In the moments after the USMNT’s 4-1 crash-out in the last 16 at this summer’s World Cup, Mauricio Pochettino took the podium for what many assumed would be his last press conference as the US head coach. I had a question for him: “Would you consider your tenure here a success?” His answer was full of the usual platitudes, but one thing did stand out. He said, more or less, that he and his staff had finally gotten a good idea of the player pool.
It struck me as bizarre at the time. By almost every account, Pochettino had been brought in to win the game that he’d just lost. Given just two and a half years to get it done, his job had never really been to evaluate the player pool; it had been to maximize results with the tools at hand, something he did with varying levels of success. And now, in the shadow of arguably the most disappointing result in US men’s history, we were finding out that it had been a fact-finding mission? And there were suggestions that he was leaving?
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That, of course, did not happen. Pochettino signed on to stay through 2030 – well, possibly – and on Thursday, we learned that he isn’t quite yet done studying the player pool. Far from it. Pochettino’s roster for upcoming friendlies against Canada, Mexico, Peru and Chile features 13 uncapped players, including four of the US’s five forwards; a further two players elsewhere across the roster have earned only a single appearance. The average age of the newcomers is 19 years and six months.
There are notable exclusions as well: Christian Pulisic, who has only recently returned to the field for Milan after suffering a leg fracture at the World Cup, was left out of the US squad, as was Folarin Balogun, who has still yet to appear for Monaco this season. Weston McKennie remains injured. Given those reasons, none of the three omissions is particularly shocking, but they place the onus of leadership on others on the roster – such as Ricardo Pepi, who now finds himself shepherding a crew of teenagers up front, or even Sebastian Berhalter and Malik Tillman, who may be tasked with leading the youth revolution in midfield. FC Cincinnati center-back Miles Robinson, all of a sudden, has turned into the squad’s elder statesman, at 29 years old.
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All of this may conspire to make these upcoming friendlies – apologies, “non-official matches”, as Pochettino has taken to calling them – replete with far more intrigue than we’ve ever gotten out of a set of post-World Cup throwaways. This is unquestionably a good thing for US fans, especially those of us who have been clamoring for fresh blood.
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It also provides an opportunity for a bit of intrigue off the field. Pochettino’s pointed back-and-forth with another new call-up, 16-year-old Cavan Sullivan, in the media last week was the latest example of something he’d already made abundantly clear to others (Pulisic among them): mentality is everything. One senses that Pochettino is bringing this set of youngsters into camp not only to evaluate them as players but also as human beings, and to get a head start on instilling his preferred values in them. His lone quote from the press release that accompanied Thursday’s roster announcement says as much:
“This is the beginning of a fresh start for everyone and we are excited in these first matches to bring a group of experienced players along with some young talents who have great potential. It will be important that they all understand our culture, our way of working, and of course the principles of how we want to play. Most importantly, they must show the commitment to representing the country in the way our fans deserve.”
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What better way, then, to show your commitment at the ripe old age of 16 than to face Mexico in friendly Phoenix, Arizona? Pochettino – and the rest of us – are about to learn a whole lot about the USMNT’s next generation.
