Pre-match: 2026 World Cup Roster

We need a dynamic press-resistant CM and I have been perhaps Timmy's biggest supporter on this forum but Poch should take Musah over Tim Tillman.

Hopefully Poch and staff have been reviewing WC2022.

 

Is it not Gozo or Banks for Doyle?

 

curious what they call a surprise. I think a "surprise" is either
A) A consensus top 12-15 player left off.
B) A player that is out of the consensus top 40
C) A dual nat that comes on.
D) A young kid gatecrasher in MLS such as Gozo or Hall

I think Banks coming on would be a mild surprise, but thats absolutely one you break glass in case of emergency on. Okoh on the roster......now THAT would be a surprise.

Goalkeeper, I dont think anyone being left on or off would really be a surprise honestly. Nothing that gathers "woahs"

forward..........I really think the roster picks itself here, thats not gonna be a surprise

Itll be midfield that the surprise is in. One way or another. It could be a youth player like Gozo or even Hall.........European coaches are certainly not adverse to bringing one or two kids along to the big show that were not involved in the build up.

Surprise omission...........thatll be one of Pulisic, McKennie, Adams out. Maybe even Malik or Aaronson. But we know midfield is really the numbers game spot.

 

I don’t think the omission is the surprise it’s the inclusion of a specific player he didn’t mention in his article (and he did mention Gozo and Banks).

 

oh dang...........I got a feeling Okoh then. Theres been grumbles.......

Possibly Busio? Hes had a soft spot for Busio in the past.

 

If one assumes that the second backup plays a fundamentally different role than the first backup I can think of some potential aspects of that role that might minimize some of the negatives of a lack of cohesion and/or familiarity within the team/system. From everything I have heard (I haven't seen him), Banks would likely be one of our most athletic and skilled cb's. So what do you use him for? Let's start with 5 cb's: McKenzie, Trusty, Ream, Richards, Banks plus Freeman. I would expect Freeman to get some time at rcb with Dest or ream at wing back but if we assume that is a secondary role, than the back line might look something like the following

Jedi----------------------------------------------------------------Dest/Freeman
-------------------Ream/Trusty--------Richards-------------McKenzie/Trusty



I believe Poch would see McKenzie and Trusty as players that can play either side and Freeman as a rcb. That means BOTH the first sub (McKenzie or Trusty) and Freeman would likely get in the game before Banks in case of an injury to any of the three starting cb's. Imo, it would probably take an injury to 3 cb's for Banks to get into a game where he isn't playing specific strategic role. Of course, if Poch believes he is good enough that his quality outweighs youth, familiarity etc than all bets are off and he could be first sub.

The role I see as most likely for him on the roster would be as a defensive sub for an offensive player, playing as an extra defender or as a dm alongside Adams (or something along those lines). Could it happen? Possibly.

 

Didn't Okoh tear his ACL last week?

 

FIFA has a public website for one-time switches. A guy like Okoh or Culbreath would have been seen on that site by now. Surely, with one week left before squad announcement.

I just have a hard time with it.

There are capped USMNTers that are having good seasons that he's never called up and we never talk about.

I would love for it to be.................................Jesus Ferreira.

Just to see the epic meltdown on the board.

In cases like this in which some media guy says "there's a surprise coming"..............more often than not there isn't. The tweeter sure gets a lot more clicks and engagement out of it.

 

I had no idea........dang. Well obviously not him then.

 

Yes. It’s not him

 

Either of those would fit into the category of surprises for sure.

 

Knowing those circumstances, Im hoping or Busio.

 

Depends on the general reliability of the source in question. And in this case it’s coming from a fairly good one.

 

I'd be surprised if B. Aaronson or Scally didn't make. But I've been surprised before.

 

Howard, Dempsey, and Beasley all got their last caps in Couva. All deserved better.

I'm kinda surprised the WC NIT thing never got off the ground even if just as a money grab, given that every WC there are enough non qualifying teams that are either good, have a megastar player, big names, have large fanbases in the US, or are large TV markets (China) to make it worth watching.

 

In a perhaps surprise-surprise move involving a kinda sorta american, Nathaniel Brown made the German WC roster.

 

If Poch valued Busio, he's sure had a funny way of showing it for a year and a half.

Its not like he's been injured and unavailable................................

And then to pick somebody like that over a guy he's been calling up the whole time? I have a hard time seeing it. It doesn't jive with the culture he's said he's wanted with the team. Like would he take Busio as a last midfielder on the roster over a guy like Sebastian Berhalter? Berhalter has 11 caps in the last calendar year and is having a great season in MLS. [Not the same kind of player, but last man on the roster is a little role independent.]

My gut is that a surprise to Doyle is going to be different from a surprise for the rest of us...............................

I do like the discussion about positions amenable to a surprise. With Richards' injury, Ream's age, Robinson's spotty season, etc............................CB is perhaps one in which he'd want cover. Take one more CB than he was originally planning as the last man on the roster. And then he watches MLS and says...............you know what, that Jackson Ragen guy is pretty good!

 

We know his assistants were scouting and LAFC match recently, so Tillman might be my guess

Zawadzki was called up a bunch of times and had to pull out with an injury each time. We lack CBs and lost a defensive midfielder in Cardoso. Its a boring answer, but also a possibility

 

I'm not talking about a send-off match, really. I'm not talking about "justice for Jozy and Michael." I'm talking about the full gutting of the old team's core perhaps a little bit too quickly from a team culture standpoint, leaving the Pulisic/McKennie/Tyler/Dest core a little too lacking in veteran leaders to keep them internally accountable. Landon has clearly expressed that Bruce's team of veteran hard-asses kept Landon's young punk mentality at the time in check, which he thinks had something important to do with his own eventual national team success.

Pulisic got that for a little while at the end of the 2018 cycle, but none of the others did, and Pulisic has just never been much of a leader. He always seems to be one who is focused primarily on his own performance and his own lofty self-expectations. I don't mean that he's a selfish player who doesn't care about the team, but his energies overwhelmingly seem focused more inward on himself and what he can do to impact a game, rather than on leading his teammates and demanding accountability like Tyler tends to do. Of the core, he's really the only one like that.

 

Why is it a surprise? 32 BuLi matches 4G and 4A as a FB/WB in the BuLi at 22yo. Nate always had elite attacking potential but his defense has significantly improved.

 

I think it was embarrassment more than anything, it was floated, I don't know why it was nixed but my guess would be that teams like Italy didn't want their fans reminded that they were playing in a faux WC friendly tournament, but yeah, just having a friendly round robin would have made some sense, get some value out of it, some teams w/o huge egos would probably do it. Maybe Nigeria and Cameroon and Denmark and Venezuela or something this cycle would have been good, Italy would be available again lol, at this point I think their fans would laugh, point and be fine with it, now that it's become a regularity.

As for those heroes, I agree, and even if we can't give them a send off match, we could give them like perhaps some showcase at a Gold Cup or Nations league final or something, I don't know. But I think if you really think about it, its pretty easy to see why it happened.

Dempsey quit and went fishing and from what I can tell, ignored everything soccer until '21.

Altidore's career just slowly imploded '20-'23.

Bradley got run outs a bit longer I think than Altidore in '19 and then that was a wrap.

Same Beasley I guess, I just can't remember when he retired?

The big issue I think is that if we didn't do something in '18 or in June of '19, there wasn't any further windows possible other than that Feb 1st or thereabouts Cupcake game of '20 right before Couva hit.

We could have put something together between November of '17 and June of '19, but I think part of the problem was that other than Dempsey, fans weren't going to give a salute, they were probably more likely to give the middle finger until late '19 early '20 and to have a proper send off or celebrations, you have to intuit fan behavior being good rather than the antithesis and I don't think there's a chance of that happening circa November '17-November '18.

 

Mathis Albert as surprise inclusion?
Or Montrell Culbreath or Lenard Maloney?

 

Erik Palmer-Brown and Matt Miazga are available if we have to dig deep for some centerbacks. Walker Zimmerman would be fine too.

 

Yes, and no.

What you said is what people call sprains, are minor ligament tears.

I know it's a bit pedantic, but sprains are both major and minor ligament tears, a sprain is not a complete medical diagnosis, it's a synonym, more often used by laypeople, for a ligament tear of various severity.

For example, a ligament complete tear or rupture, is sometimes called Grade 3 sprain. Lesser tears are Grade 1 or Grade 2.

The overriding point was, was that the recent statement of having two torn ligaments, is not that different than the prior statements about a sprained ankle, we just don't know how severe.

 

At this point I wouldn't mind moving Tessman to CB, and having Adams and McKennie in front of him (if Richards is out).