In terms of breaking with the past after a disappointing exit from a home-soil World Cup, U.S. men’s national team manager Mauricio Pochettino could not have sent a louder signal than the one he did with his roster selection for the upcoming international window.
Out with much of the old, in with plenty of new.
That is the case both figuratively and also somewhat literally—given the ages of some of the players involved, as a fresh four-year cycle officially begins for the federation this Saturday with a friendly against Peru in Orlando.
Absent are veterans like center back Tim Ream, goalkeeper Matt Turner, winger Tim Weah, plus longtime stalwarts such as Christian Pulisic and Folarin Balogun as they ease back from nagging injuries. In the place of such familiar names are 15 faces not involved in the recent World Cup squad, 13 of which are uncapped and have a whopping eight teenagers among them. The average age of 22 years and nine months among the 28 players called up this window is, tellingly, a full four years younger than the average of the last roster.
It amounts to a full factory reset for the USMNT, going beyond any natural recalibration of the program with an eye toward 2030.
“We try to call the players we believe are the best for this roster when we analyze the circumstances. I think it’s important [to have] a fresh start,” Pochettino said last week when the roster was announced. “Now is a completely different approach from the past. The World Cup is in four years, we need to work with different objectives and goals.”
It is mindset to be applied not only to the players, but rather—and especially—to Pochettino himself.
The Stakes Are Raised for Pochettino
The Argentine, it should be emphasized, is no longer a novice international manager trying to chart a path to meaningful victories and notable benchmarks.
He has more than a dozen friendlies across multiple windows, a pair of regional tournaments plus a World Cup under his belt. He is no longer a mid-cycle hire trying to navigate an unfamiliar player pool within a relatively-compact time frame either. Instead, Pochettino is going on two years of being fully embedded within the American setup. There is simply no learning curve left in the job at this point and referencing it for a manager as experienced and accomplished as he has been is only using that as an unneeded excuse.
As a result, from the moment he put pen to paper on a new four-year contract earlier this summer with the U.S. Soccer Federation, it became abundantly clear that this is Pochettino’s program fully, and completely, moving forward. That means success—and failure—on the pitch will be fully his own as well.
If tactics are communicated poorly or discordant with an opponent, that lands on Pochettino.
If the players do not develop within the national team structure, that’s on Pochettino.
If the USMNT’s depth is lacking in any area, that too is on Pochettino.
If results and signs of progress do not show up in a tangible fashion across future international windows and tournaments, that falls squarely on Pochettino’s shoulders just the same as if everything goes swimmingly all the way to a World Cup quarterfinal (or beyond) and he’s being feted as the man who finally brought about proper football success to this side of the pond.
The good news is that Pochettino seems to be relaxed about such pressure almost as much as he is eager to leave his imprint even further on the USMNT in the coming years.
This month’s roster is an excellent example of that, featuring plenty of key contributors like center back Chris Richards, midfielder Malik Tillman and budding star Alex Freeman that can provide a solid base to build on. All have been in the trenches with Pochettino since he took over, have valuable World Cup experience and should be hitting the prime of their careers once qualifying for 2030 begins in earnest.
Enter for the Chance to Win the Ultimate Classic Football Shirts Coffee Book (U.S. only)
Pochettino’s Roster Refresh
Much like what Pochettino did with the Gold Cup last year, he’s also looking hard at plenty of inexperienced kids who could develop into key pieces in the player pool moving forward.
Zavier Gozo will be just 23 at the end of this cycle and will be a Premier League-proven midfielder by that point, after earning a move to Crystal Palace recently. Meanwhile, Cole Campbell and Mathis Albert are both seeing the field in the Bundesliga as teenagers. Defender Neil Pierre already looks the part despite his age and has played a notable role in Philadelphia Union’s unlikely MLS turnaround this season.
All will get their chances together, in both training and these next few windows, to prove that they can be part of the puzzle that the manager is assembling with a much more patient time horizon to solve.
“The design, the strategy, the game, the plan is going to be different. When we arrived it was one year and a half years [before] the World Cup. But now, it's about four years. The last objective is the World Cup, but we have many, many goals that we have ahead that are really important for us,” remarked Pochettino. “All [players] are going to have the opportunity, if we feel they deserve the opportunity.”
Perhaps that is why it was also incredibly encouraging for most USMNT observers to see Cavan Sullivan being named to the roster. The 16-year-old has become a walking highlight machine the last few months as a regular for the Philadelphia Union and will join Manchester City next year, with plenty labeling the attacker as one of the country’s best prospects since Christian Pulisic.
Though some managers may do their best to downplay that kind of hype, both to avoid the additional attention as much as tamper down expectations enough in order to exceed them, Pochettino did not hold back in heaping praise for the youngster—calling it all very much deserved.
Even for a manager freshly emboldened to turn the page, that’s a fairly bold move. He is clearly all in, turning attentions fully to the next World Cup instead of to the bitter defeat 82 days ago against Belgium in the last one.
Saturday starts a new era for the USMNT, one which rests fully on the shoulders of the man in charge over the next four years, no matter how it transpires.
