According to The Guardian, this is Mauricio Pochettino's 26-man roster for the #USMNT 2026 World Cup.Alejandro Zendejas is IN, but Tanner Tessman is OUT. pic.twitter.com/2VbN6C0CO2— herculez gomez (@herculezg) May 23, 2026
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I want to believe we'll get out of the group stage.
I'm not confident.
Lots of hub bub around Luna left off...but he was a filler during his time. He was always 50/50 to make the squad...truthfully. He would bring a spark, if he saw the field.
The rest, im pretty solid with. Could have dropped a defenseman for Luna. Poch bringing 10 defenfenders feels like he'll try to park the bus when the game is nil-nil...
Yeah big park the bus play for a draw energy
Part of me thinks the extra defenders are a) cover for Richards if he can't go and b) I look at Arfsten + Scally combined as two halves of a wingback. Arfsten is a defensive liability but can go forward, Scally is a rock defensively on the wing but offers nothing going forward. They're situational wingbacks if you're chasing a goal or defending a lead.
I'd still have dropped Miles for another CDM like Aiden Morris or Tessman (we'll hopefully find out today if his injury was really that bad).
I think Aaronson can do what Luna has done for the US and does it better. He was great for Leeds this season at keeping pressure on opposing defenses when they were trying to play the ball out of their half. I think Luna got more attention because he has a louder personality.
Watching the US Soccer program the last few years has just been depressing. You'd figure with the WC being at home, I'd be amped up but I'm pretty much indifferent. Maybe they'll surprise me but I'm not expecting much
US Soccer and FIFA have done a horrible job building up hype for this world cup...
100% where I am as well. This is probably the WC I've been least hyped for since I started paying attention 20 years ago. Sad 😭
And...they informed the guys that weren't selected for the roster by email. No text to set a time to call. No call. No nothing..just a form email.
Poch is going to either be a success and the team makes a deep run or will be a massive failure.
I'm not feeling great about the team going in, pulisic cooled off this season a bit lately and richards hurt spells bad times in defense. Not to mention GK feels a weakness which could be fatal.
Poch was never going to be successful....there's more wrong with US soccer than can be fixed by a single manager
I don't feel super confident that the US will even advance out of the group. (They should, but...we've seen this team capitulate vs teams they should beat time and time again). It might take a little luck for the US to be one of the 8 3rd place teams to squeeze through.
The youth age groups are a big problem. My parents have been running the local league for 30 years with an emphasis on skill building and access... The pull of kids leaving the local leagues to pay thousands to be on travel teams creates a rift where they dont have enough kids to keep the local league going as kids age but also creates a financial barrier for a ton of kids. The same thing is happening in all the other sports. It destroys an opportunity for community fabric and for kids to develop.
Structurally, the US just isn't built for elite soccer. The system is bass ackwards. With pay-for-play, you weed out a tremendous amount of talent as well as, to your point, alienate a lot of players and crush interest in the sport.
With pay-for-play, you don't get your most talented players. You get your wealthiest players. That's how you end up with guys like Pulisic. He's not really that good but he's the best we've got. Meanwhile, entire squads in Europe are built with players that would eat Pulisic's lunch 9 times out of 10.
The US is a sleeping giant. We could be absolutely dominant in soccer if we really wanted to be (just look at just about every other sport). But we just don't want to be. We don't care. And, unfortunately, I don't see that changing any time soon. So what ends up happening is that American soccer fans watch the world cup and root for two or three teams. The US (even though they know the team won't go far) and then which ever European team they feel some roots to via ancestry. And all of those teams, Norway, Sweden, England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, etc. are always going to be better teams than the US. They don't have the talent pool the US has but they care more and they're structured more intentionally for breeding and funneling soccer talent into academies where the most talented players get paired up with the best coaching and resources.
The US would need huge cultural and structural shifts to ever compete on the world stage. Could it happen? Sure. Is it likely? No, not in my opinion.
I see this all the time in Atlanta. The youth leagues that filter into the academies are lacking talent. If you have the $$ your kid has a spot.
yep. it's a big problem. I believe the talent is there for the US to be an elite soccer playing nation. But we don't care enough and we don't adequately support the true talent. Instead, we make good soccer training inaccessible to the masses. Only the elites have access to the best facilities and resources. We're not making professional soccer players out of our most talented players. We're making "professional" soccer players out of the most athletic rich kids we can extract dollars from.
At one time early this season, pundits were saying Pulisic was the best player in the world. I know he fell off and he isn't like a balon d'or guy, but let's not downplay how good he is and that AC Milan and Chelsea payed big bucks for him.
Lol what? Who said Pulisic is the best player in the world? Alexi Lalas? No reasonable person with any amount of soccer knowledge would ever accuse Pulisic of being the best player in the world. Not even the best in a league. He's arguably the best player in the USMNT squad but that's not exactly saying much.
Pro squads spend lots of money on lots of players. Some warranted, some not. Pulisic getting a big paycheck doesn't necessarily make him a world class footballer.
yeah, exactly
CBS coverage of Serie A in the fall when Pulisic was scoring a lot
I am running up against this problem with my 8 year old. The rec Leagues are a mess, the refs are 12 and wildly inconsistent and barely know the rules (calling off-sides on players that never touch the ball), and no one wants to coach so I end up coaching because I am one of the few parents that played. Half the kids want to goof off the entire practice and so the other half that has interest don't get much learning or skill improvement. My son is actually interested in the game and I am having to look at U10 club teams in the hope that he can actually learn and improve. I really don't want to get into travel sports at this age, but my fear is if he really wants to stay with it he will be miles behind and never make a club team when he's 10.
I am actually excited about this WC. I think with the expansion of the number of teams and having it in the US during the summer, the USMNT will be Quarterfinalist at the least.
LMAO this is quite the hot-take. I can see the US advancing out of the group. That SHOULD be doable. Let's assume for a moment that they win the group. They'll be matched up with some 3rd place team in the round of 32.
The options here include teams like Bosnia&Herzegovina, Switzerland, Ecuador, Cote d'Ivoire, Japan, Sweden, Senegal, Norway, Algeria, Jordan. There's maybe 2 teams on that whole list that I think the US has a chance against.
They'd have to win that to advance to the round of 16 where they would most likely be up against Belgium - I don't think the US is likely to beat any teams from Europe. Especially a team as strong as Belgium.
All of that, just to reach the Quarterfinals. Honestly, I think just reaching the Quarterfinals would be a smashing success for the USMNT. They would likely have to win at least 4 matches to get there (2+ group stage wins to win the group, plus the round of 32 and the round of 16 to reach the quarters). I love your optimism but to suggest the quarterfinals is the bar for them is wildly disingenuous.
The US is in a favorable group. Paraguay, Australia and Türkiye are all beatable teams. I think the most likely case is the US advances out of the group in either first or second. I don't think the US will fall as far as third but even if they do they probably would still advance because there should be points available against those teams and they should be one of the top 8 3rd place teams. Depending on their matchup it's possible the US would win their R32 match. I think if they make it to the Round of 16 that would be a big success for this team. I think advancing out of their group and losing in the R32 is what would be expected. I think failing to advance out of the group would be embarrassing.
In a dream scenario the US wins all 3 group stage matches to win the group on 9 points. They get favorably matched up with Jordan (Group J 3rd place team) in the round of 32, where they win to advance to the round of 16. There, they get another favorable matchup against Saudi Arabia (the 3rd place team from Group H that miraculously wins their R32 match against Belgium on a missed PK after extra time). From there, they probably face Croatia, England, Canada, or Colombia in the Quarterfinals. I don't see the US winning many of those but for shits and giggles lets say they draw Canada and score a miraculous 94th minute winner on a set piece. I think BEST CASE scenario that is as far as the US can hope to go.
I know they are different teams and all of that, but the USMNT has only won 1 game outside of group stage in the history of the world cup.
hadn't realized that. that just furthers my point. Reaching the Quarterfinals is an insane bar to expect for this team.
Came here to say this... Isn't 2002 the only time the US reached the WC Quarterfinals?
I know very little about soccer, but "USMNT will be Quarterfinalist at the least" feels unlikely.
Correct, and the field is expanded this year, so an extra round to play. If we reached the quarters, we'd double our previous total number of wins outside group stage to do so. Not saying it won't or can't...
It depends on how you think other groups will finish out. I think the US will win all 3 matches in their group. Group B I think 3rd is likely to be B&H or Qatar. No way either finish or Canada or Switzerland for 2nd. The US can beat either B&H or Qatar. Group E I think 3rd will be Ivory Coast, which would be a tough match for the US. Group F I have Sweden 3rd. Tunisia is a non factor and I think Ecuador is better than their rank. Group I 3rd will be Senegal or Norway, again both tough matches for the US. Group J 3rd will be Austria or Algeria. I think both are winnable.
Out of the above mentioned 3rd places teams, I think Senegal, Austria, and Algeria would be stylistically the hardest matches.
Chances are yes we would see Belgium again in the Round of 16. I don't think you can look back at the recent friendly with them as a good gauge of how a rematch would look. I think this would be a low scoring game this time around. Which helps our chances of winning it.
I went to the Belgium-USMNT game in Atlanta. We were on the front foot the entire first half and quite unlucky to not have a 1 or 2 goal lead at half. Tons of chances that we should be putting away more often than not.
I hated Poch's tactics to wholesale sub at half. The subs were a downgrade in talent and also completely neutered the attack. Give the starters at least 60 minutes together, and then start rotating a few players. No reason to still be "tinkering" to this extent so late in the cycle imo.
If Poch is smart about how he sets this team up, and realistic about what roles each player in the squad can perform, we have the talent to compete. I don't think he's made it easy on himself with some of the squad selections though.
Thanks for the reply!!
I didn't watch that game so it's a little hard for me to comment on it. I don't know how Belgium was defending (maybe they were intentionally in a low block?) At the end of the day, Belgium scored 5 goals and the US had 4 shots on target. Friendlies are always a bit hard to gauge since both teams are usually tinkering and the players aren't always taking it very seriously(especially if you're on the team that is perceived to be the stronger of the two). I don't think there's anything wrong with Poch tinkering - it's a meaningless friendly, after all. (But, that means it was meaningless for Belgium too - they also made wholesale changes and still won 5-2). It makes a lot of sense, in a friendly, to give your squad depth players an entire half to play.
If both squads were at full strength in a meaningful game, I think Belgium wins 9 times out of 10 and it's not very close. The US may have been front footed but they didn't create the chances. Sometimes a team will sit in a low block and it'll look like the other team is attacking but they don't generate chances. Does that make the team that was sitting in the low block bad because they were pinned back? Or does that mean the low block was effective? The US scored first. But after that, it was an onslaught. Belgium scored like 6 minutes later to level it before half and then scored 4 more goals to make it 5-1 before the US managed to find the net again, at the end of the game.
Belgium definitely was not in a low block. Went back and found some halftime stats when it was 1:1.
My personal commentary: Belgium was largely taking shots from outside the box in the 1st half. We were weirdly giving them space outside the 18 and they just decided to bombard from long range. Their goal was in the 45th minute off a rebound if I remember.
We were successful playing through their defense and creating chances in that first half. And that was with Pulisic largely as a non-factor for us (over dribbling/hero ball/etc).
I guess my point is that since friendlies allow so many subs, you can't look at the game as a whole. You've got to look at phases and when we were playing good against good in the 1st half, we were up to the task. The US looked the better team even without having the majority of possession. The wheels came off in the 2nd half for the reasons I mentioned and skewed the scoreline.
Fair enough! Will be interesting to see how they look in a couple weeks
I love your optimism
This is a TKP message board so we are required to have wild optimism or want to burn it all down and start over from the ground up right?
conversely we can talk about the benefits of various foods and food adjacent items.
For sporting events I like a block of velveeta, a block of cream cheese, some rotel and a pound of sausage in the crock pot. Great for dipping tortilla chips or fritos.
Which is the next question we can toss out there...
Dale's Pale Ale was the sponsor the last World Cup. This go around it's Michelob Ultra.
What are you drinking for USMNT games? Something different for other games? Something different for each US game? Something other than beer?
i am also very excited! i am taking my son (9) down to atlanta for czechia-south africa. got a saturday planned with some families from my son's soccer team coming over to watch the games, gonna smoke a couple pork butts, some jalapeno poppers, etc... maybe a few drinks ;-) US games work well with my work schedule. and my son is really looking forward to it, so it will be fun to watch some games with him.
i hope you are right about our chances :-)
Hey I'll be there too! Going with some family since we're all based in the Atlanta area
As someone with Czech blood. "Czechia" is such a lame "rebranding".
when was the last time you had your blood
Czech-ed?
Will get a good dose, hopefully, of what this team has to offer on Sunday. USMNT is ranked 16th and Senegal is 14th.
Unfortunately - I'm thinking we'll be resting Richards whose absolutely critical to our backline. Better hope we create chances and win a 3-2 type game
Usa with a early goal on Senegal
I can't believe this point hasn't been made yet, but we have Antonio Freeman's son on the USMNT. How can anyone still think we can't win it all? /s
The send off game vs Germany shows you what WC means to the US this cycle. Solid first 60 minutes. Reserves playing hard. Fans chanting USA on key moments. Amped to get started!
Solid effort. The set piece in the first 2 minutes is our soft spot, and they executed it perfectly. (Not sure if Matt could have set it up better or been in the right spot...) Didnt hate it. And the banger from Robinson was awesome.
CBs have got to communicate better on those types of set pieces. It's a well-designed play by Germany to be fair but I think the CBs and Freese share some blame and we shouldn't have conceded that one.
Worried by our backline and transition defense but our attack has to be the best it's been in USMNT history. Need to convert chances...
Agree. Chris Richards being at full go today at practice makes me feel a lot better.
Are we keeping this as the WC thread?
Maybe start a new thread with a '2026 World Cup Discussion' related title?
Could prob lock this one up, and create a full catch-all thread for the WC.