The U.S. men’s national team struggled to take steps forward during the March CONCACAF Nations League window.
Mauricio Pochettino’s squad suffered back-to-back losses to Panama and Canada respectively, finishing fourth in the 2024-25 edition of the tournament. The USMNT struggled for consistency in their two matches, which isn’t a promising sign with the FIFA World Cup just over one year away.
Player-wise, only a few impressed during the March window while many disappointed over the 180 combined minutes.
Here is a look at the USMNT players who boosted or lowered their stock the most in the March international window:
Winners
Diego Luna
Diego Luna walked away from USMNT camp in better shape than when he arrived.
The Real Salt Lake attacker registered one assist in 90 minutes of action, setting up the USMNT’s only goal against Canada on Sunday. Luna was lively in possession, creating two chances and also showing great patience in the 18-yard box.
The 21-year-old also won six duels and completed a match-high four tackles, doing everything he could to keep the USMNT in the match.
Luna now heads back to RSL with added confidence for the continuation of the MLS campaign.
Patrick Agyemang
Three goals in four USMNT caps is a pretty good starting return for Patrick Agyemang.
The Charlotte FC striker scored against Canada, showing great strength and awareness in the 18-yard box. Agyemang was a consistent thorn in the Canadian backline’s side, winning five duels and drawing two fouls.
Although he didn’t find the back of the net against Panama, Agyemang delivered a lively cameo off of the bench.
The 24-year-old certainly walked away with a stock boost heading into the summer.
Tanner Tessmann
Tanner Tessmann featured in both of the USMNT’s matches and overall did a solid job throughout the camp.
The 23-year-old midfielder completed 81% of his passes, won both of his duels, and made two interceptions against Panama over 68 minutes of action. He logged 21 minutes off of the bench against Canada, completing a perfect 8-for-8 passing and providing defensive coverage during the final stages of the match.
Tessmann’s role at French club Lyon has continued to grow this spring and that could certainly continue after a positive international window.
Losers
Joe Scally
Joe Scally entered the March camp as the leading fullback on the current roster, but walked away with little overall improvement.
Scally started in both matches of the Nations League Final Four, featuring at both left and right back at times. The 22-year-old struggled with his passing in both matches, while also being lackadaisical in possession at times.
Antonee Robinson and Sergino Dest are ultimately the USMNT’s best fullbacks going forward, but Scally isn’t guaranteed the No. 3 spot just yet.
Christian Pulisic
Christian Pulisic remains a key part of the USMNT roster going forward, but March’s pair of performances were two of his more disappointing.
Pulisic struggled to get into both matches, creating just three offensive chances and showing frustration at multiple periods throughout. The 26-year-old was pretty invisible against Panama, having just 21 touches before being replaced in the 69th minute.
Luckily for Pulisic, his long-term role isn’t at jeopardy, but Pochettino will hope he can get back to being productive this summer at the CONCACAF Gold Cup. If not, then the USMNT will need to start looking at other options to be their leader.
Weston McKennie
Weston McKennie is normally up for the challenge that CONCACAF brings. The March camp was one of his few blunders in a USMNT shirt.
McKennie offered little in both matches, logging a combined 159 minutes of action. The 26-year-old normally is getting into challenges and setting a tone for the rest of his team. Instead, McKennie was pushed around by both Panama and Canada, losing 20 of his combined 23 duels.
McKennie’s versatility at club level is a positive thing, but it still seems undetermined what position exactly Pochettino wants to play him at in his squad.
Which players impressed you the most in September’s camp? Who disappointed?
Share your thoughts below.
downintexas,
“Maybe one of them puts one or two against Panama or even Canada. But that doesn’t change just how bad we played.”
Nothing can change how the games were played.
But there is every reason to think that if Flo and Pepi had been available things might have been very different.
You would have had 4 strikers not just 2, Josh or Patrick. And Pepi has been almost a mortal lock to score if brought on as a sub.
If everyone in the player pool is at their best and playing well, there is every reason to think Patrick does not make the 2026 World Cup. If Flo, Pepi, Josh and Haji are in form and playing well, Patrick is probably not on this team for the World Cup, unless he can develop more skills in the next year or so.
The Concacaf tournaments (nations league/gold cup) are a joke and not worth sacrificing a career over. Get Stuart Holden alone and a few beers in him and I guarantee you he’ll acknowledge his regret in the Gold Cup ending an incredibly promising career.
Our players have everything to lose (many on multi million dollar contracts) and nothing to gain (stupid looking trophy). Panamas pub league players have everything to gain.
You saw the USMNT put everything on the line in the last World Cup. They’ll do it again when the time comes.
Let all the talking heads do what they’re paid to do and feign outrage.
U20s: 3-0 Mexico, 1-1 Japan
U18s: 2-2 Morocco 4-3 Norway
U17s: 0-3 Costa Rica 4-2 Costa Rica
Kristian Fletcher had 2g 1a for U20s. The U20s had just about everyone except Campbell, maybe Peyton Miller, David Vazquez and Birchimas might figure into this group as well. Vazquez sat with Union first team and Birchimas and Miller are injured.
agyemang did ok. but his competition looked like crap which in a B situation is as helpful as anything. i also think “donovan dempsey” this (start pulisic or reyna 9) or “none of the above” (eg, ferreira and vazquez, as well as new ideas like downs) benefitted from this — depending how long the starters are out. if the starters are back soon agyemang gets in the mix. if they take a bit then the others will creep in. and i think some of the B team will get to play gold cup striker (and it won’t be the 2 guys below).
weah looked alright, i think he needs competition based on productivity, and we may call up Bs this summer, but i think there will be no pitchfork mob after him in a triage situation. i would like to see dest or mckennie tried up high. both are talented and can be productive but neither is really that good at playing their nominal position.
luna will be in fashion even though he had 1 assist for the wekeend. hype machine rolling there. i still think i prefer reyna when fit. i think this team lives in an eternal present or slightly past tense which is why we never get a good lineup together at once. everything is the hype player of the week which with how we are playing lately is defined as a low bar. that being said, i would prefer him ahead of aaronson, tillman, LDLT, and some of the more underproductive/underwhelming other options.
i will try to avoid jinxing myself by saying it aloud on adams but if you were paying attention he was mobile, made plays, and had a stats line both games, which has a meta meaning.
i thought arfsten and fossey quietly looked competent when used.
——————
i don’t think turner came off well but he also didn’t sub or rotate turner 1 second.
similarly, while scally, mckennie, and pulisic didn’t impress, they also started both.
ream and mckenzie came off poorly, and ream in particular was dropped for game 2. i think we missed richards and the CB pool begs refreshing. if they go B for gold cup then that’s a perfect time to revive forgotten players or try prospects. and to be clear, that is not a call for the analytics department to offer up neal again.
sargent got dropped game 2 and the sub was instead white when we needed a goal to stay in the game. white then looked completely out of his depth. they both flushed themselves. i think we call B strikers this summer but not either of them.
mcglynn was unable to corral the pass on the losing panama goal, and left no impression.
reyna did not help himself in his stint. i’ll be curious if he gets called for summer games. to me if you want someone in game fitness a summer with 6-8 potential games and a long camp is a way to get that done.
Balo played a friendly with Monaco U21s vs Brighton U23 this week. He scored a hat trick. Haji obviously is back with his hatrick against Sunderland before the break. I don’t think Pepi will be back in time for summer.
Before or after the World Cup?
If anyone has any recommendations I’m sure they would be welcome but most likely that guy is going to have to be one of the known knowns who raises his game.
I’m guessing Steffen
and that’s why you keep going in circles is your answers are Bruce Arena Answers, ie, you remain superior in grasp, haven’t misevaluated the pool, the fix for my CB problem is within the same 3-4 CBs that keep letting me down. “one just needs to step up.” which is how you have omar starting in couva practically handing trinidad the win that ends that cycle.
the thing people forget is miazga and zimmerman had done the gold cup that summer. y’all usually impose an artificial, awkward definition of who is worthy then having defined the pool as who you recently saw, and trusting a coach already losing games, declare the coach’s answer as within who he has already seen, who are rather than manifesting the coach’s fallibility, instead not playing to their potential.
in short, it’s the players’ fault but then your solution is the same players should fix it.
and that’s how this spring looks a little too much like last summer.
i’ve made my thoughts clear on a specific player, but what i would say more generally, is that our players looked tired, and if you wisely used gold cup as a chance to look at some different people, and to rest the usual suspects, that’s your “on field” chance to evaluate what else we have, without upsetting the poor dears.
and personally i think we have mined a lot of MLS — and come up with a few for the effort — and should use it in decent portion to explore the “european B donut hole.” part of the blindspot of the US right now is january camp is the experimental window but only for MX and MLS. and then most of the rest are A team games. there is not really a window we use to look hard at less familiar or less proven european prospects.
there is a whole list of them that either don’t get called or haven’t played much, trusty, EPB, campbell, yow, tolkin, banks, dietz, green, downs, as well as guys like eneli who got left out this time. and that’s a partial list. you can run out a january camp team that maybe doesn’t win GC either. or you can dig into the forgotten european B players and i guarantee you this will be more competitive, like in 2021 when we brought in pefok, nico, and others.
i see part of the problem as the system is so awkward for our pool, that we never seem to play it well, which then oddly seems to result in an excuse to call back the same old players and hope we ever get better at it. like system and chemistry is the problem. i think the problem is we have had the same tactical solutions since 2018 and the same basic idea of the roster for about a half decade, and blamed the execution of the tactics instead of the people doing them. or the tactics’ suitability at all.
The biggest winner was an unnamed keeper who will replace the current crop. The challenge for Poch is to find him.
Before or after the World Cup?
If anyone has any recommendations I’m sure they would be welcome but most likely that guy is going to have to be one of the known knowns who raises his game.
I’m guessing Steffen
What about Turner?? Awful positioning on Panama’s winner.
The two biggest winners are MLS lads. Hmmm, they had the most to prove and fought the hardest.
Agree with Luna, besides him it was really only Weah who looked consistently good. Agjemang I guess is a winner since his talent got exposure and he got the goal but I agree with the others who say he needs a lot more polish before contributing to the full USMNT. His size alone gave opposing defenders trouble, and he has a knack for making the right run, but his finishing is just not good enough yet. I remember thinking at the end of Panama, if Sarge was on the end of either the header or the final pass from CP, he would have put at least one away. I still don’t know what to think of Tessman but calling him a winner from this camp is a step too far for me. He didn’t progress the ball or offer any offense against Panama, and looked badly outmatched defensively when he came in against Canada. I like his size, and his skill on the ball, just not sure where he fits.
Every fan has their players they will defend no matter what.
From mybeye test Weah was the best player in t he first gane and Luna was the best player in the second game.
Sargent played well early on against Panama and tailored off as the gane went on. He continues to steuggle to help the attack. But with injuries he still is in the pool for Gold Cup. Agyemang was a spark in both games. And was clinical with his chance against Canada. Should have done better against Panama, but he has earned more looks. His ceiling could be high I he continues to work hard on aspects of his game.
2 players with the highest ratings ARE MLS PLAYERS……..not our EPL player, not our Serie A players, not our Bundesliga players, not our Ligue 1 player……Bbbrruh
Think about it:
2 of out best players against Canada play in MLS
One of the Canadians who scored was from MLS
Panama beat us without a single player that plays in a top league
The player that put the US game to bed is a 33 yr old that plays in Chile
Maybe we just need to come to the conclusion that our players…..this group of players……ARE REALLY NOT THAT GOOD AS A TEAM AS WE MIGHT THINK, regardless of where they play. THE BEST PLAYERS DO NOT ALWAYS MAKE THE BEST TEAM and Diego Luna, and Patrick Agyemang, are showing that right now. The USMNT looking this Pathetic makes absolutely no sense, especially with the players we have on the team and on paper. No sense at all.
First we blamed the players (Bradley, Altidore, Roldan, Trapp etc)……then we blamed the coach (Klinsy, GB)……now what???
The fans?? That is all that is left …
I always thought it didn’t matter where you played, that you are a good player is all that matters in terms of NT call ups, but I’ve also been of the opinion that challenging yourself in the best leagues in Europe “can” push you to be the best version of yourself on the field. Many people may not agree with this, but I’ve seen a change in some of our players with regards to the USMNT in terms of intensity, effort and focus since they’ve been playing in Europe over a period of time. For me the issues with the USMNT right now are 2 fold:
1. I think that many of our players from abroad don’t think they have to play with full effort, intensity and focus when they come back home to wear the shirt bc many of our opponents are considered less than, and they been spoiled by winning everything domestically for a period of years.
2. The lack of quality depth is not pushing the starters for the USMNT to be all of those things I mentioned they are lacking, so there is no pressure to perform at their highest level in training or in the games and ultimately no fear of losing their spot
I don’t know what to make of Poch just yet, but he clearly deserves more time to find out what he has and to mold this team in his image, especially considering he hasn’t had the chance to work with a full deck(we’re missing a lot of senior team players). This is on the players for me however in summation, we can’t keep blaming the managers for this level of ineptitude, as if there is this unicorn manager out there that perfectly jives with our pool.
Thomas,
The big problem is that we should never hire a coach for a second round. Klinsman was worse his second time, so was Bradley and GB.
I don’t think GB would have been hired for a second time had the Reyna’s not pulled their stunt. The Federation had no other option but to bring GB back on a short leash. That kept Poch from being hired for 2 years. (Or someone else)
I fear that the team hasn’t bought into whatever Poch is selling.
What happens if the team bombs at the Gold Cup? Is Poch’s test to win Gold Cup or else?
I always ride for my Texas guys, but wow, Weston losing 20 out of 23 duels in two games is….tough. He’ll be back though, just a really rough stretch.
How many of those duels were due crappy passes in bad positions? Stats don’t tell the whole story.
Wow, all the hate directed at McKennie. I think we need to look at how his game has evolved and not at what we think his game is. At Juventus he has earned the 10 position after being relegated to a RB. Ask yourself how McKennie has found himself in a position on a team that historically has one of the world’s best playing that position but how he can come to the US and not preform to the same level. Could it be that he is not asked to do the same things? What he does best at Juventus is move the ball quickly. I don’t know where to find the stats but the time he spends on the ball has to be less than two second. He seems to know where everyone on the field is and it’s often HIS PASS that unlocks the defense even if it’s not the final pass for the assist. His defensive worth is shown in tracking back to break up opposing offenses build up. Even in these games his passes were often quick. Were his teammates on the same page…no. Did they come off all the time, no. Were his teammates even able to find him, no. The midfield was cut off by both Panama and Cananda. That’s tactics. The coach needs to make adjustments to find the most dangerous players and allow them to do their magic. Poch is still learning his players. He may be under assumptions that he will learn are wrong. Pulisic as a ten, for example. But dismissing McKennie is foolhardy. He’s a fantastic facilitator who moves the ball quickly. The rest of the team could take a page from his playbook.
Agree with everything you said regarding the positives of McKennie, when he’s on he is one of our best players, maybe even the best. He is capable of moments of magic. But his bugaboo is consistency, and when he is off he is a complete waste of space, and we are better off with him off the pitch. If the stat in the article is correct, he LOST 20 out of 24 duels, wow. Maybe news of his manager’s sacking was effecting him mentally, I don’t know. But he looked checked out on the field in these games, and that is not acceptable. I think I agree with quozzel that he should be the guy to fill in when one of the top 11 starters aren’t available.
JB,
“But his bugaboo is consistency, and when he is off he is a complete waste of space, and we are better off with him off the pitch.”
True in the past.
But in this instance Weston and all our Italians were clearly exhausted.
So why play them?
Because these were big games , and we were missing Jedi, Dest, Flo and Pepi. That’s three or maybe four starters. So the team were already “short handed”.
For all the weeping and gnashing of teeth, these were two very tight games with thin margins, so I can’t say Pochettino took the wrong approach in asking our vet core to show big balls.
And sometimes in big games your big players even though tired, find another gear or their colleagues pick them up. Neither thing happened so maybe these guys learned something. Everyone forgets how young and inexperienced most of the guys even our best ones, are.
Winning in these kind of situations, is something you learn how to do.
I still think Pochettino will have to perform the coaching job of the century to make chicken soup out of this chicken shit.
I think he will run out of time and it will all end in disaster.
It’s Gregg’s revenge.
Had the USSF not pussy footed around and signed Gregg up to commit hara-kiri at Copa America, there’s every chance that Gregg’s successor would have had this team much further along.
Those who dare win.
there is a simple solution to a guy who is a dynamic but inconsistent guy who plays well in spurts but not for 90. fairly obvious if you think about it. hint: same solution they had for reyna this time. i personally think mckennie should be more of a swiss army “front 2 lines” bench option. i think a starter needs to keep the ball moving, limit errors, churn out productivity game to game, and be good at a specific position. i think for a bench option the idea you are explosive dynamite but lacking in a specific spot and maybe sloppy is useful. we badly need a package of about 3 guys who can come off the bench in games like this past weekend and turn the results.
i think he need a look in particular as a wing sub behind the big names. part of what he’s good at is finishing dead balls and weak side garbageman. that’s not really 8 or 10 stuff. that’s forward stuff. but swiss army role he can do it all depending.
want me to be blunt i don’t think other than the crap treatment reyna gets, that we have made an actual hard decision trying to change the outcomes. same guys over and over since 2019 or 2020. and it’s not working.
IV,
“there is a simple solution to a guy who is a dynamic but inconsistent guy who plays well in spurts but not for 90.”
If your solution worked, Juve and/or the USMNT, who both have a lot tied up in Weston, would have tried it by now.
“hint: same solution they had for reyna this time. i personally think mckennie should be more of a swiss army “front 2 lines” bench option.”
I guess your solution the works really well. Just look at how Reyna is doing right about now.
” finishing dead balls and weak side garbageman. that’s not really 8 or 10 stuff. that’s forward stuff. but swiss army role he can do it all depending.”
I did not realize that #8’s and #10’s did not finish dead balls or score from the weak side.
“want me to be blunt i don’t think other than the crap treatment reyna gets, that we have made an actual hard decision trying to change the outcomes. same guys over and over since 2019 or 2020. and it’s not working.”
??? In 2019-2020 Weston was a starter at Schalke. He first went to Juve, on loan in 2021-2022.
In 2019-2020 Gio had just gotten to BVB from NYFC and was doing quite well.
What are you talking about?
By the way IV,
Who is “we”?
The people who are mostly responsible for the development of Weston and Gio are at their clubs, Juve and BVB respectively.
V: you’re just spouting resume lines, former employers. more club snobbery or club form stuff where we have to start the same guys over and over because you find their resumes impressive. the results suck. we need to see if we can put together a better field team that wins more. sometimes it’s scheme fit. my point is you bring in players to fulfill roles in a scheme. some outstanding players will not fit a scheme. they become subs or something.
what y’all are is the equivalent of the folks who tout some disappointing england player because he’s at United.
to me, the personnel do not fit the scheme. so either the scheme changes to fit personnel — say, counter soccer — or the personnel get fitted to scheme. we are ineffective at pressing, turn the ball over too much, porous defense. i think part of that is mckennie is an athletic box crasher and not a technical tiki taka type. if you want mckennie out there, you need to play some other way. if you want to play tiki taka, you need to find tiki taka players. more like reyna and luna who can dribble in tight spaces and thread passes.
i think while the US has progressed in where their players play, they have regressed in terms of their ability to resist hype and numbers. historically the plucky version of the US with few players anywhere but MLS had to stick to scheme and ruthlessly sculpt the team to fit that scheme. some good players didn’t fit what we were trying to do and thus were relegated to mere club players.
do you want the US to win or do you want the hype man all star squad? cause the hype man team is losing.
IV,
Perfect. Like I said your “answer” is just spouting more of your evasions and vagaries.
No specifics
No names
Just more gobledeegook and malarkey
Everyone here already knows the USMNT has problems.
“but MLS had to stick to scheme and ruthlessly sculpt the team to fit that scheme. some good players didn’t fit what we were trying to do and thus were relegated to mere club players.”
?? Like WTF does that even mean?
Who were the “some good players”?
What were “we” trying to do?
What does being relegated to being a “mere club player” mean?
What you do is outline a problem as if you’re the only one who has noticed it, usually in the most vague terms possible.
You just take what everyone else posts and write it as if you were the first person ever to figure it out. I’ve done that too but usually I try to mention where I stole it from.
Do you offer any intelligent, useful insights that have not been offered by others? Not usually unless it has to do with your select team ouvre. How Occasionally you like to take insights already offered by others and present them as if you “discovered them”. Like you discovered him and you’re the only person who thinks Cole Campbell is a good prospect.
Then when he becomes a big deal you can take credit and point out how everyone but you missed the boat.
Agree with almost all of that. Luna has to be our starting 10, end of story, and the sooner Poch settles on that the better off we’ll be. People keep resisting the obvious, IMHO, because he “just” plays for RSL and he’s got that odd fire-hydrant body shape and Chicano gang tats – but fellas, just look at Exhibit A. It’s right there with him, always has been. Talent’s talent, and Luna offers us a dimension we don’t have anywhere else at the moment and in fact have rarely if ever had with the USMNT – the ability to work through the middle of the attacking third. He’s exactly what we’ve long wanted Gio to be…but Luna is that guy right now. He’s proving it in front of our eyes; let’s stop arguing it and move on. For our backup 10 spot, it could be Gio, it could be Malik Tillman when he returns…or it could be Lucho Acosta, who is on the verge of getting his American citizenship and who is also well ahead of both Tillman and Reyna at the moment. (He may even be ahead of Luna, though I personally prefer Luna for a couple of reasons, chief among them the fact that his attitude and work rate are better. Lucho’s a diva…but he can also turn a game.)
Pulisic can be a 10, but we don’t have the wingers to play Pulisic centrally right now, and he’s better off running at people anyway. I personally prefer Pulisic on the right and Timo on the left, but those two work together very well and we’ll see them flip several times throughout a game anyway so it’s six of one and a half-dozen of the other. McKennie, to me, is not a 10 – he’s a twelfth starter you plug in wherever one of your first-choice 11 isn’t available…which is going to be most of the time, since you’re almost always missing SOMEBODY.
They got mad at me on reddit, cause I said I would take Luna over Lucho Acosta. Lucho might be better now, but a full potential unlocked Luna, is better than current form Lucho Acosta, in my honest opinion.
It’s so hard to judge since Pablo refused for so long to play Luna as a 10. Hard to argue Lucho’s 47g 46a the three years isn’t better than Diego’s 16g 9a. Even this year Lucho has 2g to Diego’s 1 playing one more match. Lucho is going to be 31 in May so yes I think Diego will catch him, but Diego has a lot of numbers to put up to be in the “better than”position. Like Yunus Musah has so much talent compared to Mix Diskerud or Ben Olsen but both those guys have 6g to Yunus’s 1 in fewer matches. Diego has never had double digit goals or assists it’s time for him to put up. I say that as someone who used to tune into to watch him cooking guys on a converted minor league baseball field in El Paso.
JR,
“It’s so hard to judge since Pablo refused for so long to play Luna as a 10. ”
Pablo says he did that because he was trying to get Diego to develop his all around game that he knew he would need.
It’s an old coaching tactic, play your guy in different roles and positions so that they can develop a more well rounded skillset.
I’ve said this since Luna first came on the scene, the logical conclusion to his journey is he winds up trying to push CP out of the #10 role. And of course, at Milan it has been proven that CP is most productive in the center of the pitch not on the wings. That’s probably why Felix probably isn’t staying.
And now there is the possibility of Lucho. It’s a good problem to have. I would say that I haven’t seen Lucho be anywhere other than in the middle.
The other thing I would say is that with Diego being so much flavor of the month now, people are so quick to forget that Pulisic is much more accomplished than the other two and has been to places they can only dream about. Diego is not a better player than Pulisic. Not yet anyway. Right now all he’s asked to do is make things happen on offense. Pulisic is asked to do a lot more , even when he is not the captain.
But Diego needn’t worry. I see Pulisic retiring fairly young especially if he can help Milan win something big in the next few years.
the reality on acosta is this. FIFA put in their 5 year rule where you have to be in the country for 5 years that you want to switch to. acosta is trying to be naturalized and his 5 years from when he returned from his ill-considered atlas stint will end march 2026.
that’s separate from when does State give him a passport. there was a guy getting a nicaraguan passport who had briefly gone back to south america to play. they forfeited the games he played, and kicked them out of gold cup, because his 5 years reset when we went back home a year. even though he had a passport.
so the likely scenario on acosta is you get him available for march 2026 window plus the world cup and pre-friendlies. that’s it. and meanwhile he’s 30. so this is it. he will have a narrow window to impress, secure a spot.
musah is a semi-productive tank. i think we can use a tank off the bench. i think a mckennie/musah MF is sloppy as heck and confuses what we’re trying to accomplish. are we trying to transition? hold the ball? win the ball? it’s kind of a muddle. good teams know exactly what they are trying to do.
deceptively simple questions — how are we trying to score? how are we trying to defend as a group? i don’t know what they mean to do. i know it looks like what we actually do is dive in a lot on defense trying to stir things up, then try to hold the ball passing a lot around the back, then eventually hit a lofted cross in. and the personnel doesn’t fit that. nor does it fit the press-and-tiki taka paper concept.
no, they need to sit down and design a team to how we actually are gonna play. then pick to that. and if some stars get benched for not fitting it, well, good coaching is supposed to beat hype.
IV: you have the Nicaragua incident incorrect he had only lived in country for a year when he began playing and then moved back out of the country again. It wasn’t that he’d lived in country five straight years it was he hadn’t lived there 5 years total.
———————
This thread wasn’t really about if Lucho would make the US team, just that Striker said he’d take Luna over him today. I said, I wasn’t sure because Lucho continues to be very productive for club when Diego hasn’t put up those kind of numbers to this point.
Could add Poch to the losers list. The lineups were questionable. The roster had some players with big minutes missing at key spots for the team the substitutions were mediocre vs Panama. Luna should have gotten a lot of time vs Panama. He’s so chaotic, in a good way, to not have him playing in that game.
Yes.
Massively exposed this window.
Agyemang was not a winner from this camp. He was dreadful. He missed his chances in the first match and only scored in the second because it was put on a plate for him. Even then he almost missed it. He offered next to nothing. No link-up play, no pressing, no passing and poor finishing. He’s a less refined Haji Wright, and that’s not meant as a compliment.
Agyemang scored which is the most important thing for a striker.
What did Josh Sargent do?
Dinged one off the post, and scored on a play that was negated by Weah being slightly offside.
Agyemang had a carbon copy chance of the deflected (going in far post) off the post chance and missed the net completely later that game.
Well, Sargent did actually score that first game against Panama and it was a good goal, and I suspect this camp would look a whole lot different if it hadn’t been called back. (Get Panama out of that effin’ low block…grr. Really starting to hate those guys.) Anyhow, Sargent’s skillset is far more complete and I’m loathe to give up on him…hopefully he’ll get another chance at the Gold Cup this summer and finally break that rut he’s been in for the USMNT. And I do agree with Tyrone on Ajyemang…he’s very much exactly like Diet Haji Wright, down to the weak holdup play, but Wright’s better on the ball and a far better natural finisher.
But…as you pointed out, three goals in four games, and Ajyemang also generates a whole lot of chances, whereas Sargent inexplicably vanishes from games in a USMNT shirt. Like, a lot. Ajyemang got loose several times against Panama against just one clear-cut chance for Sargent and he just couldn’t finish, and in a year or so I do think Ajyemang probably finishes those. Yeah, Ajymeng is unpolished…but it’s worth remembering, despite the fact that he’s 24 he spent two years in D3 college ball and another three at Rhode Island. I’ve seen college soccer up close since I know Doug Allison at Furman well (I actually coached Callum Allison for two years) and I sent several players to Clemson and Mike Noonan, and it’s not even Football Conference in England level. (And that was for the very top of D1!) It’s not totally worthless, mind, but in terms of intensity and practice reps and player development, three years in college is worth maybe one year on a pro roster. So Agyemang is basically 20 in actual football years, and thinking of him as 24 isn’t exactly accurate – he has less experience than the vast majority of pro 24-year-olds, but also less miles on his tires, too, and like a lot of big strikers he could well still be trucking well into his 30’s. He still has a lot of room to grow, in other words.
Agyemang looked very poor to average.
Scoring is good. He missed some good chances and look generally lost.
Sargent had very few chances, but also did not look good.
Pepi and Balogun are our strikers. That’s way more clear after this window, sadly.
Jake,
Agreed on Pepi and Balogun. Maybe one of them puts one or two against Panama or even Canada. But that doesn’t change just how bad we played. Losing these games is a wake-up call.
downintexas,
“Maybe one of them puts one or two against Panama or even Canada. But that doesn’t change just how bad we played.”
Nothing can change how the games were played.
But there is every reason to think that if Flo and Pepi had been available things might have been very different.
You would have had 4 strikers not just 2, Josh or Patrick. And Pepi has been almost a mortal lock to score if brought on as a sub.
If everyone in the player pool is at their best and playing well, there is every reason to think Patrick does not make the 2026 World Cup. If Flo, Pepi, Josh and Haji are in form and playing well, Patrick is probably not on this team for the World Cup, unless he can develop more skills in the next year or so.
Actually in the Canada game Agyemang pressed very well and a lot. He forced their back line to rush passes and unsettled the backs. He did not back down to Davies when he was in the game.
Missing shots, well the header would have flown over Sargent’s head so Josh wouldn’t have scored that either.
This is a player who has been consistently overlooked and he has responded by improving and moving up anyway. It must have hurt when he was not selected for the Olympic team.