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.
I’m all for it what Poch is trying to say, BUT if his MLS replacement is nowhere the level of the “soft” Euro player, then I draw the line there.
Players having their name dead-set inked on the roster- the dates inked for their golf vacation getaway to yuck it up with their boys is over and that’s a good thing. To b blunt- Uncle Gregg’s Boys Club had become soft and complacent as F.. Many players said themselves coming back home into camp was a relief- a welcome getaway from the pressure cooker of their European clubs. A country club environment is not exactly the environment to breed hard nosed excellence bringing out the best to fight it out with the best. It’s been hard to watch, but hopefully it pays off in the end.
“Pochettino warns USMNT players that “your name” won’t guarantee World Cup spot”….Absolutely!!!!
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▪️Your name should not guarantee you a spot
▪️Your parents name should not guarantee you a spot
▪️Your US Soccer Youth Program Affiliation should not guarantee you a spot
▪️Your club name (If you are riding pine) should not guarantee you a spot
▪️Your past Accolades and trophies should not guarantee you a spot
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▪️We need players that are inform NOW.
▪️We need to assess players that are one of the (if not the…) main contributors on their club team
▪️We need to assess players with top physical attributes and abilities (Speed, strength, Aerial ability, passing ability, drilling ability, quickness, defensive abilities etc.)
▪️We need players with grit, fight and not SCARED to turn UP FIELD with the ball
▪️We need players who fit Pochettino’s style of play near perfectly (to have even a chance at Elite World Teams)
He’s talking all this game…..lets see how he really executes and picks his team
Bizzy, the European leagues end on May 24th or 25th and the WC doesn’t start until June 11th. As far as I can tell, FIFA hasn’t announced when the final rosters are due but probably not more than a week before the first game. He will probably have two weeks of camp before he makes his final roster selections and his picks would be the same as just about every person on the site based on what happens in the camp if we were able to watch the camp, except for maybe the last few selections, so the performances in freindlies and for club only need to be good enough to get you into the camp. If Haji Wright does terrible in this camp but continues to do well at Coventry until the end of the season, he’s gonna make the camp. It will prob be about 25 players in the final camp and about 30 of them can probably be figured out now considering the lack of depth.
Oops. 35 in camp.
Tele I think I said this to you before. I do not think it will be a big pre WC camp. I expect it to be pretty much 26 + 1 or 2 if there are injury concerns. With modern technology Poch can sit in his living room and watch any players matches from multiple cameras in high definition. He’s going to know who his 23-26 are.
JR, a camp is the only way to compare the players. They play in different leagues against different levels of competition and freindlies are just exhibitions. In a camp competing against each other it will be clear who is better. He wants the best team with his best players. I will be shocked if he doesn’t have a camp to pick the final roster.
Tele: unless there is somebody who makes a huge jump between say Jan and May, he’s seen everyone at least once in camp if not multiple times. Maybe not against each other but with enough similar players to make judgement. You’ve got one less week with the extra teams in the schedule to prepare and the US playing June 12th in LA. Poch is going to have the guys he wants and use that as prep not tryouts. If a guy like Albert or Sullivan suddenly make first team debuts in March and have success he might kick those tires, but he’s not going to waste training time with a tryout between Berhalter, Morris, Roldan, and Luca for spots 25 and 26.
JR and Tele,
In previous camps, they were small in player numbers because:
1.) Leading up to the 2010 World Cup there was a scramble because Bob was turning over rocks looking for people to replace CD9. But normally we didn’t have 23 players all of whom were good enough to play serious minutes at a WC level.
2.) This time, we may have 26 spots and we have more serious candidates than we have had since 2017-2018.
3.) As ever, the biggest issue and the main issue really in these camps will probably be health. Is Player Zoomba fully recovered enough so that we can stick with him instead of the guy coming up fast on him?
Hopefully they are successful in finding a few more decent games to play in 2026 before selection day.
At this point the next most significant thing for the USMNT is the draw on December 5.
Tele 57, JR,
+ Supposedly, they are trying to arrange a few more friendlies besides the January cupcake game. That said, I’m pretty sure that barring injury and dramatic loss of form ,80-85 % of the positions have been mostly assigned.
Having guys go mano mano vs their teammates is of limited use.
Supposedly, none of our defenders, except Richards, knows how to play defense anyway and our keepers suck so what kind of test is that?
For the mano a mano thing to be of real use to you, best to do it vs the guys they will play. And I don’t know how you arrange that.
Of course injury and loss of form are deadly and unpredictable so regardless of what anyone says whatever games are left and the camp will remain important in the roster decision process.
+ December 5 , World Cup draw, the other important event regarding our World Cup chances.
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.
Gary,
“I think we should be farther along by now and our record to date is not all that impressive since he took over. ”
I get you, but you and I will always see things different.
For me up until now, Pochettino has been building a team. It’s a messy process that is not linear. I have a bias because I hate people who walk into the middle of something I am working on, about which they know very little, , comment on it as if they know what the fuck I am trying to do and then leave. I’ll judge Pochettino when the World Cup comes around and not until then. I could not care less about the Gold Cup and NL results, mostly because I never have. There are JV tournaments.
You seem to enjoy the process and would like to follow along for the ride. I would like that too but the USMNT has been fucked up for so long that I am willing to put up with the fact that unfortunately Pochettino is not one of those coaches who is sympathetic to that. Never mind the language barrier he’s the kind of manager that will only really be open with his players and maybe not even them.
He is right about one thing though. He said if you are not being picked that inside you, you most likely understand why.