What the USMNT need to show in the Nations League

It starts at the back, in more ways than one

Remember this? I think about it all the time. | Courtesy of Paramount+

Want to feel something? Want an emotion to cut through the humdrum of your day-to-day? Want to maybe even panic for a half-second?

Ok, here you go: once the Nations League final is done next week, there will only be five more full national team camps¹ until the 2026 World Cup. Five. That’s it. We’re officially in the home stretch, and I feel like I have no idea how we got here so fast.

When I did the math on that – when I realized, really for the first time, that Qatar wasn’t just a couple of minutes ago but was actually a couple of years ago, and that the countdown clock was somehow seeming to pick up speed – a little thrill hit me in my core. The games are about to mean something (everything) again, and the World Cup we’ve been waiting literally three decades for is almost here.

Part of what’s fueling that little thrill is the uncertainty around the team. There are real questions head coach Mauricio Pochettino and the squad he’s assembled have to answer. Things feel less… complete at this point than I’d expected them to when projecting ahead in the aftermath of the Netherlands loss two-and-a-half years ago.

• I thought Matt Turner would be a lock.

• I’d assumed we’d have a clear-cut center back pairing.

• I’d hoped, beyond anything, that Gio Reyna would be healthy (physically and, uh, mentally) and would be realizing at least, let’s say, 75% of his potential.

It hasn’t worked out that way. And now it’s not precisely a scramble – all three of the above wishes could come true within the next year, and more besides, and we’re not necessarily sunk if none of them do – but there is now an added dose or urgency that, frankly, has largely been missing since the end of 2022.

Ok, with that in mind, here’s what I’m most focused on over the next two games:

Can Chris Richards carry his Crystal Palace form into the USMNT?

Richards was probably the most disappointing player at last year’s Copa America². Given his technical and physical gifts, given his experience and given his pedigree, that tournament should’ve been his coming out party. In a perfect world we’d have left the summer of 2024 saying something to the tune of “Chris Richards is the first name on the team sheet.” Having at least one elite center back is just a non-negotiable if you’re going to make a deep run.

Instead he more or less shrank from the moment, putting in a performance that was the opposite of commanding. And then he carried that form with him to London, where he suffered through an indifferent and then a little bit injury-hit first half of the season with Crystal Palace.

Around Christmas, though, the switch was flipped. Richards got into the XI on December 29th and hasn’t come out of it since, a run of 13 straight starts while playing – by a mile – the best ball of his career.

Here’s some relevant numbers (per 90), among all EPL center backs age 24 or under:

• Defensive duels: 1st

• Defensive duels won: 1st

• Progressive pass percentage: 3rd

That is all events data, and events data has blind spots (95% of the game happens off the ball, right?), but what we didn’t see enough of from Richards in 2024 was 1) involvement, and 2) aggression. And what we’re seeing from him a ton over the past three months is both³.

There have also been very good moments like this, on set pieces (courtesy of @NBCSportsSoccer):

The US have won just once in Richards’ last seven starts, including a pair of pretty dispiriting outings last September against New Zealand and (this might be foreshadowing) Canada. And also, he’s yet to play for Poch.

More than anything else, I want to come away from this camp certain that Richards is the guy we can build the backline around for the rest of the decade, but especially for the next 16 months. I want this to be a coronation.

Josh Sargent, Please Score a Goal

I’m not particularly worried about the No. 9 spot long-term. All three of Sargent, Ricardo Pepi⁴ and Flo Balogun are high-level strikers at the club level, and plenty of guys behind them on the depth chart – Pat Agyemang, Brian White, Jordan Morris, maybe Haji Wright if that’s how Poch uses him (he’s often a pseudo left winger for his club) – inspire confidence. I think we are in good shape here.

Still, it’s Sargent who, I think, would raise the ceiling highest for the entire team. His pressing, his physicality, his hold-up play, his combo play in and around the box…

Ruthless.

Last year he was 97th percentile in npxG (99th percentile in actual non-penalty goals) and 86th percentile in xA.

This year, with the tactical approach somewhat adjusted, he’s still 83rd percentile in npxG (89th percentile in non-penalty goals) and 98th percentile in xA (92nd percentile in actual assists). More of the game is flowing through him and he’s delivering.

Sargent has turned himself into a $25 million striker. Norwich (who once again aren’t going up) will sell him this summer, and it will most likely be a Premier League team that buys him. And there is little reason to think that he won’t be able to translate a good chunk of his productivity to that level.

Yet he hasn’t translated that to the USMNT at all this decade. Here is a brief list of guys who’ve scored more recently for the USMNT than Josh has:

• Uly Llanez

• Ayo Akinola

• Nico Gioacchini

• Reggie Cannon

• Sam Vines

• Gyasi Zardes

• Jordan Siebatcheu

• Bryan Reynolds

Jesus Ferreira has 15 goals – three hat-tricks! – since Sargent last scored for the US back in autumn of 2019.

Yes, he’s missed a ton of time with injuries, but we’re still talking about a run of 15 games for a striker who’s spent much of that time being excellent for his club in a good league. It's a wild and inexplicable drought.

I still genuinely think he’s the most talented striker in the pool. He’s running out of chances to prove it.

Gio Reyna, Please Stay Healthy and Ball Out

Let me start this segment by saying that I love Diego Luna and sure do hope we get to see him play some over these next two games. Fitting him, and Reyna and Christian Pulisic into the attacking group of Poch’s 4-2-3-1? Hell yes:

A healthy Reyna, though, is levels above what the other guys can bring to the table in that attacking midfield role. And he has already shown it repeatedly against the best teams in the region (courtesy of @CBSSportsGolazo):

That’s it, man – there’s no tactical angle to this, because we know what a healthy Reyna looks like when surrounded by other USMNT attackers. We know he can slip a runner in, we know he can leave multiple defenders on their ass, we know he can poach for rebounds and pull-backs in the box.

It’s just “please stay healthy.”⁵ That’s all of it, because this version of Reyna gives us something nobody else in the pool has.

Is This For Real, Zack Steffen?

Last year Steffen was, by most metrics, one of the worst starting goalkeepers in MLS, and almost all of it was due to his shot-stopping numbers.

• FBRef had him at -0.28 PSxG-GA, which was in the 9th percentile among ‘keepers.

• TruMedia had him dead last in MLS at -9.60 goals prevented (meaning he conceded 9.6 more goals than expected given the underlying numbers).

• American Soccer Analysis had him at -0.30 goals added/96, which was the worst mark in their database (going all the way back to 2013) among ‘keepers who played more than 3000 minutes in a season.

When Poch called him in for the Nations League quarters against Jamaica in November, coming off the season described above, I thought it’d be a quick look and an even quicker farewell.

But then Steffen was called in again in January, and after sitting for the first game against Venezuela, he got the start against Costa Rica. And he was really good!

A few weeks later he took the field for the Rapids in CCL play and was really good again. And then good one more time, and then the time after that. And now we’ve got a sample size of seven games in 2025 – still achingly small; this could just be a hot streak – that says Steffen has turned some kind of corner.

The numbers thus far (these are for MLS regular-season play only, not CCL or the US cap) are kind of staggering: by ASA’s reckoning he’s saving 0.84 goals above expected per game⁶. TruMedia has similar data, with Steffen having prevented 3.18 goals across his four outings.

The eye test says he’s staying deeper on his line, which is 1) eliminating a bunch of the big errors that became his hallmark in England, and 2) giving him better angles (and more time) for pure shot-stopping.

The improvement looks and feels real. I’d still probably go with Matt Turner for these games, but Turner basically doesn’t play club ball anymore so there’s a real argument to just ride the hot hand.

Steffen’s, right now, is scorching. Historically so.

Tim Weah, fullback

Jedi Robinson is out. On its own that’d be significant news; taken in conjunction with the John Tolkin injury, and Caleb Wiley barely playing the past four months, and Kristoffer Lund seeming to have failed to impress during last year’s camps (and now maybe falling out of the Palermo XI), the left back door – a door that has effectively been slammed shut by Robinson for the entirety of the 2020s – is open for someone for these next two games.

Jedi, under Poch and under Gregg Berhalter before him, has been an indefatigable endline-to-endline menace, and as such there’s no real replacement in this roster (or maybe in the whole pool). The closest comp in this camp would be the guy called in as an injury replacement, Max Arfsten, who had his good moments (going forward) and his bad (a little loose in possession) back in January. Plugging Arfsten into the XI would keep the basic structure of what we’ve seen in Pochettino’s team thus far, with the left back generally playing higher in possession to add attacking width and depth.

The more interesting adjustment⁷, to me, would be to invert the backline rotation so that it’s the right back who plays higher and the left back who slides inside to become the ad hoc third center back. It’s a natural, then, to play Tim Ream as the left back-who-becomes-the-left-center-back-in-possession (his spot for Charlotte since his arrival last year) and to put Weah at right back.

1. Weah plays a ton of right back for Juventus, and has actually nailed down the starting job at that spot over the past two months.

2. The way Weah plays the position is the closest approximation of how the presumptive starter, Sergiño Dest, has played the role in the past, and will likely play the role in the future once he’s healthy again.

3. Moving Weah to right back opens up the opportunity to get the Luna/Reyna/Pulisic attacking trio out there, along with potential backup minutes for Brian Gutierrez (who’s been very good to start the year).

There are other things Poch can try here as well. Tyler Adams has certainly played right back at a high level before and moving him there would give us a chance to see Tanner Tessmann as the 6 with the first team, and obviously both Marlon Fossey and Joe Scally are here for more than just a vacation. The smart money is on one of those two guys starting these games.

But the fun money is on Weah being out there doing the job he’s done for Juve.

---

Ok this is getting too long so I’m going to keep it there, and just sum up my priority needs for this camp:

Tier 1 Priorities:

• Richards showing he can lead the CB pairing.

• Sargent breaking his drought.

• Reyna showing he’s still the No. 10 we want.

Tier 2 Priorities:

• Steffen showing his great 2025 start is not a fluke.

• Weah as our attacking right back.

• Adams/McKennie time in a double-pivot behind four true attackers.

• Minutes with the first team for Luna and Tanner Tessmann.

• Pulisic doing Pulisic things, and not having to play all 180+ minutes.

Anything else – good minutes from Yunus Musah; another Big Pat breakaway; a Mark McKenzie masterclass – I’d consider a nice bonus.

Anyway, the countdown’s on. Six more camps ‘til the World Cup. Let’s see what the boys have got.

1. Maybe six if Poch brings the whole gang to this summer’s Gold Cup, but I’m guessing it’ll be something close to the usual Gold Cup mix of first-teamers and hopefuls.

2. Save, I guess, for Tim Weah.

3. One note: Palace, under Oliver Glasner, play a back three, with Richards usually playing as the right center back. It’s similar to the US system in that the US flex into a 3-2-5 in possession, but different in that we defend in a 4-3-3, and also different in that our right center back has, under Pochettino, shifted centrally, while the right back has usually become the nominal third central defender.

I suspect that will change once Dest is healthy and available, but we won’t be crossing that bridge until June.

4. Unquestionably the most productive of the three for the USMNT, though the one with IMO the lowest ceiling.

5. Followed by “please move to a team that will keep you healthy and get you on the field every week heading into the World Cup!”

6. That is the highest mark in their database for ‘keepers with a minimum of 400 minutes played, but yeah… 400 minutes is not a lot!

7. This is not a knock on Arfsten, by the way. I think he’s going to be a valuable depth piece for the next 5-6 years.