NEW YORK – The U.S. men’s national team’s 2026 World Cup squad was presented for the very first time at a scenic spot in lower Manhattan, but Tuesday’s gathering was not the date they had circled on their calendars. The 55 members of the provisional roster, and the clubs that they play for, were all given another date and time entirely – Friday, 1 p.m., Eastern Standard Time.
It was the exact moment when the USMNT’s manager, Sam Zapatka, would create a WhatsApp group chat to share a video starring head coach Mauricio Pochettino with the 26 players who would get the nod for a World Cup on home soil, each member of the group receiving an email shortly thereafter. Naturally, the group chat blew up.
“I was actually leaving the training ground walking to my car with a box full of bobbleheads to take home to my kids,” veteran defender Tim Ream recalled. “And my WhatsApp started to go a little bit crazy with the video that got put in, so that was my scene, walking down a tunnel in Charlotte. It made me stop in my tracks, to be completely honest, and immediately call my wife and let her know because we’ve both been anxious and excited for the announcement.”
Mauricio Pochettino names 26-man USMNT roster for 2026 World Cup: Gio Reyna is in, Diego Luna misses out
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It was perhaps an unusual way to receive good news. Last time around, the players got individual calls from then-coach Gregg Berhalter, with U.S. Soccer later using some of the footage from the FaceTime calls for a sponsored content series. Other national teams go with a full broadcast, the coach listing the squad name by name as players and their families convene around a TV – and usually with a smartphone camera fixed on them. There is something awkward about the scenario, Pochettino sharing a generic message about player selection before saying, “It’s so important that you reply [to] that message with another video.”
Pochettino’s group chat means the news reached players in a variety of settings. Ream, Christian Pulisic, Brenden Aaronson and Sebastian Berhalter were all at their respective clubs’ training facilities while Matt Turner and Alex Freeman were at home. Turner was joined by his wife and kids and Freeman by his dad, Super Bowl winner Antonio Freeman, who was “running around” the residence in Spain. While Berhalter reacted to the news by calling his parents and crying happy tears, Antonee Robinson quickly returned to his activity.
“Fondly enough, I was in Liverpool playing golf,” Robinson shared. “I was on the golf course, got the message and that definitely made my round feel a lot better because I wasn’t playing too well, but it was an amazing feeling. We all ended up getting added to a group chat as well where we were all sent the video and congratulating each other and saying how excited we are to link up and see each other. It’s an amazing feeling.”
The WhatsApp message is perhaps fitting for Pochettino, who has kept a hands-off approach in communicating with his players outside of national team camps. In many ways, the Argentine is a club coach at heart – he maintains the distance out of respect for the players’ clubs, wishing some had done the same when he was in their position. He defended his methods of communication with his players on Tuesday after a televised roster reveal event, though, offering his latest rebuke to a line of questioning he has never cared for – inquires about those who did not make the cut.
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“We cannot talk about the players that are not in the roster because I think it’s very disrespectful to the players that made the roster,” he said. “That was my decision to pick the 26 and now we need to respect because some players that are on the roster say, ‘Okay, this guy should be included on the list.’ Which player is out of the squad?
“It’s impossible to be fair with everyone but I think to make the best decision, to be competitive in the end and to try to win, but if it’s not one, it’s another. If I [did] not include one, for sure you are going to ask me for another. I understand but I am going to be focused on the players that are here because I don’t want to discuss anything because it’s not my job and I think it’s to have the respect about that but I think for all the information, for all the criteria that we used in general and then in an individual way because we have different criteria for different players because all the players are different, I think we really believe that these 26 players are the right players. They are. The right players are the best players.”
Pochettino also built his pre-World Cup plans around the players who did not make the cut, often mentioning the pain of missing out on Argentina‘s 1994 and 1998 World Cup teams. He wanted to finalize his roster as quickly as possible so he would have as much time as he could to prepare with his final squad before the tournament began. He now has his 26, minus one – Chris Richards will join the group after the UEFA Conference League final with Crystal Palace, who will face Rayo Vallecano in Leipzig, Germany on Wednesday live on Paramount+. The group will open their 17 day training camp with a stint at the new national training center in Fayetteville, Ga. before their World Cup opener on June 12 at SoFi Stadium against Paraguay.
In essence, Pochettino wanted to rip the band-aid off as soon as possible, but he has not been in touch with the players who did not make it, nor have the other players. Firstly, he defended his longstanding approach to maintain a distance while keeping tabs on his players, believing now was not the right time to change tack.
“I think what we need to understand is how we create the communication with the players from day one and when you create the communication very clearly, in the way that we implement our way to communicate, we are not going to change,” he said. “For us, it’s the most important event, to be on any single roster – when you play non-official games, when you play Copa America, when you play Nations League, when you play the World Cup. I think in the way that we communicate, it’s not changing because of official competition and I think the players respect us because we work in an environment that is very respectful.”
Then, he was blunt. He did not want to hear the bad news as a player, nor does he think anyone who missed out on this summer’s roster would want to, either.
“I was a player,” he said. “When I didn’t make the roster, I didn’t want my coach [to] call me. [As] the coach of the national team, [they’d] say, ‘Which is the reason that I am not in the roster?’ What [am] I going to say? I’m going to lie? ‘You are not in the roster because I believe that another teammate is, today, in that period, is a better option.’ I don’t say that he’s a better player and you cannot make the roster in the future. That is why I don’t really believe – if I communicate, because how we work, 55 players in the provisional roster. I need to call now the rest of players but I should [have] called in March, I should have called in January camp. I think that is not the way. Come on.”
He also made the argument that making the phone call would have been self-serving.
“We care a lot, we don’t want to say nothing to confuse the players,” he said. “Like when I was sacked at different clubs – one was in Tottenham and Daniel [Levy], the [chairman], said, ‘I want to talk with you.’ What do you want to talk about [with] me if you sack me? You talked before to sack me! Not after. When you made the decision, I had nothing to say. I don’t want to hear nothing. I understand the player — they didn’t make the roster, they didn’t want to hear me, to say, apologize. I care. Do you know why I care? Because during two weeks, I didn’t sleep and today, I still cannot enjoy the 26 guys in front of me because I am thinking about the players that are out. That is about [caring]. It’s not to call because if I call, it’s about myself. I say, I call. I am very human about calling. Come on. That is bullshit. Sorry.”
