Stars, snubs, surprises: What to make of USMNT’s Gold Cup roster

With key USMNT stars Tim Weah and Christian Pulisic unavailable this summer season, Pochettino has became to Major League Soccer for lend a hand. 

America’s oft-maligned home league is a stunning boon for Pochettino, with 3 of the highest USMNT avid gamers of his tenure — winger Diego Luna and strikers Patrick Agyemang and Brian White —hailing from MLS. They made the lower with 12 different MLS avid gamers and a handful of up-and-coming American stars plying their business world wide.

Here are the important thing takeaways from Pochettino’s sudden roster:

The USMNT remains to be managing its manner thru an damage disaster

We knew Weston McKennie (Club World Cup), Yunus Musah (private causes), Josh Sargent (“footballing causes”) and Christian Pulisic (were given a bit of drained) would leave out the Gold Cup. But the ones high-profile absences had been anticipated to be countered via high-profile additions, together with the returns of Antonee Robinson, Sergiño Dest and Folarin Balogun from long-term accidents.

However, Robinson, Dest and Balogun, after showing in Pochettino’s 60-man initial squad, didn’t regain their health and can leave out the Gold Cup.

These are giant misses for the USMNT, they usually can’t be backfilled with like-for-like replacements. Pochettino should experiment with more youthful, rawer ability of their absence.

MLS is operating the USMNT’s midfield for a metamorphosis

Seven of the 9 midfielders Pochettino decided on for the Gold Cup got here up thru MLS. Five of them — Vancouver’s Sebastian Berhalter, Philadelphia’s Quinn Sullivan, Houston’s Jack McGlynn, Salt Lake’s Diego Luna and San Diego’s Luca de los angeles Torre — nonetheless play within the league. 

That’s a wild switch-up from the way in which issues had been below former USMNT trainer Gregg Berhalter. He known as up quite a lot of MLS avid gamers, however he tended to leverage them in protection, now not within the heart of the park. Not one MLS participant made Berhalter’s USMNT midfield throughout the 2024 Copa America. What a distinction 12 months — and one training regime exchange — could make.

The Philadelphia Union’s academy is doing heavy lifting

Most MLS groups have built-out adolescence academies, however now not all of the ones academies are created equivalent. The Philadelphia Union’s program stands head and shoulders above the remainder, and this USMNT roster proves it.

A whopping seven avid gamers — Matt Freese, Nathan Harriel, Mark McKenzie, Quinn Sullivan, Jack McGlynn, Brenden Aaronson and Paxten Aaronson — got here up thru Philadelphia’s academy. The program, led via longtime Philadelphia scout Jon Scheer, generated greater than 30 p.c of the USMNT’s squad for the Gold Cup.

These seven USMNT avid gamers are simply the top of the iceberg for Philadelphia’s academy. Its most famed product, 15-year-old wunderkind Cavan Sullivan, remains to be too younger to characteristic for the USMNT however now not too younger to signal an eye-popping contract with England’s Manchester City. We’ll see Sullivan crack those USMNT lineups in a couple of years.

The USMNT will play friendlies in opposition to Turkey (Saturday, June 7) and Switzerland (Tuesday, June 10) prior to kicking off its Gold Cup marketing campaign on  June 15 in opposition to Trinidad and Tobago in San Jose.