USMNT – Road to WC 2026 Ramps Up

 

The general mantra is that the road to a World Cup begins the day after the current one ends. While that is not wrong its also a bit out of context, especially for the USMNT and WC 2026. That statement is true in most cases because these are the steps to get to the next WC.

1. Evaluate performance at the recently completed WC and look across the pool of players to build a deep pool of players that might have a role in the next WC.
2. Play some friendlies and your Federation’s (in our case its CONCACAF) tournament to look at those players in depth.
3. Use that pool and depth to navigate the qualification process.

Four years seems like a long time to navigate that process, and while its adequate its certainly not any too long. But for WC 2026 the USMNT didn’t have to go through step 3 as they automatically qualified as a co-host along with Mexico and Canada. So to many fans that seemed like a good thing. The reality is a bit different. Without having to go through the qualification process it really limited the number of quality/competitive matches the team had in order to really evaluate their player pool. Friendlies are all well and good but there are two downsides to this.

1. Friendlies are just that, friendlies. And teams do not, generally, take those as seriously as competitive matches. The result being that most clubs are less inclined to release their key players for a non-competitive match.
2. its difficult to schedule good teams since most other countries are involved in their qualification process and simply not available.

What this all means is that the quality of play that the USMNT could schedule was not as good as you’d like outside of their invite to COPA America 2024 and the CONCACAF Gold Cups. But the good news is that now that we are close to next summer more quality teams are available to schedule as they have already qualified or are still in that process and want to stay sharp. This started with window last month when we hosted South Korea and Japan. Both quality teams.

Here’s a look at the games currently on the schedule leading to next summer.

October – Ecuador and Australia

November – Paraguay and Uruguay

March – Portugal and Belgium

That is a very good preparatory schedule and its likely that 2 or 3 more games will be added next May/June right before WC2026.

So just what does this mean in terms of what the US needs to accomplish over these next two windows? According to Manager, Mauricio Pochettino, the “time for experimenting is over.” Pochettino made that statement concerning the window last month with the expectation being that future windows would be more aligned with the best roster of available players. Time to build a cohesive unit ready for our home WC. And the roster selection announced last week surely signaled that its time to get serious. Now that doesn’t mean there won’t be roster tweaks the rest of the way but by and large most decision from here on out will be based on fitness and form. Now one name I hope to see in November is Noahkai Banks. Although only 18 he could well be a key CB next summer.

Here’s the October roster with the players club affiliation listed.

So mostly the same personnel except that you have Mark Mckenzie as a RB in the back three. This means you now have to decide to do want to keep Malik Tillman in your midfield 5 as the better ball handler or do you want to keep Tim Weah in there for his speed down the wings. Both are adequate defenders. Weah is a better outside attacker while Tillman is a better inside attacker and line between the back line and the attack.

And while most of the “Best XI” are the same, as you would expect, the biggest difference becomes who you then call in as the rest of your roster. If you stick with a 4-3-3 then your outside backs need to be very fit and have good 1 v 1 defending ability. And your defensive midfield needs to have very good overall defensive abilities and some speed to cover a counter attack when your outside backs are caught upfield. This would favor players such as Aiden Morris and Joe Scally. If you go to a 3-5-2 then you need to ensure you have backline substitutes that are very good defensively. Such as Joe Scally. But your wingback substitutes would be more offensively focused. Not that they don’t have to have adequate defending skills but there primary use is more in creating chances. This favors players like Alex Freeman and Max Arfsten. Thankfully, with a 26 man roster you can have the best of both worlds and have the ability to change formations based on the opponent and any player fitness issues. However the desire to be able to switch base formations and tactics is also not with its downside. Even though the rosters are expected to be 26 players it becomes more difficult to take a player such as Sebastian Berhalter. While Sebi is a fine midfielder there are others who are overall better players. BUT none of them have the free kick taking ability of Sebi. And in a match where you need a late goal there are two player types that can be crucial. A free kick taker and a big forward who is excellent in the air. I guess this is why Pochettino and staff get paid the big bucks. Not easy decisions they will have to make.

But this begins in earnest this Friday as we take on Ecuador. The game is set for this Friday, October 10 at 8:30 pm EDT in Austin, Texas. Then they will follow that up with a game against Australia on Tuesday, October 14 at 9:00 pm EDT at Commerce City, Colorado. Both matches will be broadcast on TNT and streaming will be available on Peacock.

The next 8 months is going to be a fun ride. Get your game face on. Time for the Nats to show us the good!

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