USMNT Gold Cup roster: Sergiño Dest joins list of missing stars, as others see 'big opportunity'

Yahoo

2 days ago

Diego Luna will have another opportunity this summer to further establish himself with the U.S. men's national team. (Photo by John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)
Christian Pulisic was already resting. Antonee Robinson is recovering from surgery. Weston McKennie, Tim Weah and Gio Reyna are with their clubs. Yunus Musah is missing for "personal reasons," and Josh Sargent for "football reasons"; Folarin Balogun and Ricardo Pepi are injured.
And on Thursday, Sergiño Dest joined the list of U.S. men's national team stars who'll be absent this summer. The skillful fullback, who tore his ACL last spring and returned to action in March, has been left off the USMNT's roster for the 2025 Gold Cup for fitness reasons.
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Head coach Mauricio Pochettino said Thursday in a statement through a spokesman that his staff had "done a series of evaluations this week on all the players in camp, and in the case of Sergiño, we determined the best decision is for the player to have an individualized training program for the summer so he can focus on being fully recovered and ready to perform next season."
Dest's absence will leave the U.S. without six or seven of its presumed first-choice starting 11 for two friendlies and the Gold Cup.
John Tolkin, a 22-year-old left back, is en route to the USMNT's Chicago training camp to replace him.
A World Cup dress rehearsal becomes a USMNT tryout
The Gold Cup, a biennial regional tournament, had been billed for months as a dress rehearsal, the last time the U.S. men's national team would be whole for competitive games before the 2026 World Cup.
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Instead, it has become a tryout, with new faces fighting for a chance to stick with the USMNT over the next 13 months.
And Pochettino has made it clear that the weight of your name, or the size of your club, doesn't matter.
His message, defender Walker Zimmerman said this week, has been: "I don't care where you play, I care what you do. It's when you show up here, how you perform, and I'm going to evaluate you on that."
A day later, goalkeeper Matt Turner confirmed that, per Pochettino, even club form has seemingly become secondary.
"He's not gonna look at what you do elsewhere," Turner said from Chicago, where the USMNT has convened for a training camp. "He cares a lot about what you do while you're here. And there's a lot of guys here with a big opportunity ... to make a case for themselves to be on that World Cup squad, and be a contributing member to this team for years to come."
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Those "guys with big opportunity" come from Major League Soccer and abroad, from Philly and Vancouver, from Utrecht and Eindhoven. There are half a dozen mainstays who are part of Pochettino's squad — Turner, Tyler Adams, Chris Richards, Tim Ream and few others. But most are fringe players who, a year ago, were on the outside looking in, sometimes from afar, at the U.S. roster. They're fullbacks Max Arfsten and Alex Freeman, midfielders Sebastian Berhalter and Jack McGlynn, attackers Quinn Sullivan and Damion Downs.
Seven of the 26 players selected have never appeared for the national team. There are also players such as Malik Tillman and Johnny Cardoso who broke into the USMNT under previous head coach Gregg Berhalter, and have since excelled at their clubs, but haven't yet established themselves in the national team's starting lineup or rotation.
And then, of course, there is Diego Luna, the prime example so far of a player who seized opportunity — first in January, then in March — and parlayed it into a place in Pochettino's plans.
"That experience, for me, was life-changing," Luna said of his broken-nose stardom in January. "I think it added an opportunity for me to come back into more camps and show the type of grit and the hunger that I have to play and represent for my country."
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This summer, which begins with friendlies against Turkey (Saturday, June 7, 3:30 p.m. ET, TNT) and Switzerland (Tuesday, June 10, 8 p.m. ET, TNT), then continues with the Gold Cup, is a chance for most or all of the 26 players on Pochettino's roster to follow Luna's path.
The full roster is below. And remarkably, with the World Cup roughly a year away, it feels more unsettled than it did at this time last spring, two years out. More spots in the 2026 squad feel up for grabs than ever before.
USMNT roster for 2025 Gold Cup, June friendlies
Goalkeepers: Chris Brady (Chicago Fire), Matt Freese (New York City FC), Matt Turner (Crystal Palace)
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Defenders: Max Arfsten (Columbus Crew), Alex Freeman (Orlando City), Nathan Harriel (Philadelphia Union), Mark McKenzie (Toulouse/FRA), Tim Ream (Charlotte FC), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace), Miles Robinson (FC Cincinnati), John Tolkin (Holstein Kiel), Walker Zimmerman (Nashville SC)
Midfielders: Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United); Tyler Adams (Bournemouth), Sebastian Berhalter (Vancouver Whitecaps), Johnny Cardoso (Real Betis), Luca de la Torre (San Diego FC), Diego Luna (Real Salt Lake), Jack McGlynn (Houston Dynamo), Quinn Sullivan (Philadelphia Union); Malik Tillman (PSV Eindhoven)
Forwards: Paxten Aaronson (FC Utrecht), Patrick Agyemang (Charlotte FC), Damion Downs (FC Köln), Brian White (Vancouver Whitecaps), Haji Wright (Coventry City)