Really enjoyed Adam's piece, which gets at the heart of what's coming next for the USMNT: change. Maybe not right away. But a real shift in the team's squad (in terms of competition + personnel) is brewing. The big names will be around for the 2030 World Cup. But in what role? ๐บ
"As far as the player pool is concerned, this feels different than the 2022 World Cup. We're coming out of that World Cup. That was the group of players experiencing this for the first time, right? That was Christian Polisic and Tyler Adams and Weston McKinney, and really most of that team making their debuts at the World Cup because the team had missed the World Cup in 2018 where a lot of those guys would have been bedded in for the first time. We knew that this group was gonna be back again for more on home soil in 2026 when they fell to the Netherlands in the round of 16 in the winter of 2022 in Qatar. We knew that was gonna be the case. It's not the same now. These guys, Christian Polisic, Weston McKinney, Tyler Adams are all gonna be over 30 come the next World Cup. I think they're all still gonna be in the national team picture. Don't get me wrong, but that's to say that there is going to be more opportunity. There'll be more chances for young players coming up through MLS and other areas to get looks at the national team. The big question is, are they gonna be good enough to really elevate this group that has not been able to get the job done now at the last two World Cups following up the exact same hurdle? It seems like if history tells us anything, the answer is probably no, frankly, as soccer continues to lack the real cultural impact here in the U.S. that it maybe needs to be a game-changing presence in the senior men's national team level. But I do think we could see more chopping and changing to this squad over the next four years, certainly than we did over the last four."
๐ฌ Discussion
Really enjoyed Adam's piece, which gets at the heart of what's coming next for the USMNT: change. Maybe not right away. But a real shift in the team's squad (in terms of competition + personnel) is brewing. The big names will be around for the 2030 World Cup. But in what role? ๐บ