U.S. men's soccer comes to Bay Area in familiar state of chaos. Will it respond in Gold Cup?

San Francisco Chronicle​

a day ago

The U.S. men's national soccer team plays in the Bay Area this weekend, just one year out from the biggest moment and most powerful opportunity the program has ever had: the 2026 World Cup on home soil.
Yet, as has been too often the case with the men's program, the team appears to be in chaos.
This week, the Americans lost their fourth game in a row, a 4-0 pratfall to Switzerland that was so historically bad many have called it the worst showing they could remember. It was the fourth loss in a row and the alarms going off around the team haven't been this deafening since a loss to Trinidad and Tobago in October 2017, a defeat that knocked the United States out of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup.
In a bit of symmetry, Trinidad and Tobago is the team the United States will face on Sunday at PayPal Park in the opening game of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The biennial tournament is critical for new coach Mauricio Pochettino, who was hired last September, because it is the last tournament his team will participate in before next year's World Cup.
As one of the host countries, along with Canada and Mexico, the U.S. team automatically qualified for soccer's grandest event. While much of the rest of the world slugs it out in World Cup qualifying in the coming months, the Americans will only have friendlies to play, matches that come with considerably less intensity and less likelihood of facing a squad at full strength.
Will this team be ready for its first World Cup match on June 12, 2026? Right now it doesn't look ready for the College Cup, let alone the Gold Cup.
Still, the Gold Cup is an important test. However, by both necessity and choice, Pochettino is treating it as an extended try out, calling in a majority of players who are based in Major League Soccer, most with little hope of making the World Cup roster. What Pochettino seems to be discovering is the lack of depth in the talent pool he's inherited.
Several key American players are missing from camp. Four of Pochettino's best options are playing in the FIFA Club World Cup, a concurrent tournament also being played in the United States, muddying storylines for an American audience still unaccustomed to soccer's varied competitions. Some are injured. Some have been left off by Pochettino. And others, most notably Christian Pulisic, have opted out of their last best chance to give the U.S. team momentum and connect with the public before the World Cup.
Pulisic, 26, the team's best known and arguably best player, has come under criticism for taking the summer off to rest after his long club season with AC Milan. That has led to sniping between former players and the current roster, with even parents getting involved. Soccer dad Mark Pulisic criticized Landon Donovan on social media, pointing out that Donovan had taken time off in 2012 (he failed to note that Donovan was then toward the end of his career and paid a price for his absence, being subsequently left off the 2014 World Cup roster).
Pochettino has also come under fire. Earthquakes coach Bruce Arena has said that bringing in someone from the outside, like Argentinian-born Pochettino, is problematic because they don't understand the American culture.
The off-field bickering and lack of results is just more of the same nonsense that has swirled around this team for the past two-plus years, since it returned home from the Qatar World Cup in late 2022.
It wasn't so long ago that hopes were sky-high for the U.S. team. The hyperbolic phrase 'golden generation' was being thrown around about a group of young American players who were getting significant playing time with heavyweight European clubs and who had advanced to the round of 16 in Qatar with a record of one loss and two ties, before being ousted in a rout by the Netherlands. Their showing wasn't exactly stirring but it held seeds of promise that were expected to blossom into something significant while the United States prepared to host the World Cup.
Yet nothing is blooming except more chaos and disappointment.
The federation dithered for two years, first rewarding uninspiring Gregg Berhalter with another cycle as head coach, even after he had embarrassed the program with off-field issues. Then, Berhalter was fired last summer after the U.S. team flamed out of Copa America. In nine months, Pochettino hasn't exactly exhibited a sense of urgency about seizing the moment.
He's 5-5 as a head coach; the four consecutive home losses is the team's worst streak since 2007 and worst home losing streak since 1988. Until Tuesday, the team had never conceded four goals so quickly at home and hadn't given up four in the first half since 1980, ancient history for American soccer.
Most troubling, the team has been flat, with little urgency or passion.
'I've never seen a U.S. team play that poorly in a half of football,' said former star DaMarcus Beasley on the TNT broadcast of the Switzerland game.
Among the questions swirling around the team is how important it is to American players to play for their country? How important is it to wear the crest?
It brings to mind comments center back Walker Zimmerman made last summer, after playing in Paris on the first U.S. men's team to qualify for the Olympics since 2008.
'The pride of playing for your country, I think, to some degree we've gotten away from that,' he said after the Americans were knocked out in the quarterfinals. 'And feel like just because of whoever you are that you will get called in (to camp). That stuff pisses me off. I think guys, every time they put on the jersey, need to play with pride.'
There isn't a lot of pride around the U.S. team right now. Not a lot of hope. One year out from the biggest moment in the history of U.S. Soccer, we'll see what they can salvage in the Gold Cup.