With slew of youngsters, Mauricio Pochettino targets 2028 Olympics with first USMNT roster of 2030 World Cup cycle
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With slew of youngsters, Mauricio Pochettino targets 2028 Olympics with first USMNT roster of 2030 World Cup cycle originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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The message from USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino was clear: the future may be now, but the future is also the future.
On Thursday, Pochettino unveiled his 26-man senior U.S. national team roster for four upcoming friendly matches against Peru, Chile, Mexico, and Canada over the next two weeks. The squad omitted a number of regular superstars like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, and Folarin Balogun, left off in favor of a swath of young players, many of them teenagers.
For the first roster of a new four-year World Cup cycle, this is not unusual by any stretch. It is common for national teams to take a long-term approach in such a low-stakes environment this early in the window.
More notable was Pochettino's admission as to what U.S. Soccer was targeting by selecting 13 uncapped players, including eight teenagers.
MORE:Cavan Sullivan's swagger endearing him to USMNT fans ahead of first call-up
"The objective is to win a gold medal," Pochettino told reporters in a press conference Thursday after the roster was unveiled.
The head coach made it very clear that the youth movement this fall was not only about looking ahead to four years from now. Instead, they had the 2028 Olympics in mind.
"When we were talking about [my] extended contract, the federation also asked to help a little bit to build, to arrive at the 2028 Olympic games working very closely with the Steve [Cernundolo], with the under 23's, with all the youth to try and build that experience to arrive at the Olympic games with the possibility that experience can provide a gold medal.
"We know this is going to be really important for soccer [in this country] that we provide a very competitive team."
MORE:Julian Hall's first USMNT senior call-up a "dream"
Like the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the 2028 games will be held on U.S. soil, hosted primarily by Los Angeles while some events — including soccer — held around the rest of the country.
Men's soccer in the Olympics is largely a youth tournament. Rosters are limited to players under the age of 23 on January 1 of that year, with three designated exceptions available to each team.
With that in mind, Pochettino has compiled a roster bursting with young, Olympic-eligible talent. 12 players in the USMNT squad this international break will be eligible to participate in the 2028 Olympics, currently 21 years old or younger. That group is headlined by teenage sensation Cavan Sullivan, who at just 16 years old has broken through into a starring role with the Philadelphia Union and has a massive transfer to Man City already signed and sealed, only waiting for him to turn 18 so he can legally work in the UK.
MORE:How good is USMNT wonderkid Cavan Sullivan?
"He deserves all the praise he is getting," Pochettino said of Sullivan, "because he is performing well, playing well, he is giving assists and scoring goals.
"Still, he needs to show and improve and evolve and needs to be more mature. He's only 16, he's a kid. But the most important thing is we have the opportunity now [to bring him in] because he deserves to join us in the national team. [We have] the possibility to show, to listen to him, to see how he is, he is special because he is playing at this level."
Beyond Sullivan, though, the talent goes far deeper.
There is New York Red Bulls' teenage duo Admir Mehmedi (17 years old) and Julian Hall (18), who have both garnered huge praise for their performances in Major League Soccer this season. There is towering Philadelphia Union center-back Neil Pierre (18), who could show his value at a position of need. There is Barcelona goalkeeper Diego Kochen (20) who is on loan at Danish club Lyngby for the season. There is Zavier Gozo (19) whose excellence for Real Salt Lake just earned a summer move to Premier League club Crystal Palace. There are Cole Campbell (20) and Matias Albert (17), the next two in a long line of young American talent coming through at Borussia Dortmund. There is Justin Ellis (19) who has been a creative juggernaut at Orlando City.
All of these players have been called in to the senior national team level this month, and all will be eligible for selection in two years at the Olympics.
The 2028 tournament is so important, in fact, that Pochettino confirmed he has invited U-23 head coach Steve Cherundolo to join camp this month and help train to get a look at the young players who he could select for the tournament in LA.
Watching these young stars flourish both in MLS and throughout Europe, for the USMNT, the future is, undoubtedly, now. And yet, the future is also shaping the present in a way not seen at U.S. Soccer for quite some time.
That is a feature, not a bug, one that U.S. Soccer hopes will elevate the federation's incredibly promising young generation of players who will eventually be expected to carry the senior national team through the next decade.