The U.S. men’s national team will officially begin its new era under Mauricio Pochettino this October, opening the door for some players, and providing a return for others.
Pochettino will officially be on the sidelines as the USMNT faces Panama and Mexico in the coming weeks. The former Tottenham, Chelsea, and PSG boss begins his new chapter on the international level and has already admitted that the door to being part of the long-term USMNT plans remains very much open.
Richie Ledezma, Luca Koleosho, and Taylor Booth are three players who have excelled at club level when given the opportunity. All three will certainly be chomping at the bit to get into Pochettino’s plans as early as October.
Mark McKenzie, Cameron Carter-Vickers, and Auston Trusty have all been in the USMNT plans under Gregg Berhalter, but will now hope to do the same under Pochettino. With the USMNT centerback corps continuing to grow, a positive first impression could do wonders for all three players.
Here is a closer look at which American players deserve more of a USMNT look under new head coach Mauricio Pochettino:
Richie Ledezma
D
Luca Koleosho
F
Mark McKenzie
A
Taylor Booth
A
Rokas Pukstas
A
Daryl Dike
Dante Polvara
D
Vacqui said “There is only one long term thing that will help this team develop and that is we need more and better players, as many as possible, as soon as possible And that is slowly happening…”
He is right, there is no coaching genius that can make the USMNT significantly better. Sure there are some lineup choices and/or tactical tweaks that may make a small difference, but in the end it all comes down to the quality of the players.
Dennis,
I have been a USMNT fan since the 90’s. I never thought about winning the World Cup. I was just grateful to have a team I could be proud of. My expectations started low and have remained that way, for what I see as good reasons. The USSF have consistently been stupid. If they ran the country we’d all be dead or worse. You can’t expect too much. If anything, I have even lower expectations of them today.
But they are still my team.
Are our kids are so much more talented than those before? Yes, but that does not necessarily mean what some people think.
When guys are going well they are much more exciting in terms of pulling off cool shit and looking smooth and polished. Watching Gio on the ball is just delightful. The great Frankie Hejduk was never that fun to watch on the ball. But Frankie had the biggest heart ever and never, ever gave up. Watching him play with his hair on fire was always exciting. He made things happen.
The old guys you watched for guts, balls, heart, subtle violence and sheer cussedness.
Gregg’s kids you watch for the skill and cool shit.
And because Uncle Gregg is a bit of a doofus, and got his job because of his hostile workplace environment brother, y’all fool yourselves into thinking that if only we had the latest flavor of the month tactician we would have a better shot at winning things and putting those bigoted anti American Leeds fans into their place. Those ingrates would be managed by the Germans if not for us in WW2.
Are Gregg’s kids any more likely to , for example, beat Argentina in a Copa America final, should that happen?
Probably not. If Nancy was leading them would they have a better shot at beating Leo? Maybe. But most likely they will still lose. Do we have a chance? Shit yeah. But it will be a while before we have as much of a chance as France had against them in the WC final.
If we had the greatest hot shit manager here, the best version of flavor of the month Nancy, for example, maybe he would give us a better shot. Mostly, being cooler than Uncle Gregg, I believe he would give the team a buzz and get everyone all excited.
But at the end of the day , just like it did in Qatar in 2022, it will come down to the fact that Argentina’s guys have a lot of big time experience at beating people and winning things when it matters. They had enough to beat out France. And of course, they still have more than enough to beat out our guys. As a team, our guys, from their clubs and from their USMNT games, know very little about winning big games.
I’m not absolving Gregg but this team doesn’t have enough ammo. Many of our starters are, at their clubs, backups. Gio, arguably our most dangerous player, is most likely looking for a club. Our best, CP has finally put together an entire season he can be really proud of. Let’s see if he can actually do it again.
Hopefully, in a few years things will change and our guys will have more consistency.
Where I get mad at the USSF is they won’t spend the money so that I can at least enjoy watching us lose to Argentina more than I would if Gregg were in charge. That’s really what it will mostly mean if you move from Gregg to a flavor of the minute name manager.
Tim Ream plays half the available matches when Fulham is in the EPL except the 22/23 season (33 regular season games) & plays 40+ games in the 2nd division. Only people who make up their mind with no evidence, don’t know this. ‘Gio playing defense is a myth!’ Why did he only play 10 matches with Forest? …and less with Dortmund? Defense, it IS his defense or lack there of. Defense is an effort and will thing more so than a skill thing. He’s not playing at club level because he’s NOT playing defense. Selfishly, I think, he doesn’t have to play defense at every club, he will ever play for as long as he is healthy enough to play for the U.S.A. Club superstars are NOT international superstars. Gio is an American superstar just like Lando, Dempsey, & CP before him. No ones even commented about how he should NOT be in the US squad because of his limited minutes played. Turner represents what I just posted. He doesn’t have to play at all, and he’s the number 1 GK for the US. Hoover City’s finest is a CB, not a 6. He struggled at the 6, every match for the Eagles just like any other player CB would. (Olise pronounced O-lee-say RW is dope as hell btw). Jedi is better than Chilwell & Andy Robertson & it’s not even close. He’s bigger, faster, stronger than both and does backflips to celebrate goals. Trusty is exactly his namesake. He may not be a Gunner, at the moment, just don’t be surprised when he is, or playing in the EPL again with a better club. Captain Adams ran more meters than any human being at the ‘22 WC. How is playing so many minutes? O, never mind
i’m just going to repeat myself. i don’t care what “used to happen.” i care the dude has barely seen a field since february for the team you seemingly are arguing he still starts for. he has been there years. you can cite 10 year numbers all you want. the deal is they benched him NOW.
you are then implying that his EPL history had a USMNT payoff. on planet reality, under arena, sarachan, and even berhalter initially, he had basically lost his job as a LB because he could be so easily beat for speed. he even had another chance out there at jedi’s first cycle expense and blew it in the swiss game.
ream was then rebooted as a CB. even then he was like 2nd or 3rd string. but we had a rash of CB injuries so he got the world cup. those players are now healed.
key thing being, as my analysis shows, the guy who you’re pretending is the “winner,” wins less than the previous first choices. and right now isn’t even playing for his club. this should be the easiest decision in the history of making decisions.
the flaw in comparing him to reyna is gio does have the club issues BUT DUDE DOMINATES WHEN HE PLAYS FOR US. when ream gets leaned on in a game like germany, the swiss, holland, it gets ugly. dude, don’t play.
Funny you are discounting Ream starting in January but find Green scoring during the Obama administration as relevant.
also, to listen to folks now, it’s like this is some quiet juggernaut and not a team that has been beaten by panama, TNT, germany, japan, holland, the swiss….and came within seconds and an own goal of losing to jamaica. to me that doesn’t scream “more of the same.” that shouts, “upgrades, please.”
but to get there you have to sit down and objectively ask, which of these guys are studs and which are the reasons why this remains just kind of “ok” and not dominant.
to me, the top shelf is like turner richards reyna pulisic and the strikers. adams if he can stay healthy. beyond that, this is neither an offensive machine nor a leakproof defense. if they found better people tomorrow i wouldn’t pout.
a lot of the US’ problem is when we get to this knockout round level we start ossifying on personnel and scheme. even if dude is literally the reason you just went out round of 16. if you can’t see and weed out those players then you don’t deserve better than squeaking from groups before going out first round of the playoffs. we need guts and higher expectations.
i think we have had sufficient reminders the past 2 years, NL aside, that this isn’t good enough. i am just saying the weaker players should be accountable to the losses, so we have fewer of them. but i think people get snowed every time we win nations league before later getting their wake up call. based on the set of teams we would likely face (after a bolivia blowout, it’ll be panama, uruguay, likely colombia brazil argentina) and the lack of evolution, we want another wake up call and will get one.
the question will then be, do we do anything about that, or do we make klinsi-style excuses. we seem real good at ignoring the feedback of tangible results and kidding ourselves the man in charge knows in his gut better than wins and losses. then running out the same mediocre bunch we’ve been using since roughly wales 2020 friendly. despite the fact they couldn’t beat wales that game, or in the world cup either, or much of anyone else outside the region…….”but we won nations league so it’s ok…..”
Still waiting for you to name a game for the US where Reyna didn’t defend well.
ream has like 1 league game since about february.
i ran some numbers and over their respective last 10 appearances the US’ record when playing particular CBs is:
richards 8-2-0 2.4 ppg
mckenzie 7-2-1 2.2 ppg
robinson 7-3-0 2.1 ppg
miazga 6-1-3 2.1 ppg
ream 5-3-2 1.7 ppg
CCV 5-4-1 1.6 ppg
i think people have forgotten ream got the job as an injury replacement, and had been seen as second or third string before that. the numbers, with some quirks, reflect that. in comparison, 1 and 3 were in theory supposed to be the preferred pairing for qatar.
“i think people have forgotten ream got the job as an injury replacement, and had been seen as second or third string before that. the numbers…..1 and 3 were in theory supposed to be the preferred pairing for qatar.”
BFD…So what?
Thank you…
this is basic stuff. if a backup only gets the job because the starters were hurt, and the team’s results with him are weak (holland, germany, TnT, etc.), and the starters get healthy……do i have to draw a map? this isn’t that hard to follow.
how do you “so what” roughly 2 fewer wins per 10 games?
“how do you “so what” roughly 2 fewer wins per 10 games?”
Who you got, instead of Ream, that is going to get the USMNT those 2 wins?
The USMNT is like you, they got nothing.
V: i made a list. read the list. ream ranked 5th on the list on points per game. pick anyone off the list ranked higher.
on a normal 23 man roster, being the 5th best CB would mean watching the plane take off without you. as it often did under arena, sarachan, and a lot of GB’s tenure.
“V: i made a list. read the list. ream ranked 5th on the list on points per game. pick anyone off the list ranked higher.”
“i ran some numbers and over their respective last 10 appearances the US’ record when playing particular CBs is:
richards 8-2-0 2.4 ppg
mckenzie 7-2-1 2.2 ppg
robinson 7-3-0 2.1 ppg
miazga 6-1-3 2.1 ppg
ream 5-3-2 1.7 ppg
CCV 5-4-1 1.6 ppg”
You made this list? So it is biased.
It does not reflect who those games were played against and what the circumstances were.
Also, the CB is one man. What about the other 10 guys? What was happening with them during the games on your list?
It’s been a long time since the USMNT has had a dominant CB, one who can single handedly change a game, like VVD or John Terry in their primes could. Actually, they’ve probably never had one.
Your list tells us nothing useful. There are two players on it, Richards and CCV who might be more reliable than Ream at this time. I like Matt because of the hilarious way he tried to bully short stuff Lainez but Matt Effing Miazga?
Overall it’s a very mediocre list. In 2024, I don’t really trust any of them. But again, it’s how they fit into the team for a couple of games in a tournament. not them as individual units.
Ream’s flaws are well known. He also had the 4 best games of his USMNT career in Qatar. And we’re almost two years down the road. So it’s up to Gregg to take all that into consideration.
We’re not talking about building a team to win a League Championship or win promotion somewhere. We’re talking, at most, 7 games to win Copa America. With a little luck, with that short of a time frame, who knows? Anyone who follows March Madness or Major League baseball playoffs know what I’m talking about.
And once the tournament is over, the process of building a team to win the next important tournament ( WC 2026) starts anew.
You talk about the USMNT as if it needs to follow your long term plan of development.
That’s a joke.
Right now everything with this program is short term as in win the cheap shit like Nations League, to impress everyone as to your “winning traditions”, and distract them from the fact that we have a perilously lean player pool. Gregg talks about nursing along Tyler and Josh.
France wouldn’t do that because they would just replace them. And we supposedly are aiming to take over from the likes of France, England, Argentina, etc.
We want to be more like Alabama when the reality is our player pool is more like Disco Tech.
There is only one long term thing that will help this team develop and that is we need more and better players, as many as possible, as soon as possible And that is slowly happening but will it happen soon enough to save the jobs of a number of folks?
And of course, it’s mostly out of the hands of Gregg and the USSF.
Until we have more kids playing regularly on Champions League teams and challenging for the Balon D’or, then the USMNT will remain in that second tier, where they have been all these years. That’s not bad but it’s not what we’ve been sold by the powers that be.
Until then, every time the World Cup or Copa America comes up, the USMNT will be scrambling., hoping to like hell they have enough healthy bodies to put together a representative team.
People like to say we can’t have nice things when player X gets hurt. That’s because we have no depth. Develop real depth, then we can get nice things.
Or replace Gregg with a more solid, innovative manager and maybe that manager can make more chicken soup out of this chicken shit.
But that won’t happen anytime soon. I see Gregg as a permanent manager. What’s the record for most Nations Leagues titles won in a row?.