The final spot on Mauricio Pochettino’s September U.S. men’s national team roster has been filled.
Cristian Roldan was added to the roster on Wednesday, U.S. Soccer announced. Roldan is the 24th and final player named to the roster for upcoming matches against South Korea and Japan.
The 30-year-old Roldan has earned 37 caps to date with the USMNT. He last featured in the 2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup and is seeking his first appearance under Pochettino.
Roldan has continued to be a stalwart for the Seattle Sounders in MLS this season. He has made 38 appearances across all competitions, scoring two goals and adding four assists.
He became the first field player in Sounders history to reach 350 career starts in all competitions.
The USMNT will face South Korea on Saturday in Harrison, New Jersey before concluding their two-match window on Sept. 10 against Japan in Columbus, Ohio.
personally i thought the MF list was over-conservative and DM heavy to begin with. luna is the only pure AM in the bunch and has maybe mcglynn for a sub, which doesn’t feel like for like. the others all felt like DM types.
i agree with the comment where this has to either reflect badly on the assembled DMs — who i found underwhelming (eg zawadzki and LDLT) — or someone got hurt.
i respect balogun getting brought in and competition seemingly having teeth but the choices were goofy and roldan as the replacement is regressive. “but club form.” he did like one memorable thing in about 3 dozen fairly inexplicable caps. we continue to oddly look to 2017-2019 options as somehow fixing 2020-2024 players who superseded them in individual and team success.
also, the purpose to the exercise is generally (a) identifying players who could make a world cup team next summer or (b) winning the games/tournament on the schedule. it is not (c) an MLS all star team to reward your positive performance this season, if you can’t possibly help us by (a) or (b). do you really think roldan can handle japan and help us win?
since people forget, he was shoved aside last cycle by not just adams but also musah, mckennie, acosta, johnny, busio, and LDLT. i get at the last minute we might not get a foreign based player, but he was so poor he basically fell off the depth chart and at that point i’d rather see some younger prospect with some upside.
If you look at it from Poch’s view it’s DM light. Zawadzki is the backup for Adams. Poch plays McGlynn and Berhalter as RWs so he had no backup or competition for Luca. I agree it’s odd to play those two as wings, but they are both 8s not 6s. McGlynn doesn’t defend well enough to be a 6, and Seb is sketchy loose with the ball in buildout so in order to get their crossing cannons on the field he’s played them forward. Do I think Roldan can start in the WC next summer probably not, but he played 270 minutes this summer at the CWC and didn’t look out of place playing the same shuttling 6 that he would play in Luca’s role. He always played as a W or 8/10 hybrid under Berhalter so maybe this unlocks the best in him.
Thats well deserved. He has been Seattle’s best player this season.
Players starting reporting on the 31st and today is the third so maybe he hasn’t been happy with the players in camp so far or somebody picked up an injury.
Oops! This was supposed to be a response to down in Texas below.
he makes some weird picks like LDLT and zawadzki. he passes on tessman, morris, eneli, sands, dietz, maloney, and castenada. he’s not happy with his last picks — as with this summer — but stuck with MLS for replacements he then balks at eneli and goes basically off the pool list to revive roldan.
sorry but that feels like spiralling downwards. kind of like how the regulars begged off and he then picked the wrong replacements this summer, some of whom were so bad the bench got clobbered badly for a half by the swiss.
this feels like an exasperated stomp fit by someone who doesn’t know the pool well enough to pick better in the first place, then makes it worse by going off book when he has to improvise.
i was critical of him xeroxing what roster got GB fired but he’s gotten fairly strange left to his own devices.
I told you so. He has been very good this season in CWC, MLS, and Leagues Cup.
He called him in just to try to blow up the internet and drive the youtubers insane.
WOW! You nailed it!
He has. When I watch him play this year I barely recognize him. Confident. Incisive. Positive. And outright swagger. He’s good and knows it.
Now the question is – is he that good because he’s got Seattle’s system down cold and basically has muscle memory on his passing and movement patterns, or is he that good in real life and we’re not going to see old, uncertain Christian Roldan when stuff gets unfamiliar and chaotic and he’s playing with people he doesn’t know well?
But sure, definitely worth a look given the way he’s shown this year. Players do progress. A guy who wasn’t ready then might indeed be ready in a couple years.
So is Poch just fulfilling the so-called “MLS Quota”?