The U.S. men’s national team’s World Cup squad is officially set but Mauricio Pochettino’s roster selections only lay the foundation for a new set of questions as the long-awaited tournament finally inches closer and closer.
Pochettino’s roster makes for a fascinating assessment of the player pool, if an imbalanced one. The head coach has plenty of options in defense but will be thin in midfield, while the attack features a mix of in-form talents and misfiring stars. Few World Cup squads are perfect, but Pochettino has the task of fitting together puzzle pieces that certainly work together but have yet to demonstrate a consistent ability to do so.
The experiment-focused coach has also kept onlookers guessing until the last moment at what his starting lineup might look like when the USMNT’s World Cup begins on June 12 against Paraguay, even if some starting roles are more assured than others. Matt Freese, Antonee Robinson, Sergino Dest and Weston McKennie are amongst a group of players that feel nailed on to start, some roles more defined than others. McKennie, as versatile a player as the USMNT has, has excelled in a wide variety of midfield roles over the last year, his eventual role perhaps defined by the ones those around him play.
With the USMNT’s pre-World Cup training camp officially underway at U.S. Soccer’s new national training center in Fayetteville, Ga., here’s a look at the burning questions Pochettino and company will need to answer ahead of a pivotal summer.
1. Is the midfield Tyler Adams or bust?
Examining the roster, it’s impossible to ignore that there are only four players in it who play as deep-lying central midfielders for their clubs, Tyler Adams, Sebastian Berhalter, Cristian Roldan, and McKennie. While others like Brenden Aaronson, Gio Reyna, and Malik Tillman have operated in central midfield, none of them would be considered to be defensively minded when they do so. When Tyler Adams is on the pitch for club or country, it almost doesn’t matter who is defending next to him because he covers so much ground and hasn’t met a tackle that he won’t get stuck into.
The issue is that when it comes to a World Cup that will see teams play more games than ever before, Adams can’t be on the pitch for every game, especially following a season where he missed out on 12 games for Bournemouth due to knee and hamstring issues. When he returned to play in April, Adams was eased back into the XI for the Cherries, only making three starts in the lead up to the close of the season, so he is fit entering the World Cup, but with only three full 90’s under his belt in 2026, three group stage games in only 13 days will need to see him rested at some point.
Someone like Aidan Morris or Tanner Tessmann could’ve improved midfield depth, but with neither in the squad, there will be immense pressure on Adams and the back three in defense. Given that Adams captained the USMNT at the 2022 World Cup and is one of the leaders in the squad, if anyone can handle it, it’s the Bournemouth man, but it does provide Pochettino with tweaks that will need to be made.
Operating out of a back four without Adams will be tough to do, but somewhere in the group stage, he’ll need to be rested, and the most likely game to do so is facing Australia. The Socceroos are a team who may not be as physical as Paraguay, so it’s a chance for Pochettino to look to play on the front foot and push the pace, but he’ll still need Adams in reserve as a closer to ensure the game doesn’t get out of hand if it’s close between the two sides late on. It’s hard to see a healthy Adams not starting a knockout stage game and alongside Chris Richards, he may be the most irreplaceable player in the squad.
2. Will Christian Pulisic break his goalscoring drought?
Christian Pulisic has long been the face of the USMNT and deservedly so, but he enters his second World Cup in the midst of an untimely rough patch. He has not scored a goal for club or country since Dec. 28, a 22-game goal drought that many are desperate for him to break before the World Cup begins in earnest.
Like many attackers before him, his poor run of form is partially down to luck – he finished AC Milan’s season with 10 goals across all competitions, right on track for someone who tallied 9.33 expected goals along the way. He basically just overperformed in the first half of the season, notching just 5.05 expected goals by the time he scored goal No. 10 before the new year, his output ultimately balancing out the underlying statistics by season’s end. The real issue, though, is that his numbers are down considerably from the previous year – for club and country over the 2024-25 season, Pulisic managed 19 goals from 16.68 expected goals, a career-best season. He also has not scored for the USMNT since Nov. 2024, generating just 1.19 expected goals in eight games since.
The good news for Pochettino is that Pulisic’s tactical flexibility means he will have a variety of options available to him as he tries to solve what might be the USMNT’s most obvious problem. Though Pulisic generally plays on the wing for the national team, he played more centrally in a 2-0 loss to Portugal in March. He may have seen a big chance come and go, but the idea was not inherently a bad one, a signal that moving him closer to goal might help end the drought. One goal could truly open the floodgates, so Pulisic’s luck could turn at any given moment, but it leaves the player – and the team – in a precarious spot if this run of form continues.
3. Who partners Christian Pulisic in attack?
While Pulisic’s scoring is one thing to consider, so is what happens next to him. Alex Zendejas, Gio Reyna, Tim Weah, and Malik Tillman could all be in line to partner Pulisic in support of Folarin Balogun. Zendejas has been the most in-form member of the trio, with Tillman struggling for playing time with Bayer Leverkusen to close the season, but he also hasn’t been with the USMNT since September.
It’s hard to imagine a USMNT starting XI without Weah in it, especially with the Marseille man scoring at the 2022 World Cup, but with Sergino Dest back and likely being the starter at wing back, that’s something that could happen due to Weah being someone who plays wide instead of as a dual 10, he may end up coming off the bench. During the tune-ups against Senegal and Germany, that will be something to watch for.
Pochettino has stated that Reyna isn’t fit to play 90 minutes, which will make him someone who is likely to come off the bench. While Reyna and Weah coming off the bench would give the USMNT strong options to change the game, it does lead to questions about whether players are ready for the challenges. Both of them went to the 2022 World Cup with the USMNT, and while Zendejas and Tillman are used to pressure at their clubs, the World Cup is quite a different experience, especially one on home soil. While I’d expect Tillman to start facing Paraguay, this is a positional battle that could quickly shift for the USMNT, as that position may be the most in flux outside of center back for the squad.
4. Who is playing at center back — and how worrying is Chris Richards’ injury?
The USMNT may be understaffed at defensive midfield, but the team is full of options at center back, several cracking the World Cup roster as Pochettino becomes increasingly inclined to line up with three at the back. That does not mean the group is short on question marks in that category though, especially as Chris Richards deals with an ankle injury he sustained just days before the USMNT’s pre-World Cup camp began.
Richards is essentially a make-or-break player for the U.S. team — he’s a lock when he’s fit, almost singlehandedly boosting the quality of the team when he’s on the pitch. Without him, though, the U.S. team are a different version of themselves. The group has played without him a few times in the build-up to the World Cup and will do so again on Sunday in their penultimate tournament tune-up against Senegal, one of the final chances for the other center backs in the group to make their cases.
Richards’ longtime partner in the back is Tim Ream, the World Cup captain, who has essentially been a mainstay in defense since Pochettino took over in the fall of 2024. Ream’s quality has dipped this season with Charlotte FC, though, raising questions about whether or not the starting job he has had a grip on for years has finally been relinquished just before the World Cup. Pochettino officially handed the armband to Ream on Saturday, but said it was not a guarantee that Ream would start, but rather an indicator that the veteran boasts that leadership quality both on and off the field.
Waiting in the wings are Mark McKenzie, Miles Robinson, Auston Trusty, and potentially Alex Freeman and Joe Scally, two outside backs who can play in the center if need be. Natural center backs McKenzie, Robinson and Trusty will be the leading candidates, but it is hard to know which way Pochettino will lean, at least before the pre-World Cup friendlies against Senegal and Germany. Each has some familiarity with Pochettino’s methods at this point, all while looking steady enough to make a World Cup team. None, though, has seized their opportunities just yet, perhaps making this race the most competitive even in the final weeks before the tournament begins.
