Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
On Tuesday, Team USA officially firmed up its World Cup roster while revealing the list of the 26 players who will be representing the stars and stripes. Head coach Mauricio Pochettino caught some heat for sending an email to the players who failed to make the cut, and he explained why he declined to call them after receiving some blowback for that decision.
The United States will serve as a co-host for the 2026 World Cup alongside Canada and Mexico, a role that comes with a major perk in the form of an automatic bid to soccer’s biggest tournament.
Team USA has never entered the World Cup as the favorite to win it all, and this year is no exception. They benefited from a friendly draw and are viewed as the favorites to win Group D after getting matched up with Paraguay, Australia, and Turkey, but it remains to be seen if they’ll have what it takes to earn a win in the knockout round for the first time since 2002.
America will head into the World Cup with what is arguably its most talented team ever, but the so-called “golden generation” will have to prove it deserves that label when the cards are actually on the table.
Mauricio Pochettino, who will be coaching in his first World Cup since replacing Gregg Berhalter as the manager of Team USA in 2024, had some tough decisions to make when it came to finalizing the roster that was unveiled on Tuesday.
He was also criticized for the manner in which he informed players who ended up on the outside looking in that they’d been cut, but he attempted to justify that decision after it generated a fair amount of backlash.
Why did Mauricio Pochettino email players who were left off the World Cup team instead of emailing them?
The list of the 26 players who will be playing for Team USA at the World Cup didn’t feature any major shockers or egregious snubs; some fans were surprised by the absence of midfielder Diego Luna, but his exclusion was really the only one that sparked any major debate.
However, there was a big debate about Pochettino’s decision to forgo a phone call to the players who’d been left off the team in favor of the email he shot their way to let them know they won’t be playing in the World Cup this year, which drew a pointed response from former Herclues Gomez, who played for the United States in the tournament in 2010.
According to the BBC, Pochettino elaborated on his thought process while pointing to his time on the pitch to explain his rationale, saying:
“When I was a player, when I didn’t make the roster I didn’t want my coach to call me. The players who didn’t make the roster, they don’t want to hear me say ‘I apologize’. What are you going to say? Am I going to lie?
I care. Do you know why I care? Because during [the past] two weeks I didn’t sleep, and today, still I cannot enjoy the 26 guys that are in front of me, because I am thinking of players that are out.
If I call, it’s about myself. I say, ‘Oh, I call, I am very human about calling and then giving an explanation’.”
This is a narrative that will likely be forgotten by the time the United States kicks off its World Cup run against Paraguay on June 12th, as the end result is the only thing most people are going to care about when everything is said and done.