USMNT – Gold Cup 2025

The last competitive matches for the USMNT before next summers World Cup take place over the next several weeks. For months US fans have been anticipating seeing a potential dry run for next summers tournament. Unfortunately things have gone according to plan for a variety of reasons.

1. As it is anymore in soccer, and really all professional sports, injuries take their toll and it seems you just never have a full team when you need it.
2. Money, which drives sports, is just a huge factor. Clubs are playing more and more matches to try an recoup their costs and turn a big profit. Beyond leading to more injuries it just causes players to have a lot of fatigue so when a “non-critical” set of matches arises some players just need to opt out to rest. We can debate ad nauseum if this Gold Cup is critical or not but at the end of the day its the clubs that are paying the players their income and not their respective national teams (at least for most players.)
3. FIFA didn’t do our regional confederation (CONCACAF) any favors by scheduling the Club World Cup at the same time as the Gold Cup. This has probably impacted the US Gold Cup team more so than any other team in the tournament. In fairness to FIFA though they probably didn’t have much choice. In order to get the CWC in before the start of domestic league training they had to get it in before mid July.

So instead of using Gold Cup as a dry run for next summer manager Mauricio Pochettino decided to use the friendlies and the actual tournament to try and build some depth for next summer. Recall one of the major complaints against previous manager, Gregg Berhalter, was his lack of rotation during the Group Stage in WC 2022 leaving the team dragging when they faced a rested Netherlands team in the first knockout match.

So why are so many of our top players missing? Lets take a look at the who and the why.

Forwards:

Folarin Balogun – Injured

Ricardo Pepi – Injured

Josh  Sargent – Now this one was a bit of a shock. Sargent led his Norwich City team to a EPL promotion but was not called in? Pochettino said it was for “football reasons.” When you look at who was called in to play the #9 its hard to understand this one.

Wingers

Christian Pulisic – In consultation with USSF he opted to take this tournament off and rest. This has created a big stir at least in the media. Now Pulisic did play in 50 matches for 3,650 minutes (all competitions) this past season. One can argue that he should be there (and ex USMNT stars Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey have done so) but you can also understand him needing some time off.

Tim Weah – Juventus is in the CWC

Gio Reyna – Dortmund is in the CWC

Yunas Musah – Withdrew for personal reasons. Hard to judge him missing when we don’t know just what the issue is.

Midfield

Weston McKennie – Juventus is in the CWC

Defenders

Sergino Dest – Was called in. Has recently returned to his club (PSV) after a long recovery from a serious knee injury. However, after evaluating him in training the staff determined he wasn’t fit enough for the tournament so they released him.

Antonee Robinson – This one really stings. Antonee was the best left back in the EPL this past season but has undergone surgery and is not available.

Goal Keepers

Zack Steffen – Injured

So no matter how you want to look at it the roster is missing 7 or 8 starters. Heading into the two friendlies the question was who will step up?

If you are much of a soccer fan you already know that our performance in the two friendlies was unacceptable. The first match against Turkey did have some good moments, especially the opening minute rocket goal from Jack McGlynn. But the second match against the Swiss was flat abysmal. Now granted both Turkey and Switzerland are top 20 international sides and we were playing with a much less seasoned roster than expected. In fact 7 of the 26 players on the roster had never had a cap coming into the friendlies. Still they play was disjointed and overmatched. The “tryouts” for spots on next summers roster sure haven’t produced any results of note with the lone exception of midfielder Diego Luna. He is the one player who thus far has made a statement saying he belongs.

Heading into the tournament the question is what has the staff and players learned and have the additional training sessions started to build a more cohesive unit? The good news is that the US has 3 group stage matches to try and build some momentum heading to the knockout stage.

With that backdrop lets take a look at the Gold Cup groups and what we can expect to see. Current FIFA rankings are shown for each team.fMe

Group A

Mexico (17) – Defending GC champions and looking for the 10th all time GC trophy. Coming off a win in the Nations League back in March they are the clear favorites especially given the roster issues of the US. They are lead by Raul Jimenez who scored 12 goals for Fulham in the EPL and long time keeper Guillermo Ochoa who has played in more GC matches than any other player.

Costa Rica (54) – The Ticos strength, as it has been for many years, is on the back end of the field. Keylor Navas is just a very good keeper. Unlike many CR teams in the past this team doesn’t have near the quality  of players represented in overseas leagues. Most of their players are in the CR domestic league with several MLS players sprinkled in.

Suriname (137) – Interestingly enough almost their entire roster is comprised of players playing in European domestic league. The Netherlands, Germnahy, Sweden, and Belgium amongst others. But they are also mostly role players and not stars. Still they will have their moments and shouldn’t be overlooked.

Dominican Republic (139) – This club has a bunch of players in much lesser leagues such as the USL but they do have one really good left back by the name of Hector Firpo. He had 10 assists this past season helping his club Leeds United to get promoted to the EPL. He’ll be worth watching.

Prediction – Mexico wins the group and any result but that would be a huge shock. Costa Rica takes second.

Group B

Canada (30) – Frist the bad news. Alphonso Davies their stud left back for Bayern Munich is out with an ACL rupture. Davies, nicknamed the Road Runner, will sorely be missed for the speed he uses up and down the left side of the field. He’s truly a world class player and Canada will miss him. But they will have several really good players to fall back on. Johnathan David (Lille forward), Tajon Buchanan (Villareal forward), and Cyle Larin (Mallorca forward) are a tough trio to defend. The biggest issue with the Canadians will be to ensure they don’t get over committed in the attack and get caught short in the back. Not having Davies and his recovery speed means they need to be more cautious.

Honduras (75) – An interesting side. Historically the Hondurans have been a team that fields mostly players from their domestic league and this team is no different. In fact only 8 of 26 players play outside their domestic league and none of those play in one of the world’s top 10 leagues. Yet they make it work. There is one huge advantage for them in that their players are all very familiar with each other. Coming into a training camp there is no warming up and getting comfortable with each other. They get to work. And the results tend to show this approach works. They have qualified for the WC 3 times which is pretty incredible for such a small country.

El Salvador (81) – Very similar to the style and approach of the Honduras. The Salvadorians only have 3 of their 26 players who don’t play in their domestic league. The have qualified for 2 WCs so they can be a handful. One thing that should be mentioned when it comes to these smaller Central American teams. They are very, very good at fouling their way to a result. They are masterful at hacking teams into frustration but they spread their fouls around all their players so as to keep from getting too many cards. Unfortunately CONCACAF referees let them get away with this well beyond reason but hey if it works. Now want to have some fun. Watch the El Salvador and Honduras match and see who can hack the most…..lol.

Curacao (90) – This is a team that most casual fans figure is an auto win for their team. Ah but not so fast. Curacao is a very interesting country in that it is an autonomous country within the Dutch Kingdom. What does that mean? Most of their players are eligible to play for either Curacao or the Netherlands. Most of them play in the Dutch leagues and train with some of the best staff and facilities in the Netherlands. Now certainly they don’t have the talent of most other countries. But beware of this tiny little island nation If you sleep on them you might be in for a rude awakening. Just ask the USMNT. In the 2019 GC the US managed to beat Curacao 1-0 but the island team was the better side on that day.

Prediction – Manager Jesse Marsch has already said that anything short of a Canadian trophy in this tournament will be a failure. They are in it to win and they should easily win the group. But any of these other three could advance. Talent wise should favor Honduras.

Group C

Panama (33) – Clearly the class of the group and coming off a Nations League victory over the US that carried them to the final only to lose a tight match to Mexico. They are just about the polar opposites of the Honduras and El Salvador. Their roster accounts for over 15 leagues around the world! Their best known player is their Captian and midfielder Anibal Godoy. Godoy has 148 caps for the Los Canaleros and is currently playing for San Diego in the MLS where he is third in the league with 938 successful passes. They will need to see plenty of those to do well in the tournament but they did get a pretty favorable draw.

Jamaica (63) – The Reggae Boyz are a talented team. They have a good number of quality players including 5 in the EPL. They typically don’t fare well internationally but its not for a lack of talent. The Jamaican federation is not well run and they struggle to consistently support their national team. But that makes them easy to overlook which can be a fatal mistake. With names like Andre Blake (Philadelphia Union goalkeeper), Mason Holgate (Everton defender), Leon Bailey (Aston Villa forward), Issac Hayden (Newcastle midfielder), and Michael Antonio (West Ham forward) they can play with anybody. Pay close attention to Bailey and Antonio. If they get room to work they can do some damage.

Guatemala (106) – At the risk of sounding like a broken record, just go read the Honduras and El Salvador sections. Another team in the same mold. Mostly domestic players but maybe even a bit less talent. But they know each other and don’t often make mistakes. But at the end of they day they, like Guadalupe, just don’t have the horses to do much in this tournament.

Guadalupe (NA) – The only team in the tournament not even a FIFA registered nation.  They are an overseas part of the French Republic and are therefore not eligible for the WC or any tournament organized by FIFA. But they are a member of CONCACAF so are eligible for the GC. And like Curacao, most of their players play in the domestic league on their parent country in this case the various French leagues. However, their talent level isn’t quite up with even Curacao.

Prediction – Panama wins and Jamaica takes second but with a surprise or two those places could flip flop.

Group D

United States (16) – First lets get this FIFA ranking out of the way. Its far too high and especially misleading for this tournament given all the missing players. That’s the truth of the matter. But here’s the rest of the truth. They still have more talent present than any team in the tournament not named Mexico. Yes even more than Canada. The problem though is that they have struggled to play better than the sum of their parts and actually have been playing worse than the sum of their parts. Which has many questioning Pochettino. I am taking a wait and see attitude. I want to see much better performance at the GC than we saw in the Nations League and the last two friendlies. But at the end of the day what matters is figuring out the best lineup and tactics for next summer. THAT is what counts. Still the team has gone 5-0-5 under Poch and has to start looking better. I heard an interesting interview with Walker Zimmerman the other day and he had a really valid point. WC 2026 is going to be really important for the continued growth of soccer in the US. Not as big of a step change in interest as generated from the 1994 WC but of similar stature. But with one huge difference. The 1994 WC team created a ton of enthusiasm around the US for soccer. Recall that the 1994 team was just the second USMNT to qualify for the WC since 1950! Expectations were low and fans were just super excited to see the WC played on US soil. But times have changed in the last 31 years. Soccer has grown immensely in that period of time and soccer has become much more mainstream in the general world of sports. Its on the news all the time. Matches from the US, Mexico, England, Germany, and Spain are all shown on US television. And what that means is that the average soccer fan in 2025 is an order of magnitude more knowledgeable on the game that most fans back in 1994. So with that knowledge also  comes much higher expectations. Its no longer good enough for fans just to have a WC team. They expect a strong national team that can compete. This is what fans want to see over the next several weeks. Unfair expectations given our roster? No, not at all. This roster is still filled with quality players and frankly anything less than at least a quarterfinal finish will be poor.

Saudi Arabia (58) – The Saudi’s area  quality national team and will show well in this tournament. Look no further than WC 2022 when they stunned eventual champions Argentina 2-1 in group play. They are similar in makeup to the Central American teams in that most all their players play in the Saudi domestic league. But even more telling is that most of them play on just 2 or 3 teams so they are extremely familiar with each other. They are team that truly plays better than the sum of their parts. They met with the USMNT in the last tuneup prior to WC 2022 and finished in a 0-0 draw and the game was every bit as close as the score. On the downside, however, they will be missing the hero of that upset over Argentina, Salem Al-Dawsari, who will be playing at the CWC. Additionally, they only made the final 16 of last years Asian Cup and lost to Oman in last seasons Gulf Cup. They are on a bit of a slide so who knows how they will fare?

Haiti (83) – One would think that the US would like a draw with such a small country with a lesser soccer team? Well for whatever reason they US has not historically played well against Haiti in official competitions. They faced each other in the 2009, 2015, and 2021Gold Cups and the results were less than flattering. Yes the US didn’t lose but they hardly did well with 2 wins and a draw with a composite score of 4-2. What you need to know about Haiti can be summed up as this. They will bunker. They will bunker some more. Then just when you think you have broken down their bunker they will get a quick outlet downfield and counter attack. And do so with speed. If teams defenses are paying attention its tough for Haiti to score. But they also are really hard to break down so be cafeful lest you fall asleep at the wrong time.

Trinidad and Tobago (100) – This small Caribbean island nation has one player ranked in the top 1000 in the world and that is Levi Garcia who plays for Spartak in the Russian First Division. They are fun to watch as they play fast and loose figuring they have nothing to lose. And they don’t and usually do. Lose that is. In the last 5 matches between the US and TNT the combined score has been 24-1. And that lone goal was scored at TNT.

Prediction – US wins the group and Saudi Arabia also advances.

Now given who is in camp and how the last two friendlies have gone here’s my take for the lineup and formation at least for the TNT match tomorrow. As always the key to a tournament is to advance. Win your first match. Get a result in your second match and hope to have already advanced so you can rest key players in the third match.

This is under the assumption that Tyler Adams’s foot knock is still not quite right so they hold him back for just a few more days. IF he is good to go then he plays and either Johnny Cardoso or Luca de la Torre sits.

The tournament actually starts tonight with Mexico and Mexico and the DR playing but gets underway in earnest tomorrow with 3 matches headlined by the US vs TNT at 6pm EDT on FOX.

Certainly not coming in on a high note but lets see if the guys can turn this around!