Category: Soccer/Union

TAMPA, Fla. — From the time Mauricio Pochettino took over the U.S. men’s soccer team last year, each moment has had two meanings.

Along with trying to win games, every pass, shot, tackle, save, or failure has been about trying to make the World Cup team. That mentality is burned deep into American soccer’s psyche, as it has been for many decades, and it’s even deeper when the tournament is on home soil.

The competition is made more difficult by how few opportunities there are to compete. Tuesday’s U.S.-Uruguay game was the 22^nd match of Mauricio Pochettino’s tenure, with two more in March before the World Cup roster is named in late May.

That is the same number of games (24) the Eagles played in their entire 2024 campaign, from the preseason through the Super Bowl — to say nothing of how many games there are in other sports’ calendars.

On top of that, in none of those 22 games has Pochettino had every member of his A squad healthy. Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, Folarin Balogun, Chris Richards, Sergiño Dest, and others have missed significant time along the way.

Then combine those absences with the Nations League flop in March, which forced Pochettino to blow up his plans and bring in a bunch of less-talented challengers to try to outhustle the stars. The result is the roller-coaster path the U.S. team has been on this year, reaching a smooth track only in the last two months.

This has made projecting a World Cup roster quite difficult. It’s a game fans love to play, and the media often enjoys it too. But the absences, the results, and the quick cadence of FIFA windows this fall made it more sensible to wait.

Now, though, the Americans have wrapped up their work for the year. The 24 players on this month’s squad headed back to the club world on Wednesday morning, and that side of the game will reign until late March.

So this moment feels right to look at the bigger picture. Here’s my view of the race to make the plane to Atlanta, where the 26-player World Cup team will gather at U.S. Soccer’s new national training center before its pretournament friendlies.

The projection is broken down by the six main positions in Pochettino’s tactics: goalkeeper, outside back, centerback, central midfielder, attacking midfielder, and striker. Each position then has players who look like they’re in, those on the bubble (in alphabetical order), and a few words of analysis.

Goalkeepers

In: Matt Freese (New York City FC), Patrick Schulte (Columbus Crew)

Bubble: Roman Celentano (FC Cincinnati), Jonathan Klinsmann (Cesena, Italy), Zack Steffen (Colorado Rapids), Matt Turner (New England Revolution)

Analysis: Unless something goes off the rails for Freese, the Wayne native is in line to become the most surprising U.S. starting goalkeeper at a World Cup for generations. He was given a chance in June and has not let it go, playing 13 of the Americans’ 14 games since the start of the summer.

Schulte, at age 24, is a fine starter in Columbus, a capable backup with the U.S., and a leading name for the 2030 cycle.

Turner’s fall is as surprising as Freese’s rise. The locked-in starter from the 2021 Gold Cup through this past March is now not just out of games, but out of rosters. Even a move back to New England to get the playing time he lacked in Europe hasn’t gotten him back in Pochettino’s good graces.

Celentano and Klinsmann, son of former U.S. manager Jürgen Klinsmann, have been in a few U.S. camps. Steffen, of Downingtown, unfortunately is on the outside looking in right now, despite his talent. He’ll have to hope for a strong start next year in Colorado that vaults him over the field.

Outside backs

In: Max Arfsten (Columbus Crew), Sergiño Dest (PSV Eindhoven, Netherlands), Alex Freeman (Orlando City), Antonee Robinson (Fulham, England), Tim Weah (Marseille, France)

Bubble: Kristoffer Lund (FC Köln, Germany), John Tolkin (Holstein Kiel, Germany)

Analysis: With one exception, this position is easy to line up. All five of the “in” names are locks to make the squad unless Robinson can’t recover from a long-term knee issue. From here, the view is if he’s healthy on June 1, that’s all that matters.

Dest and Weah are the other big names, each capable of thriving in the right wingback role and playing the left side if necessary.

Earlier this year, a reader complained to me on social media that the underwhelming Gold Cup squad might only produce the last players picked for a World Cup squad. I responded that if that was to happen, that squad would be a smashing success, no matter its results.

Arfsten and Freeman are the proof of that, having shot to well-earned prominence this year. Though they wouldn’t start if the three others are healthy, they are more than capable backups.

Lund and Tolkin are on the bubble in case Robinson ends up out. Tolkin played well against Uruguay on Wednesday in his first U.S. cap since the Gold Cup; Lund hasn’t been called in since October of last year.

Centerbacks

In: Mark McKenzie (Toulouse, France), Tim Ream (Charlotte FC), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace, England)

Bubble: Noahkai Banks (Augsburg, Germany), Tristan Blackmon (Vancouver Whitecaps), Cameron Carter-Vickers (Celtic, Scotland), Miles Robinson (FC Cincinnati), Joe Scally (Borussia Mönchengladbach, Germany), Auston Trusty (Celtic, Scotland), Walker Zimmerman (free agent, last with Nashville SC)

Analysis: Ream and Richards aren’t just locks, they’re expected starters. The third starting spot is up for grabs, and there’s a lot of competition.

McKenzie isn’t just projected as in here out of hometown loyalty to the Union alumnus from Bear, Del. His play for the national team and Toulouse puts him above a field in which no one else has truly stepped up.

From here, the bet is Pochettino will take two more, and the race is wide-open.

Blackmon has played some for Pochettino but isn’t at the needed level. Carter-Vickers didn’t play for the U.S. in October, a big warning sign, then suffered an Achilles injury at Celtic. Robinson is a U.S. regular but hasn’t quite done well enough to ensure a plane ticket.

Scally can play multiple positions and is listed here because right centerback is where he projects under Pochettino. After being out of the picture for a while, he played there against Paraguay, got torched on a goal, then didn’t play vs. Uruguay.

Trusty played the full game vs. Uruguay and did well at both ends of the field. Zimmerman is last in line, but if he lands at a big club in MLS free agency and starts the year strong, he could be an emergency option.

Banks is a big wild card. The 18-year-old Hawaii native stands 6-foot-4, is starting to earn regular playing time at Augsburg, and has held his own in the Bundesliga’s cauldron. Pochettino called him up in September, but hasn’t since. If Banks keeps playing, he might just make it.

Central midfielders

In: Tyler Adams (Bournemouth, England)

Bubble: Sebastian Berhalter (Vancouver Whitecaps), Johnny Cardoso (Atlético Madrid), Aidan Morris (Middlesbrough, England), Cristian Roldan (Seattle Sounders), James Sands (St. Pauli, Germany), Tanner Tessmann (Lyon, France)

Analysis: Adams is a lock — a star, a veteran, and the team’s most vocal leader. From there, the question will be how deep Pochettino goes at the position.

Tessmann, Roldan, and Morris lead the way, with Tessmann the closest to a lock. That takes the total to four, and the guess here is one more will make it.

Berhalter made quite a statement in Tuesday’s win over Uruguay, with a goal and an assist off a corner kick. That puts him ahead for now of Cardoso, who has tons of talent and is at a huge club but has a history of playing poorly for the U.S. He’s also coming off an injury. If he’s healthy by March, he could get one shot at a ticket in that month’s friendlies.

Sands helps his case with versatility, as he also can play centerback. He got a look in October and wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t called back this month even though there was room for him.

Attacking midfielders

In: Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United, England), Weston McKennie (Juventus, Italy), Christian Pulisic (AC Milan, Italy), Malik Tillman (Bayer Leverkusen, Germany), Alejandro Zendejas (Club América, Mexico)

Bubble: Diego Luna (Real Salt Lake), Jack McGlynn (Houston Dynamo), Gio Reyna (Borussia Dortmund, Germany)

Analysis: The “in” players are locks as long as they’re healthy, with Zendejas the only one close to a question. Pulisic obviously is a starter, with Tillman or McKennie in line to run next to him.

From there, Pochettino can make subs based on situations. Medford’s Aaronson is an ideal defensive closer, and Zendejas provides width and creativity.

The last pick could come down to Luna, whom Pochettino rightly adores for his toughness; or Reyna, whose talent is forever followed by injury fears. It would be great to see both make it, but there might not be room unless another position is sacrificed. Reyna has the advantage now and will keep it if he plays regularly for his club.

McGlynn is a long shot, but a hot streak with Houston next year could bring his magic left foot back to the picture.

Strikers

In: Folarin Balogun (AS Monaco, France), Ricardo Pepi (PSV Eindhoven, Netherlands), Haji Wright (Coventry City, England)

Bubble: Patrick Agyemang (Derby County, England)

Analysis: It’s truly remarkable that the highest-profile position is one at which the U.S. has the fewest questions. Never before in the program’s 36-year modern era has there been a striker depth chart with this much quality.

If Balogun, Pepi, and Wright are healthy, they’ll be on the plane, and that will be it. If any of them are injured — which Pochettino and every U.S. fan will pray doesn’t happen — Agyemang is first in line to come in.

The field drops so far from there that right now no other strikers truly are in consideration.

TAMPA, Fla. — Once the U.S. men’s soccer team knew it wouldn’t have to qualify for next year’s World Cup as a cohost, it faced a different challenge.

Having no qualifiers to play meant the program would have to fill its calendar with exhibition games, which the world’s game calls “friendlies” even when they aren’t polite. (Look no further than the brawl that ended Saturday’s U.S.-Paraguay match in Chester.)

Since it started to matter in June, U.S. Soccer could have picked several lesser opponents to try to rack up wins for public perception. But it knew those would have been empty calories, and many fans would have agreed.

So manager Mauricio Pochettino and his staff chose the harder path: aim high, suffer along the way, and come out the other side sharpened.

There was certainly suffering for a while: a 2-1 loss to Turkey and a 4-0 blowout to Switzerland in June, and a 2-0 loss to South Korea in September.

Pochettino’s words after the Switzerland game were as true then as they are now, with the U.S. on a four-game unbeaten run against Japan, Ecuador, Australia, and Paraguay.

“We knew that we wanted to play with two important teams in Europe like Turkey and Switzerland,” he said. “When we decided to play them, it’s because we wanted the players to feel the high level. And when you take the risk, this accident can happen.”

Had the Americans not turned results in their favor, as they have over the last four games, the ride would still be bumpy. Perhaps some critics would claim to prefer the easier path.

But the good results have further justified a correct decision.

Now the hill grows steeper. After facing Turkey and Switzerland in June, South Korea and Japan in September, Ecuador and Australia last month, and Paraguay last week, the U.S. closes its year by facing South American superpower Uruguay at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Raymond James Stadium on Tuesday (7 p.m., TNT, Universo).

Next March’s games, the last before the World Cup is set, are expected to be against Portugal and Belgium at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium — a fittingly glamorous stage in U.S. Soccer’s new hometown.

‘A real, raw passion’

All 10 of those teams were or will be in the top 40 of FIFA’s global rankings at the time of the matchup, with nine in the top 25 and five in the top 20. (The U.S. sits 16th, and has for all but one ranking period over the last year.)

And since the opponents had their own World Cup qualifiers to play, U.S. Soccer earns more credit for getting them over here in the rare times they were available.

“That’s ultimately what you want,” former Union centerback Mark McKenzie said. “I think any competitor wants to play against the best of the best, and as you go into a World Cup where we don’t have the luxury of a qualification period, you want to play against opponents who ultimately you have the potential to see in the World Cup. So I think when you play against those teams that are especially high-ranked, it puts you up to bat, and to figure out where you stand against those kinds of teams.”

The competitive juices especially come out when the U.S. plays South American opponents. Though big-name European nations draw more fan interest, South American teams deliver an unmatched mix of talent and passion.

“There’s a real, raw passion that comes along with that,” McKenzie said. “There’s a sense of real pride that South American teams play with. You hear it with the national anthems — the stadium is rocking because their supporters are all singing and screaming their anthem.”

McKenzie tries to bring the same mentality to playing for his country, and to his teammates.

“We have that mentality of, it’s not every day you get the chance to represent your crest, [or] every day you get to be one of 20-some-odd players to step on that pitch,” he said. “So, yeah, we’re going for the same mentality. We approach each game [as] it’s not a friendly match, but this is a preparation for what’s to come.”

The U.S. has a long history of big games against South American foes. Its first guest appearance in a Copa América, South America’s continental championship, was in 1993 — a year before facing Colombia and Brazil in the first men’s World Cup hosted here.

Kasey Keller’s 10-save masterclass against Brazil in 1998 still lives in the history books, as does a 1999 upset of an Argentina squad that Pochettino played for. More recently, the U.S. hosted two Copa Américas, in 2016 and last year, and in them faced six of the continent’s 10 teams.

That Uruguay landed the knockout blow in last year’s group stage makes this meeting even more of a benchmark.

Among the players who have gotten the message is outside back Alex Freeman, one of the younger members of this group but with a fast-rising profile.

“I feel like it’s a good test for us,” he said. “I feel like, especially in our home country, we need these tests. We need to show what we’re capable of and what we can do, and I feel like just knowing that we’re able to compete against these teams, it’s just a good step for us, and for the U.S. in general for soccer.

The USMNT’s pre-World Cup friendly opponents

Here’s a look at the teams the U.S. has played in friendlies since the start of June, and will play leading up to the World Cup.

After the World Cup roster is announced in late May or early June, the tournament squad will play two friendlies against teams and in cities that are still to be announced.

The FIFA rankings below are as of the date of the matchup, or as of this week for games that haven’t happened yet.

From the moment the U.S. men’s soccer team’s starting lineup was announced Saturday, all eyes were fixed on Gio Reyna.

Not only was he about to play for his country for the first time since late March, but he was starting for the first time since last year’s Copa América group stage finale — a loss to Uruguay that sent the U.S. out in the group stage on home soil, and sent manager Gregg Berhalter out of his job.

Reyna, 23, didn’t make any of Mauricio Pochettino’s squads until the Nations League final four in March because of a groin injury. Then he didn’t play in the semifinal loss to Panama, and was an ineffective second-half substitute in the third-place game loss to Canada.

For all Reyna’s talents — and he has perhaps the most natural talent of any U.S. player besides Christian Pulisic — Pochettino declared him not “ready to play in the way that we expect from him” on the eve of the third-place game.

That was how far he had fallen, in terms of fitness, form, and playing time at his club, Germany’s Borussia Dortmund.

Nor was he done falling. Reyna went to the Club World Cup with Dortmund instead of the Gold Cup and the friendlies before it, because Dortmund wanted him at their games and Pochettino didn’t want players at the friendlies whom he wouldn’t have afterward.

Would that be salvation? No, it was almost the opposite. Reyna got off the bench only once in Dortmund’s five tournament games, a mostly useless 12-minute cameo in the group stage finale.

Only after that did he finally leave for newer pastures, a move many outsiders had hoped to see for years. Borussia Mönchengladbach bought him for about $4.5 million up front and $3 million in incentives. It was miles below what Dortmund expected when a 17-year-old Reyna made his first-team debut in early 2020.

It was to be a fresh start, but it barely started before Reyna suffered the latest of seemingly countless muscle injuries in September. He returned to action in mid-October, but only as a substitute.

So it was a pretty big surprise when Pochettino called him up to the national team this month. But over the course of the week in Chester, it felt increasingly inevitable that he would start Saturday against Paraguay at Subaru Park.

Meeting the moment

Right on cue, there he was, and the message was clear. This was Reyna’s shot. Would he take it?

The answer came within four minutes.

It was a broken play out of a corner kick, the ball pinging around off all manner of limbs on both teams. Eventually, it fell to Max Arfsten, and he chipped a cross into the crowd. Reyna rose highest and met it with a header that caromed in off the crossbar.

As the crowd roared, Reyna ran toward the corner flag, pointing to the U.S. badge on his jersey. Within seconds, his teammates had swarmed him to celebrate.

“I know the kind of player he is, and I’m just really happy for him — he deserves it,” said Medford’s Brenden Aaronson, who started with Reyna in the attacking midfield spots. “He’s been through a lot with injuries, with all this stuff. But whenever he plays for the national team, he’s always there, and it’s awesome to see. … He’s confident in his ability, he knows what he can do, and that’s the beauty of him.”

There wasn’t time in the moment to point out that Reyna has not in fact always been “there” when with the national team. That was the whole point of the 2022 World Cup scandal that nearly torpedoed him.

When that goal went in, though, it was a moment for his immense burden of history to be a privilege, not a weight. The tally was his ninth for the U.S., passing his legendary father Claudio’s eight.

And for once, Claudio wasn’t invoked because of that scandal, or all the times Claudio interfered with U.S. Soccer officials before then, or yelled at referees from the sidelines in Gio’s youth days, or by genetics passed his ego on to his son.

By the time Gio emerged from the locker room to meet one of the biggest media packs at a U.S. game in quite a while, he had already texted with his father.

“It was just fun, love,” Gio said. “He was obviously happy for me that I passed him, but I had no idea. So he was more making fun of me for the fact that it was my first header I’ve ever scored.”

The pressure on him is earned

The negative side of the burden struck twice after that. On Paraguay’s 10th-minute equalizer, Reyna was late and slow to challenge Junior Alonso before he launched the long ball that sprung Miguel Almirón for a dazzling assist on Alex Arce’s goal.

In the 50th, Reyna had a look to shoot in the 18-yard box and didn’t take it, choosing instead to dribble into what became a crowd of defenders.

Those were small moments, but they mattered. Just as pressure is a privilege, Reyna knows his talents bring extra scrutiny.

The scale tilted back his way in the 71st. Reyna combined superbly with Folarin Balogun to create the winning goal. The man of the hour had delivered again, and the U.S. went on to close out a 2-1 win.

“I think in the end, performances like this that can help everybody here,” Reyna said. “But I want to have, more importantly, seven or eight good months in the rest of the season with Gladbach. And then I believe if I keep performing like I did tonight, then I’ll have a good chance to make the team and have an impact there, too.”

There’s still a ways to go, and as Pochettino said, plenty for Reyna to do to earn a seat on the plane next summer. But in a moment when he was asked to step up, he did, and in national team soccer there are never many moments. So when you get one, you have to take it.

“He showed why he started, and yes, confirmed that he’s a player that needs to improve because he needs to play more in his club,” Pochettino said. “But we can see today that he was great: scored and assisted. And the way that [he has] always the capacity to read the game, and find the free space in between the lines, I think that was a nightmare for Paraguay, and I think he did a very good job.”

Reyna thanked Pochettino in turn, with some notable humility.

“I knew it was an opportunity for me to to show that I belong here,” he said. “He’s been great with me all week, working with him, and just trying to give me the freedom and the confidence to sort of be myself. So I can’t thank him enough, obviously, for the start and just for the relationship that we’ve really built this camp.”

The stakes only get higher from here, and so does the quality of opponent the U.S. will face. After meeting Uruguay on Tuesday in Tampa, Fla. (7 p.m., TNT, Universo), to close out this month, it’s expected that March’s games will see big-time opponents from Europe. Portugal, France, and Belgium are reportedly on the radar, with Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium set as a fittingly big-time venue.

Time will tell if Reyna earns the right to be there. For now, he’s only in the race. But that alone is the best place he’s been in for a long time.