Mauricio Pochettino will have three less names to call on for the U.S. men’s national team’s upcoming pair of home friendlies.
Forward Jesús Ferreira and defenders Jalen Neal and John Tolkin have departed training camp in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, U.S. Soccer announced Wednesday. Ferreira has been ruled out due to fitness issues while Neal is dealing with a minor injury issue and Tolkin has left due to personal reasons.
Goalkeeper Drake Callender has also left camp due to a slight injury.
A decision on whether to bring replacements into the squad will be made in the coming days.
The USMNT will host Venezuela in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday before closing out their two-match window on Jan. 23 against Costa Rica in Orlando.
It is the first USMNT camp of the Pochettino-era. Many of these players will be aiming to be part of the USMNT’s plans for competitions later this year, as well as the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Here is a look at the updated USMNT roster:
GOALKEEPERS: Matt Freese (New York City FC; 0/0), Patrick Schulte (Columbus Crew; 2/0), Zack Steffen (Colorado Rapids; 29/0)
DEFENDERS: Max Arfsten (Columbus Crew; 0/0), George Campbell (CF Montréal; 0/0), DeJuan Jones (Columbus Crew; 8/0), Shaq Moore (FC Dallas; 19/1), Tim Ream (Charlotte FC; 66/1), Miles Robinson (FC Cincinnati; 30/3), Walker Zimmerman (Nashville SC; 41/3)
MIDFIELDERS: Benjamin Cremaschi (Inter Miami CF; 1/0), Emeka Eneli (Real Salt Lake; 0/0), Diego Luna (Real Salt Lake; 1/0), Jack McGlynn (Philadelphia Union; 1/0)
FORWARDS: Patrick Agyemang (Charlotte FC; 0/0), Caden Clark (CF Montréal; 0/0), Brian Gutiérrez (Chicago Fire FC; 0/0), Matko Miljevic (Huracán/ARG; 0/0), Indiana Vassilev (St. Louis CITY SC; 0/0), Brian White (Vancouver Whitecaps FC; 1/0)
Jackson Regan talked to the press that he had been called but that Sounders had blocked the callup. Ferreira didn’t appear in any of the camp photos or videos put out by USSF. I think this is much more Seattle pulling him once the trade was finalized than he showed up out of shape. Maybe both are true but Seattle appears to have had a hand in Ferreira leaving camp.
It’s no coincidence that all 3 sent home were in the middle of moves to new clubs. Trend seems to point to Poch having big picture vision doesn’t hesitate to looks out for a players overall, longterm wellbeing whether it be fitness, club etc.
Callender has apparently also left camp do to “slight injury”.
JF is a catfish. He can’t run, cause he held his farts in to much and he is full of bull crap! Really makes me hot, JF mocking the crest not taking it seriously. Coming to camp not fit, smh cabron! 🤦♂️Glad Poch has balls to send players home, unlike unscupulous, nefarious, bonehead Beerholder.
Tell me you were reared by a single mom without telling me. Your comments are always out of ignorance. You don’t even know the definition of nefarious to use it correctly. You haven’t explained why players you like suck and the players you don’t like are actually good. You haven’t made a statement about why Boricuas don’t dominate in any American team sports especially the athletic sports. (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL). You haven’t even stated what got you into the soccer/futbol sport? Why you enjoy the sport and majority of your ethnic background doesn’t? Remember, you called me a clown, not once, but twice, so you aren’t articulate enough to communicate in an adult manner. I expect to be call names by humans with an inferiority complex. Only adults reared by single moms act like this. You say you attended University of Akron. You calling me names in the comment section of SBI, glorifies your ignorance and proves to everyone you can be college educated and still be fn fool. You are over the age of 30, and every comment you have ever posted reads like an emotional teenager. Striker91 is an anti- American!!
It’s OK 2 Think… you didn’t before posting this. You can make your point without insulting single moms and their children. I mean stop and THINK before you post. This one does rise to the level of “clown”.
I love I live in your head rent free itsoktothink. Harassing melenated indigenous autochthonous peoples, grow up alabaster supremacist. Go back under the bridge you live under getting off to donald trump, hitler, and walter plecker pictures you bigot ghost face supremacist maricon drug dealing addict, your a weirdo stalker bigot culero. I see why your trollin on my comment, You and JF both have one thing in common, you all hold no value, or brillant ideas to the concept of the beautiful game. Outta my sight. Tu basura meirda itsoktothink, no Zac Morris
Berhalter cut Kellyn Acosta from his first January camp for coming in out of shape.
JF is a joke please stop wasting callups on him. Knew he was thrash when he literally jogged against Holland in the WC. Was like we’re playing down a man. Why couldn’t he go off like Julian Green when he came on I. WC vs Belgium. Don’t wanna hear no excuses for this payaso grande 🤡 JF, he can only score on Minnow Concacaf teams.
per usual people chuckled when i complained we were bringing 24 to a 23 man roster. and now we’re down to 21. very predictable. has happened before. at some point, forethought? call enough for performance cuts, roster cuts, or breakage?
my normal refrain at this juncture would be “call someone” but that’s more complicated here. i normally don’t buy the legalistic stuff people push, ie, i think teams can release you without a bunch of warning — if they want to cooperate. but in this particular situation you needed the extra bodies called up front. european first teamers, except scandinavia, are likely unavailable as in-season and non-window. scandi/argentine/brazil players are out of season and you don’t have long enough to get them fit. MLS replacements on a similar calendar would be in preseason shape — they’ve probably spent this week working on fitness for the games where they can bother with them. this isn’t some normal window game where europe and MLS are both “in season,” where one can call for fit cavalry multiple places.
here i think your options would be european II team/age group players could take a long flight and play maybe one game (and the teams might say no on short notice) or someone from the U20s already in FL in a parallel camp.
I would imagine any replacements would come from the U20s many MLS teams are already overseas training or leaving soon. Maybe a guy like Matthew Hoppe who is without a team, but unlike Miljevic he hasn’t been playing anywhere recently.
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Name one call-up worthy player in Scandinavia? It’s just not the landing spot for US internationals anymore. Of course you are also kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel in MLS.
like i said, in practical terms, a whole chunk of sources are probably ruled out as in offseason, preseason, or not in a window. we have a week before the second game and if you’re just showing up for MLS camp you don’t have the game legs to bother. either terminally out of shape or beyond access. it winnows down to U20 swapping FL camps or some european B teamer/U19 getting released. which is crap planning. which is my point. the contingencies needed to be baked into this beforehand.
i am sure i could come up with a list of people we could have called including some scandi or age group types. i think you’re exaggerating how hard it would be to either exceed some of the MLS journeymen who made the list, or at least offer something different.
eg cole campbell is better than clark, it’s tennis with the net down.
Campbell is dressing for Dortmund they didn’t release him!
I think it’s the U20s or no one.
German 4th Div doesn’t appear to start back until late Feb. so they could workout to keep Harrangi (LB) and Dettoni, Murray, or Kohler (CB). Figueroa would seem a good candidate because he could play wing or striker. He seems to move around between Liverpool age groups but perhaps they’d allow him to stay, the U20 camp ends on the 18th. Raines would have the most professional experience and the group appears light on CM. Habroune can play as an 8 or a 10, he’s been very good for the U20s but played very sparingly for The Crew. Unless Lucho Acosta got his citizenship thru in the last couple hours because he’s not reporting to FC Cincinnati anyway.
Are you worried they’re not going to be able to field a team? They still have 17 field players on the roster.
Tele57,
Based on the consternation you’d think the concern was to make sure we had all 26 ( or however many were allowed) roster slots Like getting all your food cans in alphabetical order in the pantry.
If some of those slots are empty or god forbid, mislabeled, everyone gets their panties contorted and gets all I told you so. and you shoulda done this and you coulda done that.
Even though we all know that getting players for Cupcake is very challenging due to the timing, the lack of USMNT depth and the lack of a FIFA window.
This is just more smoke out the ass.
As you point out they still have enough people to play the game
The point of these camps is to find out about these players.
Well, that’s happening.
1. If they refuse your callup you learn a lot.
2. If they show up for a minute and then leave “hurt”, that tells you a lot as well. Curious coming from an organization like Seattle.
3. If nothing else it gives the coaches that much more time with the guys who are there. That is good for all concerned. Love the one you’re with.
These drop outs and injuries, etc. happen , to a greater or lesser degree , during every national team call up.
There is nothing new to see here.
“Ferreira has been ruled out due to fitness issues…” Wow…..now that is seriously disappointing
I imagine they just aren’t calling out Seattle who want him with them in Spain. FC Dallas had approved the call up but then when they finished the deal Seattle wanted him out. I won’t be surprised if he plays in their friendlies starting next week.
These are three players that couldn’t afford to let this opportunity go to waste. Granted some things are out of you control like injuries and personal reasons, which have been stated as the culprits for leaving camp, but this camp was the last opportunity to see up close in training and in game situation for the upcoming friendlies players on the outside looking in. You have to think none of these players will be considered for the Gold Cup and Nations League games, because those are the only competitive games, or games of consequence, before the WC next year. Neal has been oft-injured the last few years, so that’s a problem, Ferreira going to Seattle will do nothing to improve his chances in my opinion, so only Tolkien going overseas for me would be the best opportunity of breaking into the senior team
last year you had folks on here saying oh well, gold cup 25 will be the final full dress rehearsal tournament. i don’t think so. gold cup and club world cup conflict. they aren’t going to play both. the players will likely not be released. just glancing down the club world cup list, seattle, miami, monterrey, juve, and dortmund are all qualified. and we all know who a few of them are, both starters and some youth players we’d like to see.
nope, the last full access tournament will start in 2 months when we do the concacaf NL semis and final/3rd games in march. there won’t be another before world cup 26. and gold cup 25 will be a little short.
i am curious what the 25-26 schedule will look like, whether there will be NL prelim games or more like friendlies.
i think folks were a little bit “flip” about the need to churn that roster before copa america while we could, so we could learn something there other than “fire the coach.”
Fall 2025 dates are the qualifying dates for WC for the rest of Concacaf so you won’t have NL. But everyone else in the world will be qualifying too so more Mexico and Canada matchups likely.
Tolkin because he is about to head to the Bundesliga.
I hope that’s the case!
Tom Bogart announced it Wednesday and he rarely gets it wrong.
So it looks like this has legs – supposedly it’s Holstein Kiel. Who is currently tied for last place in the Bundesliga.
I salute Tolkin’s cajones in taking the leap but it’s a risk and maybe not a good one. Teams like Kiel sort of illustrate the dramatic differences between the haves and have-nots in Euro leagues…and Kiel is assuredly a have-not. Their total payroll is €11,680,000 for 2024-2025, which translates to right at $12 million US, since the Euro has fallen to almost dead-even with the dollar. (Euro-to-dollar exchange is only going to get worse, too: keep a particular eye peeled towards Germany, which is about to crash and burn in truly awful fashion. Their economy and industrial base is completely on fire already.) That’s not only the bottom of the Bundesliga, but it’d put them at the bottom of MLS, too.
By way of comparison, the Red Bulls (of New York, not Germany) had a total payroll of $18,500,000 in 2023-2024…about fifty percent bigger than Kiel’s, and that only put the Red Bulls right around the middle of MLS spending. They also had DP”s like Emil Forsberg that Kiel in no way could have afforded – Forsberg made $6 million in ’23-’24, four times what Kiel’s highest-paid player is now making.
And about that – to add to the fun, that player is Tymoteusz Puchacz…who plays left back for Kiel.
Obviously I don’t know the situation, but it very much appears this is an iffy situation for Tolkien. Kiel did just score a shock upset of Borussia Dortmund (in which Gio Reyna scored for Dortmund) but you’d still overwhelming peg Kiel for relegation and probably a last-place finish in the B1, and the B2 is a big step down from MLS these days.
Q: so basically NYRB and Kiel are the same except Forsberg’s contract?
Tolkin was making around $700K for NYRB, if I recall correctly. He may not be getting much of a raise at Kiel.
And the Kiel LB who was their highest earner (Puchacz) was loaned to Plymouth Argyle.