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Bruce Arena once said that if his United States men’s national team had contested the 2006 World Cup a year earlier, the Americans would have done much better than the joyless, winless group stage elimination they suffered through. That team, he felt, had peaked during qualifiers and were past their best – despite being ranked an absurd fourth in the world by Fifa – when the World Cup kicked off.
Four years earlier, when the USMNT stunned the 2002 World Cup by nearly reaching the semi-finals, his side benefited from time’s relentless march, Arena argued. The Americans, cohesive and energized then, upset a golden Portugal generation that had already lost its sheen, 3-2, to spark their run.
It’s in the nature of a tournament played only every four years that the participating teams are at the mercy of timing. And right now, the fickleness of form and injuries and minutes, and every other variable that will go some way in determining how the World Cup co-hosts fare in June, all favor the USMNT.
Suddenly, head coach Mauricio Pochettino, who inherited a team that had grown stale and overly reliant on a small cadre of no-matter-what starters, is spoiled for choice. A month before holding his final pre-World Cup camp – when the US face Belgium and Portugal, respectively, in Atlanta in late March – injuries are healing ahead of schedule, players hard up for minutes are playing again, and drought-stricken strikers are scoring . The upshot is a glut of strong options.
If the World Cup could start right now, with the four-win, five-match unbeaten run from the fall punctuated by a 5-1 disemboweling of Uruguay still fresh in the memory, that would probably suit Pochettino just fine.
On Saturday, sometimes USA captain Tyler Adams made his first appearance for Bournemouth since 15 December, logging 66 tidy minutes covering his usual sprawling area in front of the defense. His return was almost a month ahead of the timeline set for his MCL tear, which came on the heels of a concussion.
That same day, PSV striker Ricardo Pepi returned several weeks ahead of schedule as well, having recovered from a broken forearm. In just 16 minutes off the bench, the Texan picked up exactly where he left off, scoring on a lovely long shot and extending his run of matches with a goal to seven. (He had another goal disallowed after just a few minutes on the field.)
Christian Pulisic, meanwhile, hadn’t exactly stopped playing for Milan, in spite of a nagging hamstring injury and a bout of bursitis. But, encouragingly, the forward made his first start in more than a month on Sunday, created chances, and hit the post in a 1-0 loss to Parma.
Then there is the upturn in the fortunes of a few longtimers. Folarin Balogun had scored just once in 12 games for Monaco from mid-December to mid-February, although the striker never lost his starting spot, but has bagged three in two since then, including a Champions League knockout-stage brace against Paris Saint-Germain.
Weston McKennie, who was so often tossed on to the Juventus scrapheap, only to be retrieved from it, has arguably become Luciano Spalletti’s most useful player in another tumultuous season at the club. McKennie has created and scored goals when posted as a forward or even a striker, and proved just as serviceable as a wing-back or holding midfielder.
Speaking of players whose clubs seemed to have given up on them: Brenden Aaronson has started 11 straight Premier League games for Leeds United and was named their player of the month for January. And Johnny Cardoso, who has never convinced in a US jersey, has started five of Atlético Madrid’s last six La Liga matches, becoming a regular since missing three months to injury in the fall. He scored the go-ahead goal with a screamer against Club Brugge in the Champions League on Tuesday.
Tanner Tessmann, meanwhile, remains an automatic starter in midfield for a surging Lyon. The same is true of Aidan Morris at Middlesbrough, who appear to be on their way to promotion from the Championship. Elsewhere in that league, striker Patrick Agyemang has scored four in seven for Derby County, and forward Haji Wright recently bagged a hat-trick for Coventry City against Boro.
Oh, and defender Noahkai Banks, who has only just turned 19, has started all but one of Augsburg’s Bundesliga games since early October. Elsewhere in Germany, midfielder James Sands plays just about every weekend for St Pauli, and striker Damion Downs is getting minutes again on loan at Hamburg, after running aground at Southampton.
Certainly, the picture isn’t perfect. After struggling for fitness for much of the first half of the season, left-back Antonee Robinson had finally reclaimed his place and his pace for Fulham, only to get benched, and, now, sidelined with an ankle injury. And midfielder Yunus Musah’s tumble down the depth chart for the national team, for which he was last called up in May, continues apace – he has played just 197 minutes for Atalanta in 2026, making only two starts. Forward Gio Reyna hasn’t played for Borussia Mönchengladbach since 17 January and last started a month prior to that. And defender Alex Freeman has yet to break into the starting lineup since moving to Villarreal from Orlando City over the winter.
In the aggregate, though, things could hardly look any rosier for Pochettino and his proteges. Things are going about as well as you might reasonably hope for.
That said, there are still over 100 days until the USMNT kick off their World Cup against Paraguay in Los Angeles. A lot can happen in that time. Pochettino will hope that it doesn’t.
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Leander Schaerlaeckens’ book on the United States men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out on 12 May. You can preorder it here. He teaches at Marist University.
