Pre-match: 2026 World Cup Roster

You know I didn’t get it either and I was someone who was very pro bring Jozy back into the mix if he showed anything and he never really did enough to warrant consideration.

One of the things that came out in the new USMNT book from the author who spoke to a ton of former players is by and large most of their views on a past USMNT coach is driven by how they were treated by that coach. Guys tend to be positive about coaches who gave them opportunities and negative about coaches who didn’t. I think this is some of that.

 

He said that players need to be playing for their clubs, and then called up Reyna a couple of times anyway, calling him a "special case." Coaches shouldn't be taken totally literally in most cases, and Poch is no exception.

I'm not arguing against you, necessarily. I think Gozo's in the category of a longshot that is being considered, at a role that is probably the most accomodating of a young, skilled, athletic player with little or no experience or familiarity with the group. But he's a longshot.

Ditto with Banks, except that he plays a position where experience and team cohesion is essential. BUT... Miles isn't really 100%, and Blackmon doesn't have much experience with the team, either, nor does Campbell. And Banks just got back on the pitch after having been left off for weeks.

I'll bet that Poch's technical staff are kicking around both Gozo's and Bank's names on a white board somewhere as we speak. But thinking about it and pulling the trigger in either case are two different things.

 

Yeah Banks is one despite the minutes in recent months, with the issues at CB I'm fine giving a chance. Which is funny from me in some ways cause I'm very much a "fill your roster out with specialists and guys in great form to catch lightning in a bottle"

 

Hopefully you will figure it out, LD and Howard did.

The point relating to this thread is the construction of this roster and the group's comments on the roster and in particular Yunus Musah. The USMNT roster comments starts at 11:33.

Jozy touched on the fact that like Gio Yunus offers something that is unique in the group.

 

Here's what I have so far:

FWD: Pepi, Wright, Balogun
W/Outside Mid: Pulilsic, Weah, Luna, Aaronson, (Dest, Freeman)
CM: Tillman, McKennie, Berhalter, (Roldan)
DM: Adams, Tessman, Roldan, Morris
RB: Freeman, Dest, (Weah)
LB: Jedi, Arfsten, (Dest)
CB: Richards, McKenzie, Trusty, Robinson, Ream, (Freeman)
GK: Freese, Turner, ?

Possible: Reyna, Banks
Less Possible: Zendejas, Scally, Gozo

If Reyna is chosen, I think it will be in place of Weah. While I think Reyna's offensive qualities outshine Berhalter's, I think our CM needs to have some defensive qualities. I think Reyna's place would be on the wing. Specifically, the right wing. It is also true that RW has an overload of players that can play the position (Aaronson, Weah, Dest, Freeman). 5 is more than needed. Based on the way Poch has talked about Reyna, I think he really wants to bring him and is just looking for an excuse. Perhaps he will find it.

Banks inclusion would obviously depend on Banks as well as Poch. I can see Poch bringing him along if available. an injury or question mark (see Richards), makes that more likely. I could see Banks going in place of Miles Robinson if he brings 5 cb's. If 6 cb's as several have suggested, I think it would be at the expense of Roldan or Morris. If that is the case, I would expect Morris to be left off.

For Zendejas to make the team, he has to be preferred over Reyna first (imo) and I don't think that is going to happen. Scally's problem, I believe, is that he doesn't fit the profile that Pochettino wants in his outside back/wing backs. He's good enough but style doesn't fit.

I think Gozo's competition is Reyna and Weah. He may beat out one, but probably not both. Perhaps he would have a better chance if he had been in camp previously but not likely this time.

 

Sorry but no WEAH Timo is being replaced. He’s one of our most consistent players. He’s scored in a World Cup. He’s in no jeopardy of being left out.

 

And to do so, it’s kind of a disaster of a roster. I generally like Doyle, but bringing only four real CBs to the World Cup, with one of them coming off an ankle injury, another never having played for the US and hasn’t played all Spring (Banks) and another being Tim Ream … that seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

Putting Freeman down as a “CB” doesn’t help — he’s not going to play anything but RCB in a back 3 — and he doesn’t bring Scally, either, in order to get in Gozo (who I like but is unnecessary on this roster), and Roldan and Morris (he desperately wants cover in ball winning, which I get … but not CB?).

Meh. The issue with Gozo is just very clear here: Either make the call to bring him over someone like Weah or Reyna or leave him home. Bringing 3 RWB/RBs on a 26 man roster when you are already overindexed on attackers and have Freeman and McKennie also on the roster … it’s just too much if it means your CB group is Richards-Ream-Trusty-Banks.

 

I've already built a daily watch calendar putting the games I need to figure out how to not miss, or at least not find out the result of together, I'm very excited because this will be my tenth World Cup I've watched largely in its entirety (I have fuzzy memories of a little of '86, and maybe '82, but its so fuzzy as to be just a flickering image here or there from probably RAI and Univision....1990 while I don't remember the US games, I absolutely remember following Cameroon's run and having a broken heart when they had that lead on England that collapsed in the 2nd half (they were just way too foul happy like Panama in '18 lol, and it finally cost them).....So I'm absolutely excited about it but normally I'd be going nuts with anticipation, and instead, well, hell, just look at our board, part of this is the death of forums, but part of it is our board as a whole is muted because the USMNT has made it this way. I'd love to see how many posts per day we were getting in the run up to WC threads circa '06-'22 on here, my guess is several orders of magnitude more....we should be crazy excited, and it's just so shocking that just a few years after Couva the players could get self-satisfied again circa '24 and beyond but that happened and that hurt some of the momentum, and the rest is probably just the horror that is what the USA is right now, which is a total ---- show (last I mention politics), regardless of what side of the spectrum your on, you can't avoid thinking that this tournament would be a much, much, much better party in Asia, Europe, South America, almost anywhere other than here, which is shocking because I fully expected us to make it spectacular, and instead, everything that's happening with us is just a colossal fire hose putting out the excitement on a daily basis (and FIFA has added to this x10 as well)....

 

Who could have guessed that? Literally everyone on earth. I'm rather confused at that decision from Poch and friends considering how many uncapped, or not capped by them players emerged from their January '25 camp. Now, at this point, there's what, 3 different kiddos from the U17 program and U20 program emerging big time, and they never got a direct look at any of them on the practice field, maybe they might have, maybe they wouldn't have. We call it cupcake, but this is a reminder of why there's some value to Cupcakes, especially in Copa America and WC years.

 

Can someone please tell me how Noahkai Banks can be on our provisional list unless he's already made his one-time switch to the US? Those switches in nationalities take time to process administratively, and Germany could just sit on it at their end and hamstring the US. I wouldn't put him on a provisional list unless he were immediately eligible. To me, that would be a wasted spot.

 

Rarely have I agreed with anyone's post more, either in content or in tone. I, too, generally like Doyle.

I'm at odds with myself as to who the 5th CB for cover should be, though, honestly. Miles hasn't been recently been great, and Miles really has to be his best self in order to be of use to this team. Blackmon has been solidly unspectacular, and has barely played with this team. Campbell has played with this team even less. And then there's Banks, who is probably the most talented of this set, but has only played a little since March, and never at all with this team, and has waffled.

 

Which is a problem for both Gozo and Reyna imo. Reyna's issue, is that his defense is questionable. In my opinion, that removes him from CM and by extension leaves Berhalter's spot safe(r). Reyna is like Pulisic in that you want him to focus on creating danger for the opposition rather than preventing attacks. That being said, I do think Poch really likes some of the qualities Reyna brings to the table and is looking for a way to fit him in.

 

Banks is provisionally tied to the US through his participation in the U17 World Cup. It's Germany who he'd have to file a switch to represent. Also, I'm not sure how FIFA would handle this, but FWIW, CONCACAF allows players who have not yet switched onto preliminary squads, as Efra Alvarez was on both the US's and Mexico's prelim lists for the 2021 Gold Cup, despite being provisionally tied to the latter. Again, FIFA might have different rules for their tournaments, but that's what CONCACAF did.

 

quick google result:
Noahkai Banks has not played for Germany's national team at any level. [1, 2, 3]
The 19-year-old FC Augsburg defender is a dual-national eligible to represent both the United States and Germany. While he has previously represented the U.S. at the youth level—including the 2023 FIFA U-17 World Cup—he has yet to make a decision regarding his senior international career and has opted out of U.S. national team call-ups to keep his options open. [1, 2, 3, 4]

I expect that means he would not have to make a one-time switch.

 

I kind of get it and I kind of don't get it.

First off, after Couva the fans as a whole just wanted the entire veteran Cadre other than Dempsey bulldozed into a soccer retirement home. There were some guys that came correct, and focused on how badly they felt they let down themselves and Pulisic in particular, but many of them, Altidore included, simply were utterly tone deaf and didn't understand the frustration. Altidore absolutely sucked in qualifying, he was utterly horrific, shut out in every single game save a beat down of Panama. He wasn't old at the time, so I could see why he didn't get why he might be phased out, but the fan base definitely wanted to rebuild around young players and that was what November 2017 until Berhalter was hired was about. On top of all that Jozy got hurt and was unavailable for most of the summer and later fall of '18, there were a couple of games he could have played in in the early fall, but that was it.

Berhalter brought him back for the Gold Cup window in '19 and he was largely meh, had a couple of sub ons where he did nothing, did get a goal in a beat down of Panama again, the only team he scored against in the shirt from 2017-2019, grabbed an assist versus Jamaica, and then was shut out for the billionth time against Mexico.

On the one hand, again, I get it, he and the other key vets, Howard, Bradley, Jozy and friends didn't really get a celebratory game to retire at, a bow for their career, and I could see how that's messed up, it kind of is. But he also forgets a couple of key things, the biggest of which are:

#1 The performance in the hex in '16-'17 was the worst performance by the USMNT since at least 1985, a good 30+ years, it was an epic disaster and fans simply didn't want to see the architects of that failure on the field at least, playing (they'd already ---- canned the coaches that played a role, and they wanted the bulk of those vets canned too).

#2 Jozy forgets that he was injured for large chunks of '18 when the team might have given him a cap for those purposes if they'd wished to do so, we were turning to kids in '17-'18 post Couva to build the '22 team with the 4.5 years they had to do it, Jozy was not a priority.

#3 He did get a hand back in from Berhalter and he did very little with it (5 appearances, 1 goal, after a hex campaign in '16-'17 in which he was shut out in 8 of 9 games, meaning in his last 14 caps, he was shut out in 12 of them, as a striker no less, largely against hot garbage in terms of competition (Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, Mexico, Jamaica, Venezuela etc).....

#4 The opening for him and Howard and the rest to get their chances for a bow, and a celebration of their careers retirement match was then, if it was ever in the offing, completely and totally lost to........

COVID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can kind of forgive the guy for forgetting, but basically, he sucked in WCQ in '16-'17, he wasn't much better in the Gold Cup Window of '19, he wasn't called back for NL in the fall of '19, as we turned to mega prospect (Whoops) Sargent instead, hey, that's when he scored a couple of goals lol, and then, when he could have gotten that chance to bow out, 2020, Covid hit, and that was a wrap. By the time we got back on the field in November of '20 to play Wales, it was too late. Jozy had a horrible year in '20, and that was largely the swift decline of his club career ('19 being his last quality run as a club player, bagging double digit goals, he'd never even reach 5 in a club season again), and we simply didn't have time to waste on a goodbye for him with the WC just two years away, and qualifying set to be crazy and 14 matches long instead of 10 etc......

If there's a fault, to me, it's that we didn't let the guys have a bow in January of '20 in Cup Cake, I don't know if they'd have wanted their bow to be in such a notorious window for meh matches, but that was in truth, the only window left open for it in his career, after that, Covid killed any chance of him getting the shirt back on again as he sucked in MLS and in Mexico for the rest of his career. Unfortunately for him, whether it was the accumulation of injuries or what, his career was quite short as a player, if you consider what he did after his teen years, it was just 2009-2019, just a decade. He was not relevant AT ALL, once he turned 30 as an international or a club player which is kind of crazy. You'd like to think he would have been able to age out at least a bit like McBride, whose club career was essentially stretching from the wilderness period of 1994mwhen he was 22 and moved to the Bundesliga since there was no US league to play in, and retired in 2010, 16 seasons, retiring at age 38, and still potting goals at a decent rate into his late 30's....he played in the Premiere league through age 35 afterall, then came into MLS and grabbed another 19 goals in his final 2.5 seasons at age 36, 37 and 38 concluding with 7 goal contributions in about 1600 minutes at age 37/38 in 2010. Jozy's post 30th birthday seasons included 10 total combined goals across 2020-2023 seasons with Toronto and in Mexico and more injuries before he wrapped it up at an age McBride was still bagging 12 goals in the EPL (9 EPL, 3 FA Cup) while logging 3200 minutes and coming off a WC in which he'd had his skull turned into something out of a Saw movie against Italy......

I think it really comes down to just fan mood, timing, covid, and his shockingly quick early decline probably precipitated by simply too many injuries for his body to hold up anymore. I feel for the guy and all those guys, they brought some great memories and they did deserve a bow, but when they ---- themselves at Couva, they laid the ground work for this as a possibility, and Covid conspired with our team building efforts to probably rob them of it. Did Howard and Bradley ever get a send off game? I feel like Bradley might have? I can't remember. I don't remember one for Howard and Altidore definitely didn't get it.

 

Thanks! I had that exactly reversed. I was under the impression that he had played for Germany.

 

Right, but in Doyle’s case, he’s leaving Mark McKenzie home. So while I’ve found Miles to be dicey recently as well, there is another, fairly tested option.

 

RSL coach Pablo Mastroeni on Zavier Gozo: “Hopefully he'll get some good news here in the next couple days that he's a part of the World Cup team. I think he deserves it. I think he'd be an asset to that group. But regardless of that he keeps his head down and improves every day”

— Caleb Turner (@calebturner23) May 20, 2026

Notable quote from Mastroeni given how much Pochettino and his staff talk about their discussions with clubs when it comes to evaluating players. Doesn’t mean he’s coming but seems to indicate that he’s under consideration.

 

I do think Freeman very well may play RCB in a back three but I also think if Gozo is coming it’s at the expense of Reyna or Morris not McKenzie.

 

Yea the way he said it makes it sound like Poch has reached out telling him he’s likely to make the team. I wouldn’t be surprised either way.

 

I doubt he’s telling him who made it or not but I’m guessing his staff is asking lots of questions that make clear he’s under consideration. Which doesn’t mean he’s in.

 

Always well-reasoned, Marko. Your posts are much appreciated.

 

Yup I think both seem definitely under real consideration but whether they actually make it or not I have no idea.

At center bank I think if Banks doesn’t go we’re just going to roll with 4 most likely (Richards, Ream, Trusty, and McKenzie). Knowing that Freeman can play there on the right of back 3 and Tessmann can play in a pinch also.

 

Also the same player who cost us the Copa America. I think he’s going but I don’t think his spot is sacrosanct.

 

The most interesting thing to me about his roster projection was he very clearly wanted to pick Hall over Pepi but couldn’t actually bring himself to do it. Which is wild as I like Hall quite a bit but I don’t think you can justify his inclusion absent injury.