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Jeff Carlisle
In March, after dropping two home games in the Concacaf Nations League to Panama and Canada, the assessment of the U.S. men’s national team was that things couldn’t get much worse. That came nine months after the poor showing at the Copa América, where the USMNT failed to get out of the group stage.
All was not lost, though. The 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup was on the horizon. There would be extended time for manager Mauricio Pochettino to get to know his players better and come up with some tactical wrinkles to maximize the team’s potential at next year’s FIFA World Cup.
Or so the thinking went.
Two months later, it’s not only worse, but Pochettino is looking at something close to a worst-case scenario, at least in terms of the team’s preparations.
On Thursday, Pochettino announced his 27-player roster for next month’s friendlies against Turkey and Switzerland, and the list of absences was staggering. AC Milan‘s Christian Pulisic is out, citing fatigue and nagging injuries from a long club season. The same is true for Fulham defender Antonee Robinson, who according to Pochettino has been unable to train on a consistent basis. Yunus Musah, Pulisic’s teammate in Milan, asked to be omitted from the roster due to an undisclosed personal reason.
U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker later put out a statement explaining the decision to allow Pulisic to skip the Gold Cup.
“Christian and his team approached the Federation and the coaching staff about the possibility of stepping back this summer, given the amount of matches he has played in the past two years at both the club and international level with very little break,” Crocker said. “After thoughtful discussions and careful consideration, we made the collective decision that this is the right moment for him to get the rest he needs. The objective is to ensure he’s fully prepared to perform at the highest level next season.”
Then there are the forced absences of the Juventus duo Weston McKennie and Tim Weah, along with Borussia Dortmund midfielder Giovanni Reyna, due to their clubs commitments at the FIFA Club World Cup, which is happening at the same time as the Gold Cup. That’s six players who have had prominent roles with the U.S. in the not-so-distant past — and who were expected to form the backbone of the team — who aren’t available.
It could get even worse if Johnny Cardoso completes his move to Atlético Madrid, and is also diverted to the Club World Cup. Sources told ESPN that the 23-year-old Real Betis midfielder is Diego Simeone’s side’s top target this summer.
Pochettino insisted he was making his judgements on a case-by-case basis. Also left off the roster were players like Norwich City‘s Josh Sargent, and Lyon‘s Tanner Tessmann, although the manager said those were for “footballing reasons.”
There is plenty of logic to wanting to give players like Pulisic and Robinson rest. Pulisic is poised to log more than 3,500 minutes for the second consecutive season. Robinson put in more than 3,200. The clubs pay their salaries, so it’s clear what everyone’s priorities are.
There is an emotional component to this that doesn’t wear well, though.
Every week, fans have been watching Pulisic and Robinson tee things up for their clubs. The fact that they are choosing to take a break at this moment, with the USMNT clearly at a low ebb, grates. This current generation is already being called out by former USMNTers for not being devoted enough to the cause. The optics of the this situation don’t help.
Pochettino thinks that perception can be changed. It can, but it will take some doing.
“I think that our fans need to see our team fighting and playing and performing and playing well, yes, but fighting for the flag and being always in every single game match the aggressivity of the opponent, and that is what we want to show in these two friendly games and also in the World Cup,” Pochettino said. “I think if the fans start to see that energy and to translate this type of energy, I think the fans, they’re going to be positive with us.”
The circumstances have left Pochettino wearing a set of handcuffs embossed with the logos of FIFA and European clubs. It doesn’t matter that confederation championships like the Gold Cup require clubs to release players. There are the rules and then there is reality. Pochettino also indicated that if a player isn’t fully fit, then he doesn’t want them around.
“If you arrive to the camp and you want to spend nice time, play golf, go for a dinner, visit my family, visit my friend, that is the culture that we want to create?” Pochettino asked. “No, no, no, no, no. What we want do is to go to the national team, arrive and be focused and spend all my focus and energy in the national team. … If we want be good in one year’s time, we need to think that today is the most important day.”
When, exactly, will he have a team of 23 fully fit, fully focused players at his disposal, though?
After this summer, there will be four FIFA international match windows left, not including the period just prior to the World Cup. Those windows are far from ideal in terms of building a cohesive unit. The players arrive, have one or two training sessions, and then play a game; that’s followed by rest and recovery and maybe one more training session before a second game.
That’s why this Gold Cup was so important. A month spent with the team’s core players will have allowed for more understanding of Pochettino’s approach.
Pochettino also said that there was “too much importance” placed on the team being together. If not now, when? It’s a situation that looks increasingly akin to the U.S. being asked to cram for its final exam when it meets for a pre-World Cup camp in a year’s time. The reality is that the can of World Cup preparation can only be kicked down the road so many times.
About the only silver lining — and it’s a small one — is that Pochettino now has the chance to give some fringe players an opportunity for playing time in matches with higher stakes than during the January camp. Diego Luna figures to be a huge beneficiary of the absences of players like Pulisic and Reyna. On a team that has looked complacent at times, new players stepping up can only help. The likes of Folarin Balogun and Sergiño Dest are returning from injury, giving the U.S. a boost.
“I think it’s important for us also to find different solutions or try to find different ways to approach, and one of the things is to give possibility to maybe different players to join the national team,” Pochettino said.
It’s the only approach he can take at this point, but it’s one that is still setting off alarm bells.
