Mauricio Pochettino has issued a warning to his U.S. men’s national team squad ahead of next summer’s FIFA World Cup.
Pochettino named his 26-player roster on Thursday ahead of the Americans’ penultimate window of 2025. Several standout stars were included such as Christian Pulisic and Chris Richards, while returning faces such as Weston McKennie, Haji Wright, and Antonee Robinson were also included.
Recent injuries to players like Ricardo Pepi, Sergino Dest, Gio Reyna, and Johnny Cardoso forced them to miss out on matches against Ecuador and Australia. Others such as Josh Sargent, Yunus Musah, and Joe Scally were simply not selected this time around, opening the door to questions about their absences.
Although many top players were left off of October’s roster, Pochettino admitted that places will be earned, not given based off of club performances or past international experiences.
That is not because your name is one or another, that you are going to have the place [for] sure in the roster for the World Cup,” Pochettino said during a press conference Thursday. “That I think is an idea that we were fighting in the last year to try to fix that, changed the culture, changed the vision, changed the idea of, ‘OK is because in the past I performed in some way or because I did well four year ago now I am right to come and to use my place because that is my place.’ And I think that is changed a lot.”
Pulisic, who was not part of the USMNT’s CONCACAF Gold Cup involvement, has retuned to the international fold over the past month. The star attacker has delivered a sensational run of form for Serie A club AC Milan, scoring six goals in all competitions.
Pulisic faced ample criticism over the summer after not representing the USMNT at the Gold Cup despite originally agreeing to only be part of the club’s pre-tournament friendlies. Since then, he’s stepped up in a big way at club level and remains a key figure in the U.S. program for 2026 and beyond.
Pochettino praised Pulisic’s impact in the squad and admitted that the pressure of AC Milan has brought the best out of him.
“He’s a player that has the continuity, and I think we can say that he’s the most important player now for the national team that is performing and is playing under big pressure,” Pochettino said about Pulisic. “And he needs to perform every single week and every single game in a place like Milan. And he’s doing well and yes, we’re so happy when he’s scoring goals, giving assists and performing.
“That is what we want, and now it’s to help him to arrive into the World Cup in the best place,” he added.
Pochettino will have plenty of rosters to announce before the World Cup begins next June and certainly has a lot of tough decisions to make. The aforementioned Scally and Musah, who have played consistently at club level over the last few weeks, were left in Europe this time around.
When asked about the absences of both of them, Pochettino delivered a testy answer, admitting that respect needs to be given for his decisions and to the players currently called in.
“You can ask me why Messi is not in the roster, no,” Pochettino said. “This type of player; Maradona, Pele, I don’t know. But when you’re talking about different names, I think you need to respect the players that are here.”
Pochettino will take his current 10-1-7 record as USMNT boss into this month’s matches, seeking a pair of victories against tough competition.
Let’s see if I have this right. You can earn your place on the national; team only if you perform well for the national team. Your performance for your club team or in past international duty doesn’t really count, unless you are Christian Pulisic at Milan. Thus, he says that playing well for your club team isn’t good enough to be called into the national team. But if you play well for your club team and still don’t get called for the national team, how can you show you are good enough for the national team? I am so confused.
Gary,
English is not Pochettino’s first language.
Ignore what he says.
Pay attention to WHAT HE DOES.
The smartest thing he’s done so far is take Cupcake seriously, something no one, anywhere on the planet, had done. That gave you that interesting squad with Big Balls, Captain Jack, Patrick A, Max who can’t play left back, Penalty Freese and so on. None thought they would last but they did.
Presto! Competition for the spoiled bloated euro stars y’all hate so goddamn much. And you have a squad that has played together a lot so comparatively speaking you are getting a level of cohesion that our Euros cannot hope to match
Is this all smoke and farts? Yes.
Are these guys as talented as our euros? No.
Can some of them keep some of our euros out of the team? Absofuckingloutely!
So if you are Weah, Joe Scally or Yunus, you better take the threat seriously.
Can they play at the highest level leagues in Europe. Probably not.
But Pochettino is not building a team to compete in the EPL, Bundesliga or La Liga. He’s building a tournament team to last for 8 games tops. And he will have enough firepower to possibly surprise almost anyone except Argentina. All the big boys will say all the right things but you know in their heart of hearts they all think that we are just a bunch of wussies, which is how we usually upset them. A lot of you on SBI are unimpressed by Pochettino.
But I think you forget he’s managed the best players in the world and has built two young teams that did well in the EPL and one that did well in the Champion’s league So if he says “Patrick you can play with the guys you will face the World Cup,” then chances are he will believe he can.
I still think they get grouped. Pulisic needs help and Gio won’t be there and Tillman isn’t ready yet. But It looks to me like Pochettino has a plan and is hoping to go there and let it all hang out.
Oh, I know all that and I think some MLS players like McGlynn, Luna, and Freese, plus maybe Arfsten, belong on the team with some as starters. However, coaching is a results based business and talk is just talk (and he is hardly the first to say things like the above) and while I realize that he is experimenting with rosters and checking players, I think we should be farther along by now and our record to date is not all that impressive since he took over. I will believe Poch is good when I see it on the field. And coaching a national team is not the same as coaching a club team. I have kept an open mind on him and given him the benefit of the doubt, but time is getting short now and he needs to be ready with a set roster soon so they can practice together as a team instead of using interchanging parts.