The U.S. men’s national team will be without many key players for June’s international window and head coach Mauricio Pochettino revealed the status of two of those omissions.
Forward Josh Sargent and midfielder Yunus Musah will not be part of the upcoming June roster, Pochettino confirmed Thursday after releasing his 27-player roster.
The USMNT will face Turkey and Switzerland in a pair of home friendlies before kicking off play in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. It will mark the final competitive tournament for the Americans before hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup next summer.
Sargent, who earned several honors at Norwich City this season, failed to score on international duty last March, continuing a lengthy goal-less drought for the USMNT. The Missouri native tallied 15 goals in 32 league matches for the Canaries, battling back from injury to play a key role in the squad.
However, Pochettino admitted that other forwards were chosen ahead of Sargent in the pecking order, deciding to go with Folarin Balogun, Haji Wright, Brian White, and Damion Downs instead.
“It is a football decision and we wanted to see other forwards so at this time so that is why we decided to not go with Sargent,” Pochettino said in a press conference with media.
Musah, who has one Serie A match remaining with AC Milan this month, has endured a tough second half of the season. The 22-year-old has tied a single season career-high with 40 appearances for the Rossoneri, but overall hasn’t remained a consistent starter in the squad.
While his performances have been up-and-down in 2025, Pochettino admitted that wasn’t the reason why Musah was left out.
“For Musah he communicated to us a personal reason, so he needed to withdraw from involvement,” Pochettino said. “He was originally set to be in the roster, but we had to change things around.”
Sargent and Musah are two of several key omissions from the squad this summer, which also includes Christian Pulisic, Antonee Robinson, Cameron Carter-Vickers, and Tanner Tessmann.
The USMNT will be aiming for a bounce-back summer, knowing that opportunities are running out before the World Cup’s bright lights flip on in 2026.
Sargent is out, IMHO, because he’s a lot more of a single-striker who thrives best in a 4-3-3-type setup where he’s allowed to drift. He’s basically Diet Karim Benzema, not a pressing, physical, back-to-goal 9, and he’s not a guy who likes to ghost into space, use their speed to stretch the backline, and run at defenders the way Agyemang and especially Balogun can. And Pochettino likes clear roles between his 9’s and second strikers and Sargent is a jack-of-all-trades…and master of none. I don’t think Sargent gets called up again under Pochettino. (I don’t think Scally or Tessmann do either, and it’s purely because of fit…Poch doesn’t use pure fullbacks like Scally, and Tessmann is neither a destroyer like Adams/Zawadski or a shuttler like Cardoso/Musah/Luca so he’s out too.)
My guess is we’re going to see Balogun and Agyemang playing the “10” in Poch’s preferred 4-2-3-1 while defending, but again, Poch tends to defend in a 4-2-3-1, but then in possession, when given his preference what you see Pochettino teams tend to do is morph into a 3-5-2.
I don’t see a way back in for Sargent unless he’s just scoring so wildly in a Top-5-league next year there’s just no leaving him off. At that point you could see him maybe replace Haji Wright as that guy who can do either role but it’s still iffy because he’s neither as big or physical as Wright, as good at making runs in behind a defender, or at getting on the ball and driving at defenders.
Sarget been catfish for to long. Glad he staying home.
i’ve been saying sit the regulars and call some experiments, and musah has been poor lately. so i am fine with him off for whatever reason. but only a few of the ones he picked are bright experiments. eg downs.
i keep getting lectures about how on top of the scouting we are and the constant contact with coaches and players and such. and then this endgame feels very very very improvised. the usual reason this is a B team tourney is to try new options, train them in scheme, and rest the A guys. plus the A team just sucks in general.
i say that because it sounds like this wasn’t planned, that they are not as chatty NT to players as some of you suggest, and like the core players — facing a hot summer camp after a long season, with a coach who loves conditioning — sat down the week before the tourney together and basically went on strike en masse. and like until then we’d planned to do this A team despite march results.
does this seem planned, thought out, sorted in concert with the players?
does the team itself usually feel like picked by xerox machine, and not a particularly tactically brilliant one? we get outcoached by panama.
and do i feel like those two connect up hmmmmmmm
if this was a planned experiment you wouldn’t see turner, adams, the regular crappy CB corps, etc. mentally plug the 6 sitouts around them and it oddly starts to look like jedi plus what wasn’t working in march.
As long as you can agree that come this time next year, when it really counts, you won’t prescribe some arbitrary “I told you so” when it come to selecting the most in form players, and players that bring the most to the team.
the striker i question is white. but i wouldn’t be bringing in sargent to replace him. cause how many chances does he get.
1g in 2 app, same production as Cowell in 8 fewer matches. Far more goals for his club in the same league Cowell couldn’t score in. Not sure your reservations.
No Sargent?? WILD TO ME
Not really.
Yeah, I guess…but when you just haven’t produced for the national team, it’s just hard to say he’s a lock call-up at this point.
Agree…It is wild. When his looks under Pochettino have been pretty much in games where the ENTIRE team was horrible, why does he get singled out? I mean the guy who is winning all the accolades at a Championship team that is in and out of the PL. It’s not like that league is the Eredivisie. And the whole…he hasn’t performed yadda yadda doesn’t play. NO ONE has performed well in like two freakin years. I don’t want to hear it.
MotO,
Fan speculation notwithstanding I doubt Pochettino has actually ruled ANYONE out yet.
Why would he? He’s not stupid. He still has many questions.
For example, we’re all expecting Pepi to come back as the same old Ricardo but knees are tricky and WHAT IF HE DOESN’T??
That changes things for Josh a little don’t you think?
Pochettino has this next batch of games and at least half of an entire Euro season for players to develop.
In Josh’s case it is just as likely that Pochettino has enough data on him for now and has others he needs to see more. That is not necessarily a death sentence for Josh.