Mauricio Pochettino’s June roster will be without several of the U.S. men’s national team’s leading stars.
Christian Pulisic, Antonee Robinson, and Yunus Musah were three leading players not named to Pochettino’s 27-player roster on Thursday, U.S. Soccer announced. Weston McKennie, Tim Weah, and Gio Reyna will miss the June window and CONCACAF Gold Cup due to their involvement at the FIFA Club World Cup.
Pulisic, who has logged a career-high in minutes played at AC Milan this season, was given a break this summer.
“Christian and his team approached the Federation and the coaching staff about the possibility of stepping back this summer, given the amount of matches he has played in the past two years at both the club and international level with very little break,” U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker said.
“After thoughtful discussions and careful consideration, we made the collective decision that this is the right moment for him to get the rest he needs. The objective is to ensure he’s fully prepared to perform at the highest level next season.”
In addition, forward Josh Sargent and defenders Cameron Carter-Vickers and Auston Trusty were also left out.
Among the players called in were forwards Haji Wright and Folarin Balogun, defender Sergino Dest, and midfielder Tyler Adams.
There will be several players aiming to make their senior international debuts including dual-national forward Damion Downs, midfielder Sebastian Berhalter, attacker Quinn Sullivan, and defender Alex Freeman.
The race for the No. 1 goalkeeper spot continues with Matt Turner, Zack Steffen, Patrick Schulte, and Matt Freese all competing for action.
“As we continue preparations for the World Cup, this is a fantastic opportunity to work with this group of players for an extended period and it’s important we take advantage of every moment we have together,” Pochettino said. “Of course, we want to win and to perform in a very good way. These players have earned the chance to compete for our fans and to show their quality and mentality.”
The USMNT will host Turkey on June 7 in Hartford, Connecticut before closing their two friendlies against Switzerland in Nashville, Tennessee on June 10.
These will be the final preparatory matches for the squad before opening the Gold Cup against Trinidad & Tobago on June 15.
Here is the full USMNT June roster:
GOALKEEPERS: Matt Freese (New York City FC; 0/0), Patrick Schulte (Columbus Crew; 3/0), Zack Steffen (Colorado Rapids; 30/0), Matt Turner (Crystal Palace/ENG; 51/0).
DEFENDERS: Max Arfsten (Columbus Crew; 3/0), Sergiño Dest (PSV Eindhoven/NED; 33/2), Alex Freeman (Orlando City; 0/0), DeJuan Jones (San Jose Earthquakes; 10/0), Mark McKenzie (Toulouse/FRA; 19/0), Tim Ream (Charlotte FC; 68/1), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace/ENG; 24/1), Miles Robinson (FC Cincinnati; 32/3).
MIDFIELDERS: Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United/ENG; 47/8); Tyler Adams (Bournemouth/ENG; 44/2), Sebastian Berhalter (Vancouver Whitecaps/CAN; 0/0), Johnny Cardoso (Real Betis/ESP; 18/0), Luca de la Torre (San Diego FC; 24/1), Diego Luna (Real Salt Lake; 4/0), Jack McGlynn (Houston Dynamo; 4/1), Quinn Sullivan (Philadelphia Union; 0/0); Malik Tillman (PSV Eindhoven/NED; 17/0), Sean Zawadzki (Columbus Crew; 1/0).
FORWARDS: Patrick Agyemang (Charlotte FC; 4/3), Folarin Balogun (Monaco/FRA; 17/5); Damion Downs (FC Köln/GER; 0/0), Brian White (Vancouver Whitecaps/CAN; 4/1), Haji Wright (Coventry City/ENG; 15/4)
I have a very strong feeling this team IS GOING TO ROCK THE GOLD CUP.
Lets goooooo!!!!!
we continue to have the “european B team hole.” all due respect. you look at the roster 5 seconds and it’s a handful of euro regulars who didn’t take the summer off, then MLS. he picked ONE european experiment — downs. ONE.
otherwise this roster reflects the horribly misguided idea that our regulars are fine (give or take sargent or musah) and that ream, mckenzie, berhalter, zawadski, LDLT, tillman, or white are better than giving any eurobased fresh face a shot.
i am not anti-MLS, and at certain positions like GK favoring MLS just seems accurate. i looked for euro keepers and the pickings were fairly thin (say, a backup in the league of ireland). but in general it just seems oddly biased. and while campbell might or might not be on CWC, that’s not really an issue for banks green etc.
Campbell is likely either still injured given we haven’t seen him since March 9 for any of the three teams and/or he’s on BvB’s roster for CWC.
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Zawadzki has one cap and Berhalter hasn’t been capped how is that going with the regulars?
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Only 1/3 of the roster has more than 20 caps and 44% have less than 5 caps.
you didn’t seriously think i was saying zawadski is a regular, that’s just dishonest. i didn’t even remember he had a previous stint, that’s how impressive that was.
my point, which you’re trying real real hard to obscure, is that are you kidding me that [name a player from europe] is worse than berhalter or zawadski.
my further point is that we routinely call regulars with few changes for normal games, and then MLS/MX for january. given a rare chance to trial some new european based, we call up a bunch of MLS players.
all due respect to your muddled nonsense (“but they don’t have many caps, so they are experiments too”), no one was shouting for berhalter and zawadski, and their lack of caps is probably for a reason.
conversely, you can find plenty of people asking for campbell or banks or reyna or some of the others i named.
Have you watched Zawadzki and Berhalter? In their CL home and away with Miami, Berhalter and White were the best players on the field. Not Suarez, Messi, Buesquets or Alba. Sebastian Berhalter and Brian White. And honestly it wasn’t close. Vancouver is first in the West with leagues best GD +14 all while making the CL final, thanks in large part to Berhalter who has been outstanding.
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Zawadzki has been the lead defender in Crew’s backline with Camacho hurt. He’s the one stay home CB who has to put out fires when Moreira and Cheberko go forward. Columbus is tied for 3rd fewest goals allowed in MLS in large part because of his defense and he often begins the offense by making line breaking passes to spring the attack.
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Do I think either of them are good enough to be first choice no, but they are better than Banks (who got benched because he kept making mistakes that directly led to goals). Jalen Neal is better than Noahkai Banks right now, which you would know if you actually watched soccer. Reyna and Campbell are not available THEY ARE ON DORTMUND! AND YOUR FAVORITE PLAYER CAMPBELL HAS BEEN HURT SINCE MARCH! Which again you would know if you actually watched soccer.
Dest is great for the Gold cup, where we are the better team. For the WC, where we will be the bunker/counter attacking team, I think Scally is the better bet
Dest played his best 4 games ever for the USMNT in Qatar at the World Cup.
yeah, you didn’t watch holland, obviously
“yeah, you didn’t watch holland, obviously”
Yes I did and even with the mistake Dest made in that game those 4 games were still the best Dest has ever played for the USMNT.
Dave obviously has not watched the Gold Cup where most of our opponents would have a hard time beating you and your select team, so yeah Dest or any warm body would be good at right back.
i would like to see dest deployed on offense, where his defensive weakness wouldn’t be as big a problem. but the call sheet looks like he’s a RB — basically a starter and a backup per defensive slot in a 4 man line. and we should know better at this point.
i also think that someone who’s been out this long with a knee should probably be pitch-counted — just like adams was, you play him 30 minutes then pull him — and played in low risk spots on the field.
That would be why Freeman is on the roster. Jones also plays RB when needed.
we’re gonna find out quickly if this is up to snuff. harsh pair of turkey/swiss friendlies. open with trinidad who the A team just split a quarterfinal with. then saudi the A team tied a few years back before regressing, and beat TnT 3-1 last winter. haiti is then easy but we may have taken some licks before we get there.
i don’t understand not calling in more wing firepower.
i don’t understand why banks is on the NL longlist in march and then not now, so he can play U20. this is a trash backline except richards.
considering the backline is trash i’d like to see more 6s and play two at a time with a single 10, which means fewer 10/8s and more stoppers. eg maloney, tessmann, eneli.
i think it’s a sign of poor attentiveness to the game performances that it’s johnny back and not eneli, that i am seeing tillman and LDLT again, the whole set of CBs.
tangential point, but i feel the long term planning around US soccer is poor. i’ve been pushing guys like campbell, yow, and banks for a while. we seem very good at “individual window excuses” — “he’s with U20s this time” — but lousy at managing to ensure they are in camp at least once. that’s two B.1 players where the “dog always eats our homework.”
if you want to play a guy with U20 in the summer, or if a guy may be in the running for CWC, you play him in the october quarters last year, or the march tournament, and get your evaluation time that way.
i mean banks and campbell were only on the NL longlist for march.
less tangential thought, it may be a moral victory to get in kochen and practice him but he’s not cap tied any by never playing and may eventually get frustrated. and blackmon is probably walking as we speak. our dual national game is getting brutal. and the rationalizations less convincing when it’s like, “oh god, who can play RB” and then a few days later i see araujo, who the flagwavers mocked, playing for bournemouth.
Kochen was 2-5-8 (wlt) with Barca II gave up 1.63 per. The team gave up 1.4 in matches he didn’t play, and were 7-8-7. If he wasn’t up for it in Spanish 3rd division is playing him at full NT level just setting a teenager up to fail?
JR: you don’t know what you’re talking about, as per typical. think about it like a college or MLS coach. the idea here, right now, would be cap-tie him. everything else is secondary, and we have more senior options for the serious games.
so, we look for the equivalent of a US open cup game, or a mismatch on a college schedule.
HAITI.
he then maybe gets a january game or another easy tournament game. or he’s the 3rd keeper carrying the clipboard for the world cup.
after that you worry about is he actually any good. we are losing a lot of dual nationals right now because we are making no special allowances or throwing them on against crap opponents.
and then we set up a schedule with few weak opponents to implement scheme better, evaluate talent, and cap tie youth.
and then the results suck because, circularly, the only people deemed prepared to play a decent opponent, are the same people who last game showed they can’t actually win those games. we are literally taking this back to klinsi-think circa 2015/16, where he kept losing with his idea of the future.
but anyhow, you sound like my HS coach justifying leaving a future all state kid on JV. change is too scary for some people.
IV,
“but anyhow, you sound like my HS coach justifying leaving a
future all state kid on JV. change is too scary for some people.”
And you sound like a junior high bully trying to taunt some kid. What a load of recycling.
You keep applying your high school sensibilities to a professional situation. We’re not in high school anymore.
No one knows Kochen’s state of readiness better than Barca. While he is quite young Barca and other pro teams have shown no reluctance to elevate kids if and when they are ready.
If you are ready, you are old enough.
Kochen is not ready for even a third keeper role at the Gold Cup yet but he or at least his “people” are sharp enough to see a stupid, clumsy premature predatory capping attempt when they see one. Here’s a thought, if SBI people can tell it is a premature predatory capping attempt, Kochen’s people probably can as well. Kochen is not short of desirable teams to play for. This list potentially includes the US, Spain, Venezuela, Peru. So should he limit himself prematurely?
Do I trust Barca’s coaches on this because they are pros and the illuminatti from SBI are not?
No. I trust them because their jobs and their future are based on kids like Kochen and others developing well.
Their asses are on the line.
What do you have on the line?
Nothing, yet you will whine, bitch, piss, moan and twist panties because Mauricio did not pick your fave boy Cole and might not pick your other pet fave Gio. For that unpardonable sin you’ll be hissy fitting until the 2026 World Cup is over.
Haiti doesn’t cap tie him, he has to play 4 games to cap tie him because he’s under 21. Spain is not capping him anytime soon, and if he likes his chances with Venezuela or Peru then good luck to him.
that’s a call sheet like we’re playing 442 or 451. the ratio of D:M:F is 4:5:2.5. there are almost as many GKs (4) as Fs (5). the 5 Fs all look like strikers.
i like the strike force but there’s going to be a basic question of who gets them the ball with the complete wipeout of first tier wings and no effort to call yow, campbell, or like. it feels a bit 2011/2024 where it’s some hype names but did they think about where the goals would come from.
he called a few nominal AM but luna is the only one who has produced while playing like a 10 needs to. you could half-fix it by maybe pushing aaronson and dest wide mid. it’s just, balogun and agyemang can’t play the ball to themselves behind the backline.
and then the defense is we haven’t yet learned our lesson. so he’s leaning heavy on adams to fix that.
If the team shows grit and fight i will be happy. Clear to me Poch was not happy with the Nations league lack of performance. He needs players that will fight for the crest. I’m looking forward to the games. A lot of eurosnobs angry. Lol
Also looking forward to Tillman and Luna running the show in dual 10 capacities if that happens.
y’all could not have played on defensive style youth teams. you don’t “ask” for grit, at least not unless they had an off half. you “select” for grit.
set down the narrative rhetoric surrounding this team, plus the hype that he will order them to try harder………and read the roster. does it scream “defensive grit?” maybe adams, richards, johnny, and if you stretched, aaronson. but to me the CBs are overrated save richards, the wingbacks are defense averse, most of the AM are technical central types, and the strikers are strikers. he may have “said” we need to get tougher and work harder. but he didn’t pick that much like it, either from lack of knowledge or because his selection finger doesn’t match his talk.
i mean, LDLT is one of the softest players i have seen this side of JK’s early MF with gringo torres/kljestan. dest can’t defend. most of the CBs are weak. to me the lack of CB change is telling. we can’t stop anyone and yet the core defense is back next time. he seems to think the problem is wide.
if they do in fact go 442 or 451 that will help this “look” defensive, but either this coach doesn’t know who the actual hard men are in this pool, or he just accepts a list from USSF analytics who have no clue themselves.
Actually the selection does show it. And grit isn’t just gritty defenders. It’s team grit my guy.
IV,
” but either this coach doesn’t know who the actual hard men are in this pool, or he just accepts a list from USSF analytics who have no clue themselves.”
You are saying that you, unlike Pochettino or the USSF, do know who the hard men are in this pool.
Who are they?
Being a “hard man” doesn’t mean you can play. Which of your hard men can actually play soccer?
Scally?
We know what Scally brings. Poch wants to see Dest and Freeman.
Hmmm… well we shall see how this goes this summer.
I do like the Alex Frean inclusion. I really think Poch is sending a message to some of these players in Europe. He can still make changes before the Gold Cup.
re “can still replace,” not if he left them off provo entirely. CWC has a late roster deadline but if you’re not on the provisional list you can’t be a roster swap for an injury or somesuch. we didn’t run our provo list in a way we could revive, say, dortmund people left off the CWC lists. or do some sort of shock-then-include strategy. reyna and campbell are locked out for never being on the long list. and anyone else left off the first list.
” I really think Poch is sending a message to some of these players in Europe.”
Not really. not with this roster. Our euro players play for teams where they fight like dogs for every single minute they get. In spite of what you may think, they are not lazy fucking idiots. Where have you been? Pochettino sent a message a long time ago when he took Cupcake seriously and some of those guys are probably going to make the WC squad.
Fire and grit are not enough to fix what’s wrong with this team but it also does not hurt.
What we’re seeing is a standard Gold Cup roster.
Euros dropping out due basically to fatigue
Lite on the euros, heavy on MLS, the way it usually is, sprinkled with the occasional interesting newbie.
Classic, standard, schedule driven B team roster. Except for Pochettino taking the B Cupcake guys more seriously( because they ARE better than they have been in the past) there is nothing new here.
That tone, and the MLS players performance lends this B team a lot more credibility than normal.
And of course the media , who could not spell nuance to save their lives, is dying for this fire and grit bullshit. They will just eat it all up.
These guys should slice through the opposition like crap through a goose. And if they do that just wait for the an all MLS World Cup squad demand.
@ Vac, such a good post
Tactics with clear roles and responsibilities with players who can and will do them–I have not really seen that after some initial excitement when Poch started.
Not that this roster indicates the following and I am not implying that, like I said, great post above by you, but I do wonder if in the end next year we will be but a collection of parts and not a full 100% cohesive team expression. we’ll see.
I also believe for the first time in my lifetime, for various new reasons on the chessboard, that we will get the friendly whistles to help us through rough patches at the World Cup. again, we’ll see
cheers
beachbum,
All this talk about fire and grit, guys who can’t defend and this formation and that formation; Pochettino is still clearly searching for his 26 big ball guys, his trusted core.
And that should surprise absolutely no one given the fucked up time frame the USSF dropped on Pochettino.
Clearly he is a gambling man and he thinks he can pull this off, i.e. find 26 guys who will do what he tells them to do.
And then once he has that core. the tactics, the style, that everyone on SBI likes to fuck with, that’s no big deal.
Pochettino should be able to come up with something workable to suit his 26 guys. This approach just might work for a short term situation like the World Cup because we are only talking about, at most 7-8 games.
If this were a league campaign, if the USMNT were in the EPL or any league. they would get found out once everyone saw what they were about.
Remember, Pochettino was a Bielsa player and one of his students. And if it’s one thing I loved about Bielsa’s Leeds teams it was how they terrorized more talented, superior teams and even beat them.
If I’m right about this then the USMNT may be a lot more entertaining to watch than I thought. And BA may be more useful than I thought.
y’all two are funny. he’s chatting up bielsa-type terror same year the coach is hounding the team in the press about needing to play harder. that’s confusing theory with practice. aren’t we the team regularly getting upset in tournaments as opposed to other way around?
and you’re confused on gold cup rosters. 2021 we brought in cannon from portugal, nico from france, hoppe from germany on his hot streak, moore from spain, 2023 we brought in reynolds from belgium, zendejas from MX, gaga from CFC.
what we are doing is more like the dubious 2011 or 2019 squads.
as with the recent tournaments, i guess you’re gonna have to see the choices play out on the field to “get it.” but if you actually pay attention to soccer and the skill sets of a roster, you see where we are relying on a pretty good frontline, but a shaky defense, and setup players who are more central than wide.
i do keep asking for central playmaking, but you want it balanced with wide play where — as you just saw in nations league — teams don’t just sit on our midfield and dare us to play it wide and make anything of it. and there are very few wide players on this list, some of whom are ticketed to wingback.
i will hope we win every game but my brain says a shaky group effort followed by a quarter/semi exit similar to recent efforts. unlike other recent gold cups we didn’t get some easy group we can sleepwak through, and gold cup goes up a notch in the knockouts.
Poch letting it be known that it doesn’t matter if you play in big clubs in Europe, he wants players showing 100% effort and heart to play for him. This is a big enough shake up to keep players on their toes going forward. No, Musah, Tessman, Scally, CCV, Trusty, Sargent, Busio, Tolkin, Wiley…….very interesting, but I ain’t mad at it 🤷🏽
Why didn’t Ledezma and Wiley not make it? Smh,they good enough
Ledezma has indicated he wants to play for Mexico. Hasta luego
Where u getting that from, have not heard that lol
Striker 91
The USMNT told Richie, who happens to be one of my favorite players, that they look at him as an attacking midfielder not a right back.
He rose to prominence this season filling in at right back for Sergino. I have not been able to see a lot of him, but JR says he is what you would expect, a midfielder filling in for an injured player. He has played a lot of games there so he must be doing something right.
However, once Sergino got back they started to ease Dest back into the RB position and Richie has been played elsewhere or just sat.
This suggests that his long-term future with PSV is not at right back.
At this point he is a PSV utility player, filling in where necessary. That is great as it means the chances of Richie securing work are good. But it does not help him much with the USMNT who do not need another RB backup.
If Richie wanted to play for Mexico he would have declared a while ago, but I suspect he was hoping to make the USMNT Gold Cup squad. The impression I get is that he views Mexico as his safety school.
I do not know what is up with Wiley.