World Cup 2026 Most Powerful Moments: Mark Mckenzie Unites USMNT With Prayers

Minutes after the World Cup opener straight from everyone’s wildest dreams, a group of believers gathered at midfield to pray.

They huddled in a circle and bowed their heads, just as they’d done six days earlier and previously. Most, in fact, had been glorifying God for years, at church or at home or at soccer matches. Within the broader brotherhood of the U.S. men’s national team, roughly seven players regularly convene for prayers or bible studies.

But on Friday, June 12, after a 4-1 win over Paraguay, something spontaneous happened. The entire USMNT — teammates and coaches and staff — rushed to join the circle.

Mark McKenzie, a backup defender who plays club football for Toulouse in France, suddenly found himself leading the full group in a post-match prayer.

“It was a powerful moment,” McKenzie said. And instantly, a snapshot often overlooked by the secular soccer world became one that defined the team’s togetherness.

And a week later, the USMNT reproduced it. This time, after a 2-0 win over Australia, it was less spontaneous. “After the first game, it just happened,” McKenzie recalls. “And then the second game, guys are like, ‘Hey, let’s go, let’s go.’”

This time, rather than crowd around the prayer circle, dozens of them joined arms in one big ring. McKenzie stepped to the center, knelt, raised his arms and spoke. Some teammates bowed their heads. Others looked straight at McKenzie. Some soaked in his words. All listened.

Some of them do not practice religion. “You have players and people on this team and this staff from all walks of life, from all different backgrounds and different experiences,” McKenzie knows.

But “there’s power in prayer,” he says. “It unites people in ways that you may have never even thought could. … And I think there’s beauty in that.”

It united a group of players and people who, for the past month, and in some ways for the past several years, have been pushing toward a common goal: World Cup success.

And the image of that postgame gathering became emblematic of the bond that’s fortifying this USMNT.

“Although it starts out as a moment of prayer, it invites people into what this team is about,” McKenzie says. “It’s about love, it’s about togetherness, it’s about welcoming people. It doesn’t matter what your background is, we are family.”

And he, a 27-year-old center back who has not yet played a minute at this World Cup, is at the center of it.