Should Tyler Adams feature for the U.S. men’s national team on Thursday, it will mark his first cap since the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and while many players might have been frustrated with the lengthy gap in their international appearances, Adams was always focused on the next opportunity.
Adams was called in to Gregg Berhalter’s 23-player roster for Thursday’s upcoming CONCACAF Nations League semifinal vs. Jamaica, his first senior call-up in 15 months. After suffering back-to-back hamstring injuries at Leeds United and Bournemouth, Adams recently made his league debut for the club in a 4-3 comeback win over Luton Town last week.
Now with growing fitness and confidence back on his side, Adams is ready to contribute to a potential third-straight Nations League title for the Americans.
“I was talking to Gregg [Berhalter] all along and we were deciding whether I would just come into camp and be around the guys and continue my fitness and training or if I felt I could play a role on the inactive roster,” Adams said Monday in a press conference. If you ask me, of course, I want to play a role and be on the active roster,” he added. “I think for these games, I’m still probably minute-capped a little bit it’s not obviously about me coming flying out of the gates but, yeah, I know I can contribute 45 to 60 minutes.
“There was never a doubt in my mind that the moment will come,” Adams added. “Anyone that knows me knows that I do a lot of my work behind the scenes. I go about my business in the right way. I’ve been continuously working nonstop in the past months to make sure that this time would come.”
Opportunities have been scarce for Adams since moving to Bournemouth, playing in just two matches across all competitions. After making his club debut in an EFL Cup win against Stoke City last October, Adams was forced back to the sidelines after re-aggravating the same hamstring he injured at Leeds United in April.
Although his club career was on hold, life continued to move forward for Adams in a good way. He became a father for the first time with his girlfriend Sarah in January, savoring the time at home with his newborn son.
Adams wanted to be back on the field with his teammates, but relished the relaxing time at home with his loved ones.
“There’s never a good time to be injured, especially when playing a sport is your job, your craft, everything that you want to be, but to be able to have this opportunity to become a dad in this moment and not have to think about the stresses of the game, going away and missing things or not being there possibly for the birth, just being very relaxed in all those moments and being able to support my amazing girlfriend throughout that all has been a huge blessing in disguise,” Adams said.
“It’s really the best thing that’s happened to me, and these first few months so far have been a great learning experience, a great learning curve, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything,” he added.
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Before returning to Andoni Iraola’s first-team squad at Bournemouth, Adams featured for the Cherries’ developmental squad earlier this month, gaining valuable experience back on the field. He later helped close out a crucial league win over Luton Town and now has a new opportunity to get back to featuring alongside his international teammates.
It’s been a major turnaround for Adams, who admitted the never-ending support he received during a tough moment in his career.
“The rehab process was a long one and an enduring one,” Adams said. “You learn a lot about yourself in those tough moments, because, in those moments, there are no headlines about you. There are no people talking about you anymore. All of a sudden, you like fall off a cliff and you’re kind of irrelevant in that moment.”
“I was in touch with a lot of the players,” he added. “Like I said, they’re close friends. I’ve been in touch with Gregg throughout it all. They were constantly checking in with me. The Federation did an amazing job throughout my rehab process of just making sure I was hitting all my benchmarks and doing the right things. Anything that we could do to accelerate the process in a smart way as well, we tried to do and. ultimately, that’s why I’m back now.”
Whether or not Adams gets the nod in Berhalter’s starting lineup on Thursday remains to be seen, but having his presence back in the USMNT squad is a key win. Adams could very well start at AT&T Stadium against the Reggae Boyz, but also could be important off the bench in the second half.
Overall, Adams is excited to be back with the USMNT and his teammates and coaches are certainly pleased to have him back for competitive action.
“Tyler is obviously a huge part of this team, a huge part of our culture,” goalkeeper Matt Turner said about Adams. “He’s a guy who wears the captain’s armband quite frequently when he’s on the pitch for us. He’s a true leader on the pitch and off the pitch. It’s really great to have him back and get reintegrated with the group.”
It’s great for us to have Tyler back. I think the first part is that we’ve got a really great culture that we’ve built and he was such a large part of building that culture,” USMNT assistant coach B.J. Callaghan said. “To have him back and get him integrated with his teammates, they go beyond teammates; they’re friends. I think he just brings a big left to us.”
people criticized me but even the player says he’s not good for 90 but more like 45-60.
i also wonder if some of you folks have ever come off the bench into a high level situation fairly cold. catching up with speed of play can be harsh and isn’t an ideal situation for a rehabbed player. it’s sometimes actually easier to start, ease in, then come out at half. his best scenario might be we build a lead on a weakened jamaica and he can come on and mop up a game we are controlling.
i still think this whole calculus is dumb. the coach’s own options presentation reflects uncertainty and concern and basically delegates his adult role to the player, who emotionally is eager to get back for obvious reasons. a guy who’s not 90-minutes fit shouldn’t be called for an elimination game at anything but the world cup. you don’t guess, you don’t roll dice, you don’t hand the decision off to the player.
IV,
If you take a sober look at Gregg much of the positivity that emanates from him and his apologists stems from the fact that the USMNT locker room is a very close knit, seemingly friendly and welcoming bunch. This feel good narrative is an offshoot of the famous us vs the world and their anti American prejudice mentality.
Historically this seems to be a USMNT tradition with some notable Harkes/ Wynalda exceptions.
This is generally viewed as a good thing but it is always about balance. I have read many articles about what fantastic human beings Tyler, Aaron Long , Brenden and Roldan, just to name a few, are.
It’s nice to know that the USMNT don’t have accused rapists and scumbags ( though a lot on SBI act like Gio is one) like Ben Yedder and Greenwood around but you get the feeling that the media spend a lot of time on that because they don’t have much to say about their ability to play.
I’ve always felt that Tyler served as Gregg’s hall pass. When was on, the team looked much more organized and better coached than they did when he wasn’t around. But that’s not good enough.
Given the occasion and the quality of the opposition, you’d have to say that the best showing of Gregg Ball was seen in their four World Cup games, when Tyler was omnipresent.
If you can guarantee that Tyler comes back from injury as good or better than what he was in Qatar then maybe you have something there but it seems more likely that Gregg is going to have to find a way to get more out of that position , (whether or not Tyler is playing it) in particular and more out of the rest of the team in general, if they want to get to a semi in the 2026 World Cup.
In other words, the best version of the USMNT has Tyler starting but in the very near future they are going to need to be better than that in almost all phases.
I’ve coached a gazillion Academy kids and so have seen a bunch of them come back from injury and you’re right…they’re always rusty and off the pace when they come back, sometimes to the point of being awful.
The thing as a coach I always had to gauge was: what was the player ready for? You didn’t want them to get re-injured…but there was always going to be a certain amount of suffering they were going to have to do to get themselves cranked back up to game speed, too. And a couple of times I did not get it right. I had one kid with a broken hand playing in a soft cast break it worse when he fell right on it…I shouldn’t have let him play but he was adamant and I let him on the field. That one was on me.
In this case, I’ll just defer to the folks who are paid to make these kind of decisions. But I will admit it does make me leery because Adams got himself re-injured last time after playing just 20 minutes…which means he wasn’t ready and like all hyper-competitive Alpha types tend to he pushed himself out there anyhow. Hopefully the medical staff there at Bournemouth trusted him less this time around.
Hopefully we will not need him to close out Jamaica. But we’ll definitely need him this summer when Copa America rolls around. So I hope everybody’s really careful this fixture window.
quozzel,
The difference is you were coaching kids.. They had not even really started their careers so barring something unforeseen, you could afford to take time with them. They probably even listened to you.
There are probably all kinds of pressures, most of which we probably have no idea about, on Tyler to get back out there.
And of course Tyler is closer to the end of his career than the beginning.
If I were him I would skip NL and Copa America. But that is easy for me to say. It is possible that those two tournaments will be the last he ever plays for the USMNT.
But Tyler is right about one thing. None of us know what goes on behind the scenes, how hard he and other players work to get their fitness back and maintain it. After all Pulisic, who I have now jinxed, doesn’t look like he needs to be wrapped in cotton wool anymore.
If CP had any back to fitness secrets I’m sure he’s passed them on to Tyler.
IV thinks players are frozen in time but that is just nonsense.
As time goes on, if you are not getting better, you are getting worse.
I would love to be wrong but I certainly am not betting on Adams being a better player for 2026 than he was in 2022.
Q,
I don’t coach academy kids, just club, but I had a similar call to yours. Let a kid play in a big tourney with a soft casted broken arm because he was insistent, (and shamefully for me, because we really needed him) and yep he was bumped over, fell on the bad arm side, couldn’t catch himself, and ended up breaking his collarbone. Never felt so stupid as a coach.
I’m already on record saying Tyler should not be at this camp. He should be getting up to speed with his club, and if keeps progressing to 90 min fitness hopefully ready for the Copa. And I agree with IV that it would probably be easier to start and get in a rhythm than come in late and cold to a high intensity close game that may go extra time.
Duane Holmes has played 70 minutes since Jan 1. Some of that because of injury. Some because he’s incredibly inconsistent and has been his entire career. I’ve explained this to you before. Look at his seasons he’ll have 2 or 3 weeks and it will make up 90% of his production for the season and then have no goal contributions for 5 months. He started the season with 3g 3a all comps the first month. The last 6 months 1g 2a. He has 9 shots on target all season. His last shot on target was Nov 10. 4th months without one shot on target! His longest goal is 15 yds and his last goal from outside the 18 was 25 months ago. That’s the guy you want shooting from distance?
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Julian Green has gone 900 minutes without a goal or assist. Last goal contribution Dec. 2. Since Dec. 2 he’s had 22 shots 9 on target not bad (I mean in 10 matches he’s got as many shots on target as Holmes for the season) but his xG during that time he’s only had one opportunity that was rated as more than 0.1. He’s taking shots that are unlikely to go in and they’re not going in. He does have 2g from outside the 18 this season but none since October. He has 8 in 7 seasons with Furth. That’s great 1 per season for your club, but if it takes you 38 matches to make 1 that could be 4 or 5 years with the NT. I wouldn’t hate Green getting another call up but if he’s your key to the US competing for the Copa or WC it’s the definition of a fanboy.
Geez I’ll bite. Frankly seems a little surprising, dare I say silly to see what feels a rather 2019 talking point resurrected. At points in time, they showed in spurts, justified looks in a thin roster, but both are past their peak which would have still put them down the depth chart today. All things being equal, it’s better to look forward, develop players on the upward trajectory and not waste hand wringing on players that found their level in B2 and the Championship. It ain’t happening.
I don’t take the deep dive into players and their performances like you and some others. Based on just what is reported here in Americans Abroad, it seems to me that Green is actually getting more minutes this season than he did in the last. So, perhaps his lack of production is due to a change in roles? Maybe he is playing more of a defensive role? If he is doing less than his prior production when it comes to scoring, then why would he be starting just about every game? I don’t have an answer, just a suggestion. Does anyone know?
Gary,
I’m not sure, Furth isn’t on any of my viewing options regularly. It looks like it is roster depth, Tillman going to MLS opened up a lot more minutes for Julian. Another MF Christiansen left in the summer and they replaced them with pretty raw guys either on frees or for next to nothing. Green’s played basically the same position as DM in a 5-3-2. He played farther up the pitch when Tim was still there but scored more after he left. The three starting MFs for them have played 97%, 89%, and 81% of Furth’s minutes, they just aren’t subbing in the midfield. Green’s numbers all across the board are pretty close to his career averages per 90 minutes. He’s got a lot more touches this year probably because he’s starting deeper. He’s taking most of the corners so that’s contributing to some of the added assists. The biggest drop is in successful take ons off the dribble, an almost 20% dip.
As a general rule, I would agree with you. However, we haven’t seen him in practice and we don’t know what the trainers have determined, two very important inputs.It seems to me that if he co9mes in late in the Jamaica game, when players are tired, he won’t face the same intensity as if he starts. I would be tempted to put him in the last 15 or 20 minutes, see how he does and how he feels after that, then maybe start him the next game and try to get 60 minutes from him then.
“It seems to me that if he co9mes in late in the Jamaica game, when players are tired, he won’t face the same intensity as if he starts.”
1. ?? The intensity of the game isn’t really going to increase or decrease Tyler’s chances of getting hurt. He could injure himself in pregame warmups.
Besides, there is no getting away from it. It’s his first game back and he’s going to show us what he is famous for, his relentlessness and intensity. He’s not out there for his silky smooth touches and his range of passing. He’s out there to risk re-injury by dogging people relentlessly, clogging up their passing lanes, etc., etc.
No halfway bullshit. He’s either Tyler or he’s not. If he’s not then don’t play him until he is.
If you play him at all, then Tyler is gonna be Tyler. Regardless of anything else, as soon as he steps out there, he will be ON.
2. If Gregg puts Tyler in with 20-15 minutes left in the Jamaica game that suggest to me that we’re either ahead or tied. If it’s close, that intensity you are worried about will be there from everyone. Because guess what, Jamaica can substitute tired players as well.
Jamaica are a dangerous team and I don’t doubt they can cause the USAMNT trouble.
But , all things being equal, the USMNT can beat Jamaica without Tyler.
And if they can’t then there is something wrong with them. So I think Gregg should not bring Adams to either the NL or Copa.. I’m old fashioned. In tournament play like this I expect that every man should be able to go 90 if called upon. If he can’t, it’s amazing how fast things go south if you bring two or three players who can only go 45 or less. Granted some teams have specialists but Tyler isn’t one of them. The USMNT team defense should be solid and sound. If they need Tyler to straighten them out for 20 minutes towards the end of a game then they are fucked up.
If Gregg does this 20 minute thing as you suggest he risks telling whoever has been playing in Tyler’s place that “Yeah, you’re just laundry, we don’t really believe in you.”.
You either trust your depth or you don’t. And if you don’t, why the hell are they out there?
He doesn’t need to play a full game to contribute. I said before the roster was announced that I thought he would pick Adams when Maloney got hurt because Gregg doesn’t have confidence in the other options. If he is fit enough to play 20 – 30 minutes in the Premeire League, he is fit enough to do the same for the US. Gregg’s only legitimate options at 6 are Cordosa and Musah. Musah has a history of tiring at about the 70th minute and either can go down with an injury. Who do you want to put in under those conditions; Adams or LDLT? There aren’t any other healthy players in the pool that can give better 20 -30 minutes than Adams at the 6. If he can’t contribute to Nations League why would you think he could contribute in COPA? As far as getting injured again, he is already playing again for his club team so he isn’t going to stay in bubble wrap until COPA and his last two setbacks were non contact injuries that I think both took place in training which he is already doing now. If he gets hurt again in Nations League and misses COPA, it would be pure speculation that he wouldn’t have eventually gotten hurt for his club team and still miss COPA. At some point players have to come back from injury. Tyler would first have to make the 23 man roster for COPA to contribute amd coming in and contributing at Nations League will help him do that. With Musah, Cordosa, and Maloney all capable of playing the 6 at a high level, Adams isn’t necessarily a lock to make the final 23.