CHESTER, Penn. — Landon Donovan sat on the shower floor and bawled his eyes out. Jeff Agoos set his U.S. national team uniform on fire. Brian Ching headed straight to a hotel lobby bar, intent on drowning his sorrows.
All three men were among the last players cut from an American World Cup roster, a devastating blow that each will surely carry with them — despite all making at least one other U.S. roster for soccer’s signature event — for the rest of their lives.
“You put in a year and a half of physical and mental hardship, you get that close, you’re pretty close to being insane,” Agoos said in a 2000 interview to the Associated Press about not making the 1994 squad, the biggest disappointment of the defender’s otherwise sterling career that included 134 caps.
Jeff Agoos and Landon Donovan were among previous USMNT stars left off World Cup rosters in heartbreaking fashion.
Ching went to the 2006 World Cup in Germany but didn’t play. The forward appeared in the USMNT’s first send-off game in 2010 before then-manager Bob Bradley delivered the bad news.
Donovan had made 156 international appearances and scored five World Cup goals — more than soccer greats Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo combined at the time. But back in 2014, then-USMNT coach Jürgen Klinsmann pulled Donovan aside after training at Stanford University to inform the 32-year-old playmaker that he wouldn’t be among the 23 Americans going to Brazil. Four years removed from his iconic strike against Algeria that won the U.S. its World Cup group for the first time in history, Donovan retired from soccer that December.
Current USMNT boss Mauricio Pochettino wants to avoid a repeat of that scenario this May, when he must submit to FIFA his final 26-man list for the 2026 World Cup on home soil. As much as Pochettino would like to invite a larger group to compete for the final few spots at next spring’s pre-tournament training camp in Atlanta, the former Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain coach on Friday suggested that he’s already decided against it.
“I think it’s difficult when you bring more than 26 [players] after which you should inform [them] on the final day you’re out,” Pochettino informed reporters on Friday on the apply facility of MLS membership Philaldephia Union, a day earlier than the USMNT meets Paraguay in 2025’s penultimate World Cup tuneup.
“I favor [to do things in a] totally different manner, to carry the 26 that you just consider are going to be within the squad. And if one thing occurs, you name somebody,” Pochettino added.
In simply 14 months on the U.S. helm, Pochettino has summoned an astounding 71 gamers. He should decide on his greatest 55 for the provisional World Cup roster. The ultimate 26-man record have to be comprised of names on that one.
The previous couple of selections promise to be agonizing. A number of members of the 2022 squad that reached the spherical of 16 in Qatar are bubble gamers at greatest this time round — midfielders Yunus Musah and Gio Reyna, striker Josh Sargent and defender Joe Scally amongst them.
With projected starters reminiscent of midfielder Tyler Adams, ahead Christian Pulisic, center-back Chris Richards, left-back Antonee “Jedi” Robinson and midfielder Weston McKennie all lacking for Saturday’s contest and Tuesday’s recreation in opposition to Uruguay, this window may symbolize the final and greatest probability for the understudies to stake their declare for a roster spot.
The World Cup-bound Paraguayans received’t be straightforward for the shorthanded People to beat.
“It’s a group that may be very aggressive,” Pochettino mentioned after I requested him what his facet may count on from La Albirroja. “I believe it is a good check for us, even when for us possibly the primary time that we’re going to play with this beginning 11.”
The USMNT’s World Cup hopefuls are properly conscious of the stakes.
“There’s just a little bit extra chew in coaching,” 38-year-old center-back Tim Ream informed reporters on Friday forward of the group’s apply. “There’s extra aggressiveness. Guys are doing every little thing they presumably can to be part of the group. And I believe as we have gotten nearer and nearer, you see that increasingly. And that is a superb factor. Guys are determined to be part of the group and be part of a house World Cup.”
The flip facet is that falling simply brief will damage much more. Pochettino doesn’t wish to crush the goals of these he can’t take any greater than mandatory.
“From the start, should you say, OK, that’s the 26, that may be a shock,” Pochettino mentioned. “However that is OK. You settle for [it]. However after, to be concerned after which to go residence — I believe it is extra merciless in that state of affairs.
“I believe for me, it is simpler to name extra gamers than 26,” Pochettino added. “However I believe I want to think about the human being and determine to not be merciless. As a result of if you prepare, you prepare, you prepare and also you go residence, it’s powerful.”
Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports activities who has coated United States males’s and ladies’s nationwide groups at FIFA World Cups on 5 continents. Comply with him @ByDougMcIntyre.
Need nice tales delivered proper to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports activities account and observe leagues, groups and gamers to obtain a customized e-newsletter day by day!
