The USMNT needs to get over itself before it wastes a World Cup

NBC Sports

a day ago

Even taking into account the long list of big names absent from the United States men's national team's Gold Cup roster, there's enough talent around that the Yanks shouldn't look as poor as they did in conceding four first-half goals in a 4-0 home friendly loss to Switzerland at Geodis Park in Nashville on Tuesday.
They did just that, though, and the showing was bad enough that a first-ever Gold Cup group stage exit doesn't seem impossible right now.
Yes, really. The Yanks' poor 2023 Gold Cup saw them bow out in the semifinals after squeaking past Canada in penalties during the quarterfinals. These things happens at the Gold Cup, a tournament in which the Yanks treat like an 'also' with weakened and/or young rosters. But this edition was set to be different, where a not-quite full-powered but still-inspired team uses a last pre-World Cup opportunity to make a run in a tourney.
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This USMNT roster is extremely shallow, and that's where Mauricio Pochettino deserves his fair share of shade. The ex-Tottenham Hotspur coach entered the summer knowing he wouldn't have Christian Pulisic, Antonee Robinson, Yunus Musah, Weston McKennie, Timothy Weah, Ricardo Pepi, and Giovanni Reyna. He then saw Folarin Balogun and Sergino Dest depart from camp before Tyler Adams became unavailable for Tuesday.
Pochettino bet that a veteran set of center backs and midfielders would do enough to offset fullbacks with very little experience and a heaping helping of youth — a stage USMNT fans felt they'd passed as the aforementioned group got cap after cap under Gregg Berhalter.
The depth has been so disappointing over these two friendlies that it begs whether changes are somehow an option prior to the group stage despite the final roster's submission last week. Pochettino left Cameron Carter-Vickers, Josh Sargent, Joe Scally, Tanner Tessmann, and others off his final list. Those could prove awful decisions.
Now they'll have to beat out two of Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia, and Haiti to reach the knockout rounds of this month's Gold Cup. It really shouldn't be an issue, but suddenly it feels simply improbable instead of nearly impossible. Yes, Saudi Arabia have recently drawn Japan and Australia and took a point off Argentina at the last World Cup, but T&T is no longer anywhere near the peak of their powers and Haiti should, quite frankly, be outclassed by even this U.S. squad.
But where the USMNT's A-team has looked entitled at times, this team — whatever you want to call it — looked way out of its depth against the Swiss. The old fad that was worrying the U.S. could underachieve when hosting a World Cup is nothing like the new hotness that is worrying the U.S. could flop when hosting a continental tournaments it's won seven times including a near-perfect run in 2021.
A team can have a good World Cup even with a poor run-up, sure, but it's incumbent upon the Yanks to not waste their chance to deliver a memorable tournament on home soil. That's surely one of the reasons they swung big with Pochettino. The perfect storm is still there — an elite set of USMNT talents playing as the underdogs they are while being pushed by periphery players all the way.
Yet right now the tournament's hopes seem to ride on Tillman, Luna, and Cardoso staying healthy while running up name-making performances during big in-form minutes in front of a some veteran center backs and goalkeeper Matt Turner. It can work, but it almost certainly won't be the Gold Cup-dominating run envisioned just months ago. And now it's also not even an extreme likelihood that Pochettino's men will get to the semis.
It's time for Pochettino to flex his tactical acumen, get a feel-good win over Trinidad and Tobago, and ease the tension while ending a four-game losing skid. Surely that's not asking too much. Yet at the moment, you can't guarantee they won't show up thinking their jersey's enough to beat a hungry team who'd like nothing more than the upset them at home.
Johan Manzambi weaves and hammers in a goal past Matt Turner to put Switzerland up 4-0 against the USMNT.
Michel Aebischer receives Johan Manzambi's pass through traffic and taps it in to give Switzerland a 2-0 lead against the USMNT.