Throughout his tenure as US men’s national team manager, Mauricio Pochettino has needed to be experimental in the heart of the park. The player pool he inherited had a first-choice midfield trio – Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Yunus Musah – with few adequately tested alternatives. There has since been ample rotation, testing partnerships and combinations.
With 11 weeks to go until the World Cup, one thing has become clear: the tournament squad’s harshest cuts will come in midfield.
“The competition is high, and it’s going to be tough to pick the right player for the final roster,” Pochettino said on Friday with a smile of pained acknowledgment. “It’s a big job. I am suffering two months in advance.”
Finding the ideal combination will need to be done, once again, without the full complement of personnel. Adams was left off the squad for this month’s friendlies against Belgium and Portugal due to an issue with his quadriceps, remaining with Bournemouth to rehabilitate. At this stage, however, Pochettino has plenty of experience with readying alternatives. March will be his ninth international window with the US; Adams has been unavailable for all but three (crucially, he was part of last summer’s squad that reached the Gold Cup final).
In the end, a need for squad rotation may have been an advantage.
“Any player that I was playing,” Pochettino said, “[against] Paraguay, or even Ecuador, or Australia, Japan, or Uruguay, I think any combination, they were all different, I think work[ed].”
Several players’ club careers have fortified their cases for inclusion on the tournament squad.
Cristian Roldan played his way back into the pool after a two-year absence by embracing a more defensive, ball-winning role in Seattle’s double-pivot midfield. Sebastian Berhalter has become a mainstay of Pochettino’s teams on the back of his play for the Vancouver Whitecaps, with his dead-ball ability offering a serious boost for a program that has lacked clear specialists in that area for years.
Aidan Morris’s ability to translate his game from Columbus to Middlesbrough has only enhanced his stock. Tanner Tessmann’s form with Lyon has also kept him in Pochettino’s sight, but his recent deployment as an ad hoc center-back could make him more valuable elsewhere.
Perhaps no player has benefited from their club form more than Johnny Cardoso. Since debuting in 2020, the 24-year-old has been in and out of the national team, with his career usually following a familiar pattern: exemplary form for his club, then some underwhelming shifts on the international stage. With Real Betis, he reached the Europa Conference League final. Then, in June’s pre-Gold Cup friendly against Turkey, Cardoso gifted the Turks a goal by carelessly clanging a trivela pass off an opponent’s shin near the penalty spot. He ultimately played just 11 minutes in the Gold Cup. In July, he completed a transfer to Atlético Madrid, where he has remained in Diego Simeone’s lineup for most matches since the start of 2026.
“We need to assess, in an individual way, every single player,” Pochettino said. “You remember the last performance of Johnny on the national team: 45 minutes. The problem is it’s difficult to find fresh memories about him performing in the national team. That is why it’s a great opportunity for Johnny, because he’s performing really well in Atlético Madrid.”
Recent windows have seen Pochettino heap praise on McKennie, a recognition of how far the 27-year-old has come since he first joined Juventus in 2020. Upon naming his squad, Pochettino joked that the Old Lady had become “Weston McKennie plus 10”. On Friday, he added to his glowing assessment.
“He’s a player that [has] the capacity to understand the game,” Pochettino said. “He adapts in characteristic as to the demand of the game, to help the team. When the team needs some different option in different position, he can provide that. Yes, I am so happy. I think he’s very focused, and he was training really well. I think he’s an important player – that’s not new for us.”
At this stage, McKennie has forged among the clearest paths on to the World Cup roster of any player. Beyond him, and a healthy Adams, there are plenty of possibilities.
On Friday, Pochettino cited the midfields of who he considers “the two best teams in the history of football”, Barcelona and Real Madrid, to illustrate the importance of his decision. Barcelona had Xavi, Sergio Busquets and Andrés Iniesta. Real Madrid had Toni Kroos, Luka Modrić and Casemiro.
“Every time that a team works, it’s because the midfield is good,” Pochettino said.
The US names their final World Cup roster on 26 May. The next two games could help determine how much suffering Pochettino will undergo in the interim as he makes his final call.