As the fourth Switzerland goal found the back of the net, negative energy around the USMNT turned toxic.
On the eve of the opening match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup on U.S. soil, the players on the field for the senior United States men’s national team blatantly weren’t good enough.
It had nothing to do with desire, or commitment, or heart — all things head coach Mauricio Pochettino had recently seemed to indicate wasn’t good enough from the regular starters.
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All the desire in the world couldn’t hide the fact that the players simply weren’t good enough. They made mistakes up and down the pitch. Matt Turner, Mark McKenzie, Max Arfsten, Nathan Harriel — all of them were guilty of glaring errors that led to Switzerland goals, while the attacking unit was invisible across nearly the entire 45 minutes.
It was so bad that Pochettino made five changes at the halftime break before going into protection mode after the match, repeatedly ducking questions about the quality of the players by putting the blame on himself. “It was my fault,” Pochettino insisted, inviting criticism of himself to keep the players out of the spotlight.
Unfortunately, Pochettino falling on his sword wasn’t enough to hide the glaring lack of quality all across the USMNT squad.
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So, how did the team get here? How is it just one year out from the biggest World Cup competition in U.S. history, and Pochettino is about to contest the Gold Cup — a continental championship — with a roster of nobodies?
In the hopes of lighting a fire under the first-choice regulars for a perceived lack of intensity, Pochettino called in a group of misfits to generate competition within the national team squad. With the Gold Cup now set to begin, that decision has backfired royally. Instead of Cameron Carter-Vickers, Auston Trusty, Joe Scally, Josh Sargent, Tanner Tessmann, and Alejandro Zendejas — all of whom boast strong club credentials far beyond those in the current squad — Pochettino chose a host of largely domestic-based players who simply couldn’t hang.
It was a “football decision” to leave those players off the Gold Cup roster, he said at the time.
The individuals he turned to instead weren’t up to the challenge. Switzerland diced up the hapless USMNT players repeatedly throughout an embarrassing first half.
“We expected a level of intensity and commitment, with the bar to be raised from the end of the Berhalter era and not to be dropped. That’s the biggest disappointing thing,” TNT Sports analyst Kyle Martino said after the match.
“Pochettino set out a team that probably wasn’t set up for success.”
If Pochettino was hoping to generate competition within the squad, he’s horribly misread the job description of his position. It’s not the head coach’s job to create artificial competition by deploying players who have no hope of actually earning a place on the World Cup roster. It’s his job to get the most out of the team’s best players, not exile them to the periphery for a contrived excuse to select backups unfit for performing on the international stage.
Instead of finding a diamond in the rough, Pochettino has unintentionally achieved the opposite of his goal. It’s clearer than ever that the first-choice group of players is vital to the success of the USMNT. All the coach has done is waste valuable match minutes against top-tier competition, of which the USMNT is sorely lacking over the next year.
Pochettino was apologetic after the embarrassing defeat, saying the lineup choice “didn’t work” and taking the blame for deploying the individuals who failed to compete. Unfortunately, it’s too late. He’s stuck with these individuals for the rest of the summer, the admitted “risk” taken by selecting such an inexperienced roster. He hasn’t just wasted two friendlies, he’s wasted the entire Gold Cup — and with it the final competitive matches before next summer’s World Cup.
Instead of discovering individuals who can push the regulars for playing time over the next year, the U.S. head coach is stuck with a group of players hardly capable of competing at the necessary level, while the regulars sit at home through a wasted summer that could have been used to gain valuable chemistry — something they’ve sorely lacked at previous World Cup tournaments in the recent past.
So, what now? The Gold Cup is wasted, and there’s no margin for error. Pochettino can’t screw around anymore experimenting with the roster. He has to decide who’s in and who’s out now and make sure those players are on every single international squad from September until the World Cup next year. There’s no more time to mess around.
The spotlight is now on Pochettino to deploy the best players in this pool in every single match after the Gold Cup is over. It’s now on him to get the best out of a group of individuals that’s gained a reputation for complacency. He tried contrived competition for places, and that blew up in his face. Now it’s on him to motivate players who need a push.
The vibes around the USMNT are awful, but there’s nothing U.S. Soccer can conceivably do. They’re invested in Pochettino as The Guy to usher the squad into the 2026 FIFA World Cup, both financially and psychologically. Firing him now would be pointless — it would send the group into even more turmoil at a seismic financial cost.
Knowing there’s no way but forward, this coaching staff and federation must completely change its approach. Whatever plan they had — if there even was one — goes in the bin. Start from scratch and figure it out. Time’s running out.
