Many of the players in Mauricio Pochettino’s January roster will fight for opportunities throughout the 2025 schedule, but the Argentine head coach admitted that his current roster isn’t the guaranteed backups going forward.
The USMNT closes their two-match schedule on Wednesday against Costa Rica in Orlando. Four days after earning a 3-1 home victory over Venezuela in Fort Lauderdale, the MLS-heavy USMNT roster will seek a winning end to their first action of the new year.
It is the first January camp for Pochettino as head coach, opening the door for him to get an early look at many promising talents. From Jack McGlynn to Diego Luna to Ben Cremaschi, the amount of options for Pochettino to consider for the remainder of 2025 are endless.
“I don’t like naming it an alternative team. For me, it’s the team with the circumstances of the moment,” said Pochettino to reporters Tuesday. “Today I was telling our players, they can’t feel that they are the alternative team. They are the team that, at this moment, have been selected from the many players available.
“They have to feel that they can also be important players,” he added. “And when they compete with all the range of possibilities that we have, they can have the possibility of also playing a position. For Costa Rica, with their circumstances, I think we have to give them importance so that the players can perform to the maximum level and so that they can have hope in the future when, as I said earlier, that opens up, they can have the possibility of fighting.”
Many of the European stars will be back in the fold for March’s CONCACAF Nations League semifinal vs. Panama. In addition, the Gold Cup is back on the horizon this summer, and although MLS-based players have been used more frequently in the past, this summer’s competition will be a good chance for the USMNT to prepare with their best roster for the 2026 FIFA World Cup on home soil.
Whether or not we see a lot of the current roster in Pochettino’s short-term plans remains to be known, but their involvement in January’s camp could provide a major spark to their futures in the program and their upcoming club campaigns in MLS.
“[This window] for the players it’s important, but for us as a technical team it’s a little more important because being able to extend the list of players we already know to have the possibility to select in the future is incredible,” Pochettino said. “The whole technical team is here, and it’s not the same seeing players in their teams, how they perform, than having them here for two weeks and getting to know them.
“In the end, the confidence they transmit to us is what makes us make certain types of decisions,” he added. “And that for us is a calculable value, it is difficult to calculate that value. There are many players who are thinking, ‘well, this player has the level of players who have been before, they can compete’ and that gives us tranquility knowing that we have players that can return in the future. That’s why I think the value for the players is quite similar. Maybe we give them a little more value than they do. They have to feel the tranquility that they have to perform freely to be able to show the talent they have.”
Eight players earned their USMNT debuts in last Saturday’s victory while Matko Miljevic, Patrick Agyemang, and McGlyn all scored their first senior goals.
People may get mad, but Steffen may become the starter again.
He did play well this evening.
They talked about how Poch and the GK coach want him to stay home and not come so far off his line. That advice would be great for Turner as well as it tends to be where his errors come too. Zach looked like old Zach pre-Man City. After he went Europe he would just look lost every time the ball was in the air. I still think he would have to have a great first month of MLS to get ahead of Turner, but both Schulte and Steffen set a marker against Horvath.
JR
Turner is clearly flawed and prospects for him getting a lot of playing time to improve (or even maintain his play) at that level are pretty slim.
The USMNT can’t ignore a player like Steffen whose primary issue seems to be shattered confidence. Pochettino clearly has done a lot of research on him ( he probably already knew a lot about him ) and has been bringing him along slowly.
Physically and athletically Zack has all the tools. If they can help rebuild his confidence he could immediately become the #2 and have a better shot at challenging Turner. The opportunities are there.
I’ve watched just about every Cupcake after party game(s) and these two games were the best I’ve seen. By that I mean the USMNT usually plays to the level of it’s opposition which means , with crap opponents, you wind up with two crappy games.
In these two games, you can see that the Staff had a game plan and had gotten the players to buy into the plan and raise their performance. It wasn’t perfect but for the majority of both games, they maintained their dominance over Venezuela and CR, on the field and on the scoreboard.
Finally, to the best of my knowledge ,none of these after party Cupcake games has had as passionate and dramatic a performance as Luna fighting to stay on the field despite his broken nose. Then he gets Pochettino to help him dress and stays and engineers a beautiful opening goal.
That kind of intensity is not a normal feature of after party Cupcake games.
Pochettino and World Cup pressure must be doing something right.
V: Berhalter won his first cupcake camp 5-0 on aggregate vs Panama and Costa Rica.
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There is nothing wrong with Turner that a move back to MLS couldn’t fix.
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Poch is a millions times better a manager than Berhalter duh.
“Berhalter won his first cupcake camp 5-0 on aggregate vs Panama and Costa Rica.”
I’ve never evaluated these games based on the scoreline. We’re supposed to beat those teams by that kind of score.
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“There is nothing wrong with Turner that a move back to MLS couldn’t fix.”
How much does Matt make? What MLS team is going to pay that for a keeper? That logic also applies to Steffen except he’s already in MLS. He just has to get Colorado to let him play in this more conservative style that the USMNT is using.
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“Poch is a millions times better a manager than Berhalter duh.”
8 million or so by my count. It was not so much that Gregg was inferior. For me, he didn’t seem to have much of a plan. That is boring.
Very impressed with Miljevic. He has that gritty attribute that you need on a international level. Like someone who bleeds for the shirt. He will be my dark horse going forward. Anyone who plays and understands soccer at a high level, can see it right away this guy is a real player. Look at the initiative he took when he dribbled past those 2 guys on his way to his goal.
Also researched some of his goals for NOB before the game, and the goal he scored is like many others he scored in the Argentine league. He is a powerful player, with excellent long range shots who will not hesitate to make things happen himself.
Who else other than Pulisic can do that on the team?
He’s only scored 6 career professional goals (2 in MLS 1 in the Canadian Cup) so using the word “many” might be stretching it. He has some golazos followed by long stretches of frustrating and angering his coaches, teammates and management. Most adults when subbed out at half don’t pack up their things and leave the stadium.
i thought a lot of the progression of the ball was going wide. wingbacks or wings sending agyemang behind the defense. i thought less of the attack was the CM setting folks up. the CMs did get goals but it was from wing service.
that and i thought miljevic over the course of the game was mixed bag, hit and miss. that’s a B team game and he’s turning balls over including in his own half. blew the PK he demanded. it didn’t scream, “this will scale up to first team football.”
mcglynn, to me, that shot is more of a normal run of play opportunity, he has a good shot, and his season numbers are probably miljevic’s career numbers. he was a little sloppy too but i can see a use for him off the first team bench. take deadballs, take potshots, chase goals.
you’ve got it backwards. i think the last “full access” tournament rehearsal will be NL in march. when gold cup arrives in the summer players from seattle, dortmund, juve, RBS, monterrey and other teams may be at club world cup instead. i know they made gold cup earlier this time and in some other year that might have meant the full A team plays that tournament for a change. but club world cup and gold cup overlap on the schedule.
i don’t think A/B/C is useful when it’s not a tournament and the purpose seems to be more to give the individuals a platform and selectively pick who plays in the normal access games/tournaments. it matters less if the team wins than whether an individual looks dominant and up to helping the first choice.
this is the D & E team.
Players competing in the 10th best league on the planet should necessarily be not be ignored.
As is true with coaches…unless of course one of our Oligarchs wants to chip in for a World Class coach….then of course go that route.
Will be watching today. The intensity of the game will be different against this Costa Rica team. We shall see if the US can match it.
I think I’ve seen every January camp team. IMHO, this team seems like the most skilled. In general US players keep improving. Remember when fans used to complain so much about bad first touches? You don’t see that much at all anymore. Another thing that I see our players doing better is controlling headers and turning them into accurate passes. Although most of these players won’t ever make spots 20 to 26 or whatever the WC team limit is, the quality is definitely improved and I think a team like this could hold its own for most of the Gold Cup, for example.
lots of positives and growth, I agree with you Gary
Luna surprised me the most, didn’t know if his game would translate
Poch earning his $$$ so far, keep it. up!!
sorry but i thought luna looked relatively weak. the past couple windows the speed of play picked up. it’s more get the ball and run the dribble then hit the pass. and the first team wall balls more. higher tempo in general on the ball.
luna to me felt like the old GB thing, get the ball, slowly work it around. and the offense was less productive after the subs.
i was eager to see him but felt like he didn’t particularly stand out.
to be real, i thought run of play was more about the wides and agyemang. i thought we were less effective central run of play. i thought the CM did their thing taking long shots.
meh. i think we play a finesse heavy attacking style. i think it exposes finesse qualities, good or bad. i think it’s debatable whether that particular dutch/spanish mimic is getting optimal results or roster selection.
i think if you go back and look at peak US ball it was 02-10 and that had dominant keepers, a shutdown defense, and more of a counter sensibility. hard to score on, dominant in the region, and able to play with anyone.
i agree that the technical level has improved, but i don’t know if going end to end on technique is our tactical advantage. i think it makes some people happier to watch.
i personally liked the japan or morocco type teams who defended in swarms then rapidly countered. and a lot of the better sides like france and holland were willing to play the ball long.
i think poch is an improvement on GB at this type of soccer. i think he has the tiki taka setup occurring closer to midfield then play the ball behind defenses. kind of a half-counter. but based on the early games i don’t know if we have the technical mids to routinely get the ball to midfield, play it some in tight spaces, then get the vertical ball behind the defense. we are kind of sloppy at MF. it only gets technical up top with reyna and CP.
we shall see. they were improved november window.
“i think if you go back and look at peak US ball it was 02-10 and that had dominant keepers, a shutdown defense, and more of a counter sensibility. hard to score on, dominant in the region, and able to play with anyone.”
1. We don’t have a dominant keeper and are not likely to get one before 2026.
2. We don’t have a shutdown defense. Presumably they are working on it. Which is just as well since the 02-10 defense was not that “shutdown” when it mattered.
3. Donovan was our 02-10 counter sensibility. We are developing a replacement sensibility.
The current management will have to work with what they have.