According to Maurcio Pochettino, there are no more friendlies.
He told the media on Thursday that for the U.S. men’s national team, the World Cup begins in March. Next month’s friendlies against Belgium and Portugal, plus the two tune-ups after the World Cup roster is announced – when the U.S. will face newly crowned African champions Senegal and Germany – should be legitimate tests for a squad that Pochettino now surely has a clear idea of.
“It’s not only that we have ahead [of us] four friendly games. We have four World Cup games that it’s important for the players to take with the idea that we need to perform, that we need to start to show our quality and of course, perform in the way that after make sure that we are going to compete at our best in the World Cup,” Pochettino said.
Who, then, is the U.S. coach planning to call into the team for this earlier-than-expected World Cup kickoff? Today, we’re projecting the final two rosters for this World Cup cycle while blending in some analysis of Pochettino’s comments last week.
The rosters revealed in March and May likely won’t be identical due to form and fitness (at the moment, it’s unclear if Tyler Adams and Ricardo Pepi would be ready to travel to Atlanta late next month). But they should be similar in terms of the balance between European and MLS-based players, with Pochettino reiterating that the freshness of the latter will be a positive in the next camp, which is a month after the MLS regular season kicks off.
“I think it’s good, because they are going to be in a very good level of energy. Maybe with lack of games, but you compensate [for] that with energy because they came from a period that they rest, recovery, and now they are charging the batteries to be full to start to compete in the end or middle of February. And that is very good, because I think March, they are going to be with all the power and it’s going to be good for them to show the quality,” he said.
Pochettino suggested in November that he’d bring only the 26 players on the World Cup roster to Atlanta in late May. With that number as our benchmark, let’s dive in.
