Big Year for USA Men's 15s Team, and The Matches They Play

06.19.2026Eagles

USA vs Spain in 2025 in Charlotte. Photo Miguel Sanchez-Nunez.

Mitch Wilson finds some space against Spain in 2025 in Charlotte. Photo Miguel Sanchez-Nunez.

Author: Alex Goff

The USA Men's National Team gets going this summer with a pretty busy schedule, and, really, they don't let up all that much until the end of the year.

While we can talk about how mixed up American rugby is in many ways, there is some good news, too. with Major League Rugby's schedule timed the way it is now, we have no conflict between MLR games. With the Rugby World Cup coming in 2031, World Rugby is working hard to get proof of concept for test matches, so even with the fall test window, the USA is expected to play more games this fall (announcements expected soon), and, critically, at home.

All of that is about business. World Rugby wants to test out venues, but they also want to build up the fan habit of going to games. At the same time, the USA team, having qualified for RWC 2027, is trying to get ready for that tournament, slated for Australia next October.

So there are business, cultural, and on-field reasons for these games.

Upcoming

These next three matches are part of the new Nation's Cup. World Rugby has brought back a competition format they seem to love, which is assigning teams to a pool, but you don't play teams in your own pool, you play teams in the other pool. So the USA is in a pool with Canada, Chile, Samoa, Tonga, and Uruguay, but they don't play those guys.

July 4 at Dick's Sporting Goods Stadium in Denver vs Portugal.
This is a match that kind of ticks all the boxes. Dick's is on the smaller size of venues the 2031 RWC will be looking at, but it's worth a look. With a capacity of about 20,000, it would be a good place for a lower-profile match. Portugal is, of course, a nice rival for the Eagles. They have never played each other in the USA and their games have, in recent years, been close. They tied in the World Cup Qualifier in 2022, a result that meant that Portugal qualified for RWC 2023 and the USA didn't. In November, 2024, the Eagles won 21-17 in Portugal. So this is a good test of a team that is around the USA's level.

And, finally, it's an opportunity for a strong rugby town, Denver, to show their colors.

But Wait There's More: Tonga plays Zimbabwe on the same day at Dick's, providing a chance for rugby fans to see even more rugby on the nation's 250th Birthday. Tonga vs Zimbabwe is the earlier match, meaning that if you arrive early for the Eagles, you will have something to watch.

July 11 at American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, NC vs Zimbabwe.
The stadium is a good one for test matches where you don't expect a lot of fans who aren't USA fans to attend. The capacity is about 10,000, but we think there'll be a pretty vocal Zimbabwean fan showing.

Zimbabwe is an interesting team in that they are very up-and-down. A few years ago they had a really, really strong U20 team. The following year it was a very different story. But the core of that U20 team from 2022 and 2023 is now part of the senior national team, and the Sables are athletic and fun to watch. So this is a good rugby test for the USA despite the fact that the Eagles are ranked #16 by World Rugby and Zimbabwe is #24—athletically, and in terms of the success of the Zimbabwe players as age-graders, Zimbabwe is probably better than #24.

July 18 at First Horizon Stadium at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, NC vs Spain.
This is a fixture very much like the Zimbabwe fixture in that this is a relatively small venue that promoters want to fill. They want a good atmosphere and loud fans, but this isn't a dress rehearsal for WakeMed to be a venue for the Rugby World Cup.

On the field it's a key test because the Eagles lost to Spain in Charlotte last summer. They were not very good in this match and were caught a bit unawares by what the Lions could bring to the fore. So, more than anything, this is a mid-term for the USA team.

That's Not All

The July matches are just the first half of the Nations Cup. In the November test window, the rest of the matches will be played, with Georgia, Hong Kong China, and Romania all on the slate. This new iteration of the Nations Cup has no championship playoff. So it's straight standings that decide the champions.

We expect at least some, if not all, of those matches to be in the USA.

By the way, as far as World Rankings go, playing at home will no longer have an effect on the rankings calculation. Starting July 1 World Rugby will no long penalize a team for playing a rankings match at home. This is partly because a team can be called a "home team" in a fixture but actually be playing in a neutral site.

So, in total, that's six test matches.

In Between

In between those two rounds of the Nations Cup, the USA will be hosting some high-profile non-tests. Those matches will not be in the Reg. 9 window, so players who play professionally overseas won't be available. But that's not the point. The point, with these being non-test games, is to get some younger players involved, build toward what should be the USA's 2027 and, more specifically, 2028-2031 team.

August 15 at Inter Miami CF Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. vs Argentina XV.
This is definitely a Rugby World Cup test-of-concept. The stadium holds about 27,000, and organizers will be looking to fill it up with American rugby fans and also Argentinean rugby fans from Florida and nearby. It's an exhibition that will almost certainly not include overseas-based pros. This is about testing some of those younger/newer players, and about showing the world that we can attend a rugby game.

There will be a couple more about to be announced and overall we might see the USA play as many as 10 international matches this year.

Those games, plus the September New Zealand-vs-South Africa test match in Baltimore, will be a venue rehearsal and testing ground. Can a large venue in a destination city bring in fans? That's the question.

The USA Team

One of the things about the USA team is what it's supposed to be doing at the moment. It's supposed to be winning test matches, yes, but there's more to it than that. They need to be attracting fans, playing in a way that can excited the fanbase. They need to be building toward the 2027 World Cup and they need to be building toward the 2031 World Cup.

Winning now means you want your players at their peak or close to it. Since the World Cup is just over a year away those goals pretty much align. Playing in an entertaining way? It's highly probable that the USA coaching staff would say "that's not our concern" and it's true that if a team is winning, they can still get fans excited even if they win ugly. However, some of the non-test exhibition matches coming up need to be fun to watch—think the 2023 game with Stade Toulouse. That was a fun game to watch. The players talked about playing in an inspiring way. If you're going to lose a game, which of course can happen, at least lose taking the game to them.

Is any of that at odds with preparing for 2031? Not really. In the end you need a lineup of players who can compete now, compete next year, and, potentially, compete in five years. That's what is expected of the Eagles program. No stop-start. No mass retirements after a World Cup. No lifetime achievement World Cup squad places.

If you look at the current extended squad compared to that of 2025 there are 61 named this year as opposed to 72 in 2025 (including injured players). There are 31 named in the broader 2025 roster who are not on the current list. Most of those are retirements, or older players who just aren't being picked anymore. There's another group of players who were in the frame