Rennes defender and USA national team captain Carlos Bocanegra is bracing himself for World Cup fever to hit.

The 30-year old believes once FIFA complete the World Cup draw and everybody knows what is happening, then the tournament will become a reality and things begin to get serious.

"At the moment we're qualified, but there's still a lot of unknown. We don't know our base city, we don't know who we're playing, what venues or anything like that," Bocanegra said.

"Once the draw happens and it's all lined up for us, then World Cup fever really starts and kicks in. You can feel like 'alright, it's right around the corner now, it's here now, this is real.'"

The former Fulham man said he was looking forward to seeing if he would face-off with any of his Rennes teammates in the group stage but for now was happy to simply re-live memories with those has played against in the past.

"I had a few guys on my team from Ghana that we played obviously in 2006, so you just re-live old memories and stories, and the banter starts, and everybody razzes each other about the results," he added.