The Concacaf Nations League semifinals are right around the corner and we now have a clearer picture of what that the U.S. men’s national team roster could look like.
The preliminary rosters for the CNL Final Four squads were revealed on Monday and the USMNT roster features many of the top players in the pool, including Christian Pulisic, Folarin Balogun, and John Brooks.
Brooks will be seeking his first USMNT cap since World Cup Qualifying back in 2021. PSV fullback Sergino Dest is included in the preliminary roster but is not eligible to play in the semifinal round due to suspension. Bournemouth’s Tyler Adams is also included despite being sidelined through injury since last fall.
Barcelona youth goalkeeper Diego Kochen was also named to the preliminary roster, his first senior inclusion to date. Kochen is also eligible to represent Venezuela, Spain, and Peru on the international level.
USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter will still have plenty of key decisions to make in order to trim the final roster down to 23 players by March 1. Several of the past USMNT call-ups including Emmanuel Sabbi were not included in the preliminary roster despite positive European club campaigns this year.
The USMNT faces Jamaica in the Nations League semifinals on March 21 in Arlington, Texas with the winner facing the winner of the Mexico-Panama semifinal on March 24 in the final.
The Americans clinched their semifinal spot in November after defeating Trinidad & Tobago 4-2 on aggregate over two legs. Several players excelled during the November window including Antonee Robinson, Gio Reyna, and Pepi.
Here is the 60-man preliminary USMNT roster for the CONCACAF Nations League Final Four:
Preliminary USMNT Nations League roster
GOALKEEPERS: Drake Callender, Ethan Horvath, Zack Steffen, Gabriel Slonina, Matt Turner, Diego Kochen, Patrick Schulte, Sean Johnson.
DEFENDERS: John Brooks, Reggie Cannon, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Sergino Dest, DeJuan Jones, Kristoffer Lund, Mark McKenzie, Shaq Moore, Kevin Paredes, Tim Ream, Bryan Reynolds, Chris Richards, Antonee Robinson, Miles Robinson, Joe Scally, Auston Trusty, Caleb Wiley, DeAndre Yedlin, Walker Zimmerman.
MIDFIELDERS: Brenden Aaronson, Paxten Aaronson, Kellyn Acosta, Tyler Adams, Esmir Bajraktarevic, Gianluca Busio, Johnny Cardoso, Luca De La Torre, Diego Luna, Lennard Maloney, Weston McKennie, Aidan Morris, Yunus Musah, Tanner Tessmann, Malik Tillman, Timothy Tillman.
FORWARDS: Folarin Balogun, Taylor Booth, Ben Cremaschi, Cade Cowell, Jesus Ferreira, Bernard Kamungo, Jordan Morris, Ricardo Pepi, Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna, Josh Sargent, Jordan Pefok, Brandon Vazquez, Tim Weah, Haji Wright, Alex Zendejas, Griffin Yow.
What do you think of the roster? Who are you happy to see included? Who are you disappointed to see miss the cut?
Share your thoughts below.
I just updated my dragon ball tattoo. Guess we gotta collect the other 6 to bring John Brooks back to the USMNT! Really petty for Gregg to not give him a chance to compete for a WC 2022 spot, just oh he is done he don’t fit the system 🤦♂️
JR, I thought Sands was one of the best players in the Gold Cup and for a periid of time he was single hadidly keeping the US in the game against Panama, but I’m sure Gregg is considering the competition. Johnny and Maloney tougher teams that Panama every week and they are good players on their teams. Pretty unrealistic to think Gregg would be consider Sands to be evn on the depth chart.
a lot of GB’s picks here reflect lingering injuries overlooked, theoretical obsessions — regardless of performance — or fanboy affection for which club you play for. off the provo list he likely sees potential 6 play from Kellyn Acosta, Tyler Adams, Gianluca Busio, Johnny Cardoso, Luca De La Torre, Lennard Maloney, Weston McKennie, Aidan Morris, Yunus Musah, Tanner Tessmann. adams and weston are hurt and the tournament is in weeks. acosta is getting older and has fallen off. busio and morris got their shots, meh. DLT isn’t a 6.
i am fine with musah and maloney, though the latter hasn’t had to dominate a game to earn his spurs yet. johnny has played like a real 6 maybe 1-2 of his caps. i like tessmann but he’s basically been an age grouper to date.
all due respect to “the coach scouts them,” but i get sands behind some of the ones i just listed second paragraph, but literally behind everyone on that list? hurt? no experience? no performance? bull. something happened because he went from starting gold cup B team to not even on the field in january to gone. i want to know what.
sorry but common thread on many of these picks is blatant club fanboyism. busio, venezia. tessmann, venezia. maloney, heidenheim. adams, bournemouth. weston, juve. cardoso, betis. LDLT, vigo. i don’t buy they are in fact “good players on those teams,” some are hurt, some club bench, some have never done a thing for the nats. but if you pick a roster like a fanboy, who cares about NT performance and how they would stack as talent on the same field. let’s pick by which leagues we like to watch…..he’s worse than klinsi about this……klinsi could say things about clubs then pick some MLS if they were better. GB believes it.
Does Sands have a record of great play for the NT? Certainly one of the better performers in last summers GC. Was that GC a good performance though? James did well against Jamaica and Canada and not against Panama. He was awful in his one qualifier against Honduras. Was fairly good in 2021 GC but as a CB. Pretty inconsistent results. But let’s be honest had Gregg called Sands instead of Tessman you’d have your undies in a bind that he was leaving Tessman off. You’d create some new criteria that was most important as to way leaving off Tessman was a crime against humanity.
IV, he just saw Samds in January and he couldn’t even make the field in the January freindly. If you can’t make the field with that roster, you are not one of the top 60 players. MLS just started; there are no data points for MLS players form right now so any decisions on them has to be made based on prior performances. You’re blaming Gregg for the timing of the due date for the 60 man preliminary roster? With respect to Adams and McKennie, if he can get 20 strong minutes out of them they are both worth a 23 man roster spot. If he had someone of either of their caliber in Qatar he probably could have gotten Musah of the field and saved a little wear on his legs. Not putting two of your top 23 players on a 60 man preliminary roster would mean he didn’t learn anything from Qatar. Especially Adams since he is a guy you can bring in to help close out a game. McKennie is a guy you can put on late if you need a goal. There are lots of data points for European players formmright now so more can go into their roster selections now. You notice the two MLS players that excelled in the January game were both included on the 60 man roster? You come in to camp and do well, you give yourself opportunities for the future; you come into camp and don’t show well, you don’t get opportunities unless someone with a proven track record of good National Team performances. People like Pulisic, Reyna (yes Reyna has many great performances for Nats), McKennie, Adams, Musah, even Balogan whi very good in Nations League. I still don’t know what you mean by “fanboy” but it is pretty clear it has a negative connotation.
Johnny, Maloney, Tessman, Acosta (in a pinch vs Concacaf) even Aiden if in a bigger pinch. Plenty of #6 cover. Wes and or Musah could do under the right circumstances (I know It’s OK, Wes can not be a lone 6 because his distribution errors leads to turnovers deep in our own end). Tyler’s injury in 2021 was much shorter but he still got back and played the last 30-40 minutes in that final. I get a back injury is easier to play thru than if he reinjures his groin after coming on in NL. It kind of looks like the last 20-25 are U23s and there just letting their clubs know they won’t be around in March because they’ll be with U23 camp. Why do they keep listing Paredes as a FB?
“Why do they keep listing Paredes as a FB?”
Wolfsburg’s official site lists him as MF which stands for midfielder or something else. I’ll settle for midfielder.
Other than keeper ( at least three are required), the category listings are not limiting and aren’t meant to be taken seriously. The USMNT is not going to get penalized by the officials if they play Paredes as a forward or Pulisic as a defender at left back. They should just list Keepers and Outfield players.
JMo is here. Ariolla is hurt. Aaron Long not here?
Adams should take CNL and Copa America off. I can’t help but think he’s trying to come back too soon. Besides, it is past time that Gregg needs to see if any of the Tyler alternatives or combination of alternatives can actually work. One way to deal with depth issues to is to diversify your tactics.
Regardless, Gregg needs to show well. I don’t love Gregg’s impersonation of a national team manager. But there are worse things in the world.
It seems like Jesse Marsch has been positioning himself to pick Gregg’s bones clean should Gregg die on that Copa Hill.
Jesse seems like a very charming and likeable sort but having him replace Gregg could be a National team version of the Jacksonville Jaguars hiring Urban Meyer. This is not desirable unless you like the idea of a NYRB/USMNT.
So Greg needs to show well, but not the players? I keep seeing these types of comments about Greg, but Greg is not playing in these games, so while I know it’s cool in most circles to blame Greg for everything that doesn’t go perfectly for the USMNT, it’s also hypocrisy to keep saying we have the best ever generation of players but won’t lay any blame or accountability at their feet when it’s warranted. We know what Greg is, it’s can the players take control of their destiny and play to their level in every match, and so far we haven’t seen that!
Vac, please don’t mention Marsch as an option. Don’t want to give anyone any ideas.
“So Greg needs to show well, but not the players?”
Gregg and his players are about equally mediocre but it’s easier to change Gregg than to change the players.
How do you propose to evaluate the performance of the players separate from evaluating the performance of the manager?
Managers set up their players to succeed. To the extent that they fail, it is a reflection of how good a job that manager did in setting his player up to succeed.
“it’s also hypocrisy to keep saying we have the best ever generation of players but won’t lay any blame or accountability at their feet when it’s warranted.”
You exaggerate. “blame and accountability”? That has nothing to do with you or the people on SBI.
Since the end of the Qatar, I think it is safe to say that most of our World Cup roster has had judgement passed on them and it has mostly been positive. The judgement comes from clubs who , unlike SBI posters, put their money where their mouths are.
In contrast, Gregg was free after the World Cup. Did clubs come rushing in to sign him like they did our players?
It seems to me the soccer world has judged our players to be mostly desirable and affordable.
Gregg?? Not really.
Tyler Adams and Sergino Dest were arguably directly responsible for goals by the Dutch at the World Cup. But for the three games before that they had maybe their best games in a meaningful USMNT game. Should they be banned from ever representing the USMNT given the loss ended the USMNT’s World Cup participation?
They probably gave up those goals because, in truth, they were gassed.
Who is responsible for that? Gregg had to over use them because he had no depth. Gregg had four years to figure it out. He never did. Who is responsible for that?
Gregg may not be to BLAME for a bad performance but he is RESPONSIBLE for it.
His only job is to make sure that these players , as a team, produce when it matters.
If they don’t he’s responsible.
More to the point he’s a national team manager. The good national team managers , like that guy in Panama, manages them so that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
Bruce, Bob and JK all did that.
Gregg has not.
Given the level of their talent, this team have done just enough to scrape by. So far the main beneficiary of our Golden generation and its associated byproducts are clubs in MLS and in Europe.
They seem to like our players just fine and are getting a lot out of them for cheap.
Every week Americans Abroad keeps expanding.
But Gregg?
Tell me again that it is the players that are fucked up and not him.
Tell me again that if Pep, who has voiced a desire to manage a national team in the World Cup, or an unemployed Jurgen Klopp, could not instantly turn this bunch into a much tougher proposition. BJ Callahan is not in that class but even he showed y’all what might be possible if Gregg just got a little bit up off of his ass.
This is simple. Gregg is a decent manager , probably better than big bullshit artist Jesse. And he could accidentally lead them into a decent performance at the Copa America and the World Cup.
But, based on the last five plus years they are not well coached, badly organized, have no identity. All things considered they seem to be a nice unified entity that get along very well with each other. Because of their talent, and because they mostly play weaklings, occasionally, they get it together and are impressive.
In other words Gregg put together an okay, humdrum, decent team. However, what seems to be missing is the part about what you do to consistently beat equal or better teams when it matters.
To do that you need to be disciplined, tactically astute, well coached and well organized.
Does that sound like Gregg to you? Am I being “fair” to Gregg. No way in hell.
But that is the nature of the job.
“Vac, please don’t mention Marsch as an option. Don’t want to give anyone any ideas.”
It’s not my idea.
Marsch is increasingly visible as a pundit and of course can’t help but expand on his vision of how the USMNT should proceed from here. Gio as a situational player, Aaron Long and Miles Robinson as your starting CB’s, Brenden as the most coachable player who ever lived, that sort of thing.
I have no idea what his chances are of getting a job in the EPL or in Europe. But I’m sure he thinks those chances would be a lot better if he won the World Cup with his Red Bull/MLS setup.
So who knows? But I will remind you that I was among the first to say that the USSF would bring Gregg back after things died down.
“Vac, please don’t mention Marsch as an option. Don’t want to give anyone any ideas.”
It’s not my idea.
Marsch is increasingly visible as a pundit and of course can’t help but expand on his vision of how the USMNT should proceed from here. Gio as a situational player, Aaron Long and Miles Robinson as your starting CB’s, Brenden as the most coachable player who ever lived, that sort of thing.
I have no idea what his chances are of getting a job in the EPL or in Europe. But I’m sure he thinks those chances would be a lot better if he won the World Cup with his Red Bull/MLS setup.
So who knows? But for what it is worth, I will remind you that I was among the first to say that the USSF would bring Gregg back after things died down.
you’re listing names and not making judgments — my whole point with the roster. acosta hasn’t played as well lately and was let go by LAFC this offseason. johnny looks better on offense than as a 6. morris hasn’t ever impressed me much. i like tessmann but he’s barely seen senior playing time.
you’re also missing my other point, which is how do you rate sands relative to the list you just gave. i’d put him with maloney and musah (and adams if healthy). you just listed a bunch of inferior or inexperienced options, then said, “we’ll be fine.”
which, in case you missed recent games, this thing isn’t “fine.”
i personally think we should be playing with the triangle other way around, 2 defensive mids, 1 playmaker. that at least one of the twin DM be a productive attacker, but that half our problem is playing a riskier 1 DM scheme and then getting nervous when the single mopup guy gets hurt. neither the 6 talent level/abilities nor the effectiveness in games suggests we have a healthy jermaine jones in tow. when we rely on two-way 8s the offense lacks punch. so two 6s and a 10 picked for actual attacking skill. and then pick wings for productivity instead of pressing. this shouldn’t be a pressing team, anyway.
The staff has seen all these guys in person, they don’t need all of them on the field at the same time. You discounted all these guys on the roster, and you probably aren’t far off on your evaluation but you’ve got to have someone to replace them and Sands hasn’t shown much to replace them either.
More than half of these guys won’t be on the 23 man roster. I would have picked Sands instead of Adams who will not be ready to play; the games are a relatively short time away and Adams has not played in a year. No way he is match fit. Anyone left off this list is a backup to the backup to the backup. There are probably 50 guys who would love to be on the list and just missed it.
Wake me up when GB decides which to actually name to the roster. For example, at forward Pepi, Balogen, Sargent, Wright, Pefok, and Ferreira not all of them will be among the 23. It doesn’t get any better for them if the are played out wide to compete with Pulisic, Weah, Reyna(who could play centrally), Morris, Aaronson(take your pick).
Preliminary rosters. I’ll wait until the actual roster. Still a few weeks away from the games. Some injuries right now that may or may not clear by then.
this is very status quo with some older players (eg ream) and little judgment (eg zendejas). we won in november on aggregate, no?
What’s going on with Lund? He has not dressed the last two Palermo games. I am so bummed Tyler Booth is not here can’t stand injuries especially when a player taking scoring.
According to Fotmob, he’s being rested due to “overload”. You have to remember he was at Hacken in Sweden who run a season from Feb-Nov like MLS. So he’s been going 12 straight months without an offseason.
tyler adams sticks out to me as the obvious foolish provo waste. he’s been on a series of injury recoveries. he hasn’t played a game yet. i wouldn’t be risking playing him and if he can’t play then he’s useless as a contingency on the list. i take some of the listed as “signalling” eg kochen, but adams is a cap-tied adult who should be handled more in the realm of reality than like some kid with no caps and plenty of options. he’s either ready or not. we play games in 3 weeks and change. he’s not played club yet. we can run him out in copa america or even the pre-tournament friendlies, if he’s even healthy and game shape then.
you know the real answer to this one.
sands is a weird omit. he has played well in games for us. he was a healthy scratch in the winter and is now not even in the 50-man. he played for NYC the other day.
that plus adams is rehabbing and weston went off with a shoulder issue. we should be shopping 6.
Maloney, Johnny, Acosta, and Tessman a couple other guys that could play there if needed. It’s not like Gregg and company don’t know what Sands can do. I didn’t think Sands was bad in GC but is he playing as well as Maloney or Johnny. I don’t really know but the staff have access to every match these guys play and nothing else to do all week so I’m guessing they know more about these players than you or I do.
“I didn’t think Sands was bad in GC but is he playing as well as Maloney or Johnny.”
Geoff Cameron.
Sands, EPB, Maloney, etc. seem to be emulating Geoff’s versatility. And they seem to be victims of what I call the Geoff Cameron Syndrome.
Geoff was a very good center back for us but I think now he played there because we needed consistency at CB and we had Beckerman at DM/holding mid. for us.
His partners with the USMNT were a young JAB, Besler and Gonzo. Those combos blew hot and cold, so Geoff’s comparative consistency was important But the truth is he was probably a better holding mid than he was a center back. At his clubs he played more holding mid and right back than he did center back. You can look it up.
Highly underrated, Cameron was a freak. Chris Richards was playing injury emergency DM for Palace but Stoke bought Geoff to play midfield and he went straight from Houston to the EPL and, more or less, stepped right into the starting lineup and was a regular for years.
I don’t think the players I mentioned (other than Chris) are in Geoff’s class as soccer players so perhaps it would be better for them if they stick to one position.
I hope Jonny stays away from the center back role.
V: i saw cameron’s first pro game live and he came on as a wing mid and was involved in the equalizer at the end after the keeper had shipped 2 howlers. i personally felt like he should have been a long-striding wing player, either RM or RB — he could defend. he briefly played DM here and he had the turning radius of an oil tanker and tendency to just turn and run straight upfield and hit fairly square throughballs that rolled over the endline — like a U14 or something. he was also used as a CB here but i thought while athletic and tough he dove in too much. to me he should have been a wide player where a tendency to just fly in a straight line is prized as opposed to a bit basic.
to me the pool for that time period was just a mess. brooks is a soft zonal type and sometimes sloppy. omar was a slow stick figure. cameron wasn’t a specialist and dove in. 2010-2018 they had a lot of flawed CB play. plus a fetish for villafana wide who couldn’t defend. i think there was a bad developmental period which infected most of the team. pulisic was one of the few new young good players for a cycle or so.
related point but i was watching “next goal wins” and looked up rongen and realized he was technically arena’s foreign player scout. we all remember what the pro-MLS rosters looked like during arena’s stint. i start asking what was rongen doing? i don’t think (m)any new players were showing up until like gold cup 2017 right before the big qualifiers, which defaulted back to the old guard who lost to CR home and TnT away, couldn’t get it done. to me 2018 cycle feels like if they’d found a couple new players, brought back green or brooks, patched the backline, bad as it was, they were a goal away from advancing. any help might have limped us into russia. it wouldn’t have gone well but maybe we don’t wander off into the tactical wilderness or whatever these 6 years have been.
JR, I thought Sands was one of the best players in the Gold Cup and for a periid of time he was single hadidly keeping the US in the game against Panama, but I’m sure Gregg is considering the competition. Johnny and Maloney tougher teams that Panama every week and they are good players on their teams. Pretty unrealistic to think Gregg would be consider Sands to be evn on the depth chart.