As the 2026 FIFA World Cup has arrived in North America, the enthusiasm in stadiums, bars, restaurants, living rooms and fan parks may not just belong to Team USA.
A new state-by-state analysis by Covers.com, a sports review site, has revealed the World Cup nations most likely to become America’s unofficial “second teams” in 2026. The research is based on where each country’s foreign-born community is most strongly represented across the United States.
The study analyzed data on the foreign-born population of World Cup nations and compared each country’s presence in every state with its national footprint. The result is a World Cup Diaspora Support Index, showing where participating nations may find the closest thing to a home crowd thousands of miles from home.
And the findings suggest the 2026 tournament could feel like dozens of mini homecomings happening at once.
DEEPER DIVE: ‘America’s Top 50 New Boomtowns’ includes 7 Arizona cities
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS: Want more news like this? Get our free newsletter here
Arizona’s top 5 second favorite teams:
No. 1: Iraq
Iraq tops Arizona’s Cup Connections ranking, with 9,987 foreign-born Iraqi residents and a 3.30 over-index score. That gives Arizona one of the more distinctive second-team stories in the country: not just a global soccer nation appearing on a data table, but a community with a notably strong local footprint.
No. 2: Croatia
Croatia comes second in Arizona, with 1,473 foreign-born Croatian residents and a 2.89 over-index score. The numbers may be smaller than some of the state’s larger communities, but Croatia is exactly the kind of World Cup team that can punch far above its weight in local fan appeal.
No. 3: Dominican Republic of Congo
Democratic Republic of Congo ranks third in Arizona, with 2,342 foreign-born residents and a 2.78 over-index score. That points to a meaningful local connection for a team that could bring serious underdog energy to the tournament.
No. 4: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina places fourth in Arizona, with 3,762 foreign-born residents and a 2.65 over-index score. That is a strong enough presence to give the Dragons a real Arizona storyline.
No. 5: Switzerland
Switzerland rounds out Arizona’s top five, with 1,078 foreign-born Swiss residents and a 2.10 over-index score. Switzerland may not always be the noisiest team in the room, but that is part of the appeal: organized, awkward to beat, and very capable of ruining someone else’s tournament plan. For Arizona fans looking for a second team with local ties and a habit of being quietly dangerous, the Swiss could be a very sensible and slightly mischievous choice.
“The World Cup is often talked about as a national event, but in America it will also be deeply local,” said Pete Watt of Covers.com.
“A bar in Miami, a community center in Providence, a restaurant in Dearborn [Michigan], or a neighborhood in Queens could all feel like home turf for completely different countries. That is what makes the 2026 tournament so fascinating. It is not just one host nation story; it is hundreds of community stories happening at the same time.”
The findings also point to a wider trend in how Americans may experience the tournament. Even casual soccer fans often adopt a second team during the World Cup, whether through family roots, friendships, favorite players, travel memories, or local community ties.
In 2026, with matches hosted across North America and the tournament expanded to 48 teams, those loyalties could become more visible than ever.
A separate survey by Covers.com of 1,500 respondents found that 36% of Americans say they are likely to support another country during the 2026 World Cup, in addition to Team USA.
The most common reason for backing a second team was not family heritage, favorite players, or even style of play.
Instead, the top answer, by 23%, was that they “just want Team USA’s rivals to lose.”
Family heritage or ancestry followed at 20%, while 13% said they would support another country because they like its players. A further 11% said they are drawn to a country or its culture, 10% said they usually root for underdogs, and 9% said they like a team’s style of play. Smaller shares said they were born in or had lived in that country, or had friends or a partner from there.
The survey also suggests that World Cup interest will not collapse if Team USA exits early. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans (59%) said they would continue watching the tournament if the United States were knocked out, reinforcing the idea that the 2026 World Cup could become a wider national event rather than a purely Team USA-driven story.
Family roots may also play a major role in shaping fan behavior. About 63% of Americans said they would be more likely to support a country at the 2026 World Cup if they had ancestral or family ties there. Even so, the U.S. still appears to come first for most fans when loyalties are directly tested. If Team USA played their family’s heritage country, 79% said they would support Team USA, while 21% said they would back their heritage country instead.
And while Americans may be emotionally open to adopting another team, they are slightly more cautious when it comes to dressing the part. More than 37% said they would wear another country’s jersey during the 2026 World Cup, while 63% said they would not.
Covers.com analyzed foreign-born population data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey, using Table B05006: Place of Birth for the Foreign-Born Population in the United States. The Census Bureau defines the foreign-born population as people who were not U.S. citizens at birth, including naturalized citizens. The analysis compared each World Cup country’s share of a state’s foreign-born population with that country’s share of the U.S. foreign-born population overall.
