The U.S. men’s national team’s technical staff is always plugged into what its entire player pool is doing on a match-to-match basis. As the 2022 World Cup nears, that’s especially true. And while rolling with the whims of coaches and whom they elect to start at clubs across Europe may be cause for consternation, it’s unlikely to be as agonizing as what has unfolded in MLS over the last couple of weeks.
It was always known that MLS’s early Decision Day (Oct. 7) and single-elimination playoff format would spell an abrupt end to the season for players eyeing places on the U.S.’s World Cup roster. The league’s compressed schedule was a direct result of the World Cup being moved to accommodate the weather conditions in Qatar, so for the U.S., which marks its return to the World Cup stage on Nov. 21, to be relatively unaffected by it would have taken a minor miracle. And yet now that the cards have fallen as they have, there’s some wreckage to assess.
It starts with center backs Walker Zimmerman and Aaron Long, the duo that has started 11 times together for the U.S. (7-2-2, including a loss and draw in the most recent friendlies vs. Japan and Saudi Arabia). After Nashville SC and the New York Red Bulls’ respective eliminations in the opening round, they are due to be without competitive matches for over a month preceding the first World Cup group game vs. Wales. (Long being beaten directly by FC Cincinnati’s Brandon Vazquez, who recently said that U.S. manager Gregg Berhalter relayed to him that it was effectively too late in the squad-building process to integrate him into the U.S. setup, for the match-winning goal, was a particularly cruel twist of fate.)
