Italy has failed to make 2 World Cups so I’m not sure Pulisic will be up for this like MLSers will be. And of course anyone considering players from Scotland has gotta be joking.
i like the usmnt roster and player as compared to germany.....germany has a few top of the line stars like musiala and sane (who both didnt play in this match) but like a guy like gnabry flopped in the EPL and I've never really seen it from him as anything special woltemade just got sold for 85m after one decent season in the bundesliga with 12 goals...after a previous season of 30 games and 2 goals as a striker....meh goretzka another player ive never been that impressed with - fresh off a bundesliga season with 4 goals and 1 assist in 26 matches as an attacking mid for bayern overall, germany just has aura and tradition but this current group is meh imo
"Maybe next time I will need to call up players with less quality but that would give their everything on the field." Nagelsmann fue tranquilo a la conferencia de prensa jaja pic.twitter.com/IV2FBHrQS7— Mi Bundesliga (@mibundesliga) September 4, 2025 This sounds familiar to what Pochetino said and is doing. I don't think Pochetino watched Copa America (maybe he did?) but our best players failed there. They also failed him in Nations League.
The Germans were so distraught at having to see Muller in MLS that they simply gave up. If only he had chosen the Scottish Prem instead.
McKennie, Musah, Cardoso, and Balogun were left out for various reasons. What I don’t understand is that Pochettino needs to have these players work together before the WC which is less than a year away. McKennie had an extended season with Juventus, so why does he need to play more with them now instead of playing with his teammates on the USMNT? Musah has some personal problem which I am not aware of. Balogun has come back from injury; a little more understandable. Cardoso is with a new team that may have refused to release him.
its the same as ggg first cycle....will do anything he can to include mls garber has convinced poch that using mls will help soccer in the usa (which is ridiculous) but poch has accepted the mission this is all about trying to squeeze mls into the usmnt - deserving or undeserving
Those of us who actually follow the national team know that his first cycle was great. I’d be thrilled if Poch could match that. No it’s not. No it’s not, and congrats on the hat trick of stupidity
"If your best players play like they don't care about the National Team and are failing you need to keep on playing them because they are better" - USMNT fans While we have coaches like Pochetino and Nagelsmann (and others around the world) saying that if your best players don't perform because they lack interest then they need to be replaced with less talented players that are willing to give it their all.
He brought Mueller to MLS to undermine Die Mannschafftt just like he brought down the Azzurri by bringing in Giovinco. Give him time, France and Spain are next...
I was listening to Meola’s show today and he said Poch’s job is to pick the best team, not the best individual players. He also laughed at the idea MLS is controlling Pochettino.
Alexi Lalas, in a broken clock moment, has been banging that same drum for years. During the last cycle, basically everyone was in agreement that our three best midfielders were Adams, McKennie, and Musah. Problem is that midfield stinks as a trio, because Musah and Adams can't pass the ball forward and McKennie isn't all that creative, so every attack has to horseshoe around them. To Berhalter's credit, he saw that as a problem and tried to address it, but a Gio Reyna coming off a 500-minute season wasn't the solution. Hopefully Poch can figure out the right balance. He may have just lucked out with the emergence of Tillman.
MMA is best utilized when we expect the opposition to control possession. Those three players are good ball-winners, so if you complement that midfield with either a high press (which we employed against Mexico) or a compressed mid block (like we did against England) to force them into mistakes and then hit on the counter. However, in games where we expect to dominate possession, we need a creative man in the middle like Gio or Tillman to generate chances.
Poch calls up some real donkeys and says some stuff that leaves open the interpretation that he has no idea what he is doing regarding the US player pool. It's super groovy and cool that some people think pedantry is a helpful avenue to refute the above. Weird. But super groovy and cool, too.
Cap Pendantry now! I been bloviating around this place - and Graffiti and .rec and even close circuit bars! (oh my!!) before that - and it's kinda fun how the characters change but the debate stays the same. And how winning fixes everything and losing, well... naysayers are for sure playing the odds, that's for certain.
well I watched the press conference from Pochettino for the October camp and I dont think Poch is out of his mind anymore This isn't the final roster...it will be adjusted on a rolling basis, depending on player performance. I beleive that the best players will ultimately make the team. I was very worried this wouldnt be the case based on the September roster i understand what hes doing and the rationale behind it now. in the end, I think he doesnt quite have enough time to implement this culture change fully as he wants to....this is what happens when you come in late and have such a scattered player pool thats almost never fully available. i think he still might make some mistakes in the end but I get where he is coming from, finally. (fwiw, I dont think he is correct to only want to choose players that can play 3 games in every 3 days....with 26 players it is not necessary, and also I dont think with a 26 man roster, you would want to play the same 11 every game....this was the downfall of berhalter in qatar. so I really hope poch doesnt copy that aspect off ggg ball) im sure if he had a full cycle or 3 years or so...he would get the best team for the world cup, for sure.....which comes back to the poor decision to hire ggg for a 2nd cycle
He's been saying this all along...................................... The last three full-time coaches have been fired like this mid-cycle. Bradley, Klinsmann, and Gregg. It's not conducive to success. Particularly if you hire a coach with little pre-existing knowledge of the pool. Poch has had to work thru the pool evaluating guys. Most won't stick. A few will. If we had a WC announcement today, a few of these guys like Luna, Berhalter, and Freeman might make it. All guys the board suggested should be looked at before they were called up. There have been very few callups that were totally outside the box. There's just not a lot of time.
I doubt Poch would’ve went for the job at the time Berhalter was rehired so I wouldn’t say time was wasted.
its kind if self-fulfilling feedback loop though.....playing the midfield that isnt as good at attacking allows teams to not worry about defending, which makes it harder to control possession....I get the logic...but I also think this kind of thinking creates the problem it aims to address i think if youre gonna go with 3 centerbacks, you shouldnt need midfielders that cant add to the attack and just play defense, basically....even with 2 cetnerbacks, I wanna see 2 way midfielders that can be well rounded and contribute in all facets. mckennie fts that profile, imo
For funzies, I looked at some of the euro squads of second tier leagues to compare. Netherlands, who are no doubt better than us have 4 players from their domestic league. Switzerland 2, Portugal a whopping 6, more than a quarter of the squad. All 3 domestic leagues are somewhat on par with MLS. Certainly the top teams in Portugal and Netherlands are better, but the bottom teams are probably worse. MLS *is* good enough to make up an important part of the squad, as is the MLS player. You.dont necessarily need or want your 23 best, most talented players. You want the 23 guys who will work together the best.
I don’t agree with this line of argument, because I’ll bet the Portuguese and Dutch players are all on those “top teams,” meaning their call ups are NOT the same. If I’m wrong I’m wrong, but that’s my perspective.
Indeed. Those nations have the heart of their starting XI's in top leagues and some "difference-making" elite players at Champions League-winning contenders. Berhalter gave opportunities to a ton of MLS guys over his tenure. But when push came to shove at the World Cup and Copa America, who got the bulk of the minutes? Not a single second was played by an MLS player at Copa America. There were MLS players on the roster, but they didn't play. [Ream came back to MLS after Copa America.] Pochettino has been looking at a lot of domestic guys this cycle. Now that we're in real preparation for the World Cup, we'll see where the minutes shake out. I'll bet that for the next USMNT match..................we have two or three MLS starters. Freese and Ream. And maybe Freeman due to Dest not being there. I guess if Antonee isn't deemed fully match fit, we could start Arfsten. Also, we can't ignore the fact that the domestic guys become the Euro-based guys. Freeman could be a Euro guy a tthis time next year. We're going to develop into a nation like Brazil in which the players are constantly shuttling back and forth.
So Australia has no domestic players on this roster if I’m reading the right thing. Three MLS guys though.