he saved the team from relegation in 2011-12, earned him the Fiorentina job. His first three seasons at La Viola were excellent: two consecutive fourth-place Serie A finishes and a Coppa Italia final. Sampdoria (2015-16) was a brief and unhappy stop. AC Milan (2016-17) delivered a Supercoppa Italiana trophy but ended with his dismissal eighteen months into a three-year contract. Sevilla (2017-18) was a hard landing in La Liga — sacked after five months. A second Fiorentina spell in 2019 lasted eight months. By 2021 his Italian reputation had cooled enough that the move to Adana Demirspor — a recently-promoted Süper Lig club from Turkey’s industrial south — registered as a reset rather than a comeback.

It worked. Adana finished fourth in 2022-23, the club’s best-ever league position and their first European qualification. The Turkish federation, looking for a manager with European pedigree and a Süper Lig grounding ahead of Euro 2024, hired Montella on 21 September 2023 — a year out from the tournament. He delivered immediately: a credible Euro 2024 quarter-final run, beating Austria 2-1 in the round of 16 with Mert Günok’s last-minute save now part of Turkish football folklore, and a 2-1 loss to the Netherlands in the quarters with one of the youngest squads in the tournament.

The 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign was bumpier. Türkiye finished second in their UEFA group rather than winning it, and survived a tense play-off on 31 March 2026 to seal direct qualification — Türkiye’s first World Cup since 2002. Montella’s public framing has been characteristically measured: “no coincidence”, he has called the result, citing the squad’s tactical organisation and integration of Real Madrid’s Arda Güler and Juventus’s Kenan Yıldız into a generational front-four with veteran captain Hakan Çalhanoğlu (Inter Milan). His tactical signature — the fluid 4-2-3-1 with roaming attackers — is built around exactly that talent profile. The question for June is whether his sides’ historic vulnerability to aggressive pressing can survive against an American team built precisely to do that.