IRVINE, Calif. – The rubble of the United States’ World Cup-qualifying collapse was still smoldering back in the fall of 2017 when the building blocks for the next decade-plus were put into place.
Just a month after the U.S. men’s soccer team was unthinkably eliminated from the 2018 tournament before it began, an 18-year-old Tyler Adams and 19-year-old Weston McKennie made their international debuts in an exhibition against Portugal. At 19, Christian Pulisic was already a national team star. In the subsequent months, 18-year-old Tim Weah and Antonee Robinson, 20, broke through. A year later, 18-year-old dual national Sergiño Dest picked the U.S. over the Netherlands. And 2020 brought Chris Richards (then 20), Brenden Aaronson (19) and Gio Reyna (17) into the fold.
It was a collection of promising prospects already excelling in top European circuits – England’s Premier League, France’s Ligue 1, Germany’s Bundesliga – that had long proved elusive for U.S. players. And the players had history together, dating to when several of them were 13-year-olds in the U.S. youth setup. Soon enough, the team’s more optimistic supporters began looking ahead not just to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar but to the 2026 tournament in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Not only would Pulisic, an unprecedented American talent, be in his prime for that home-soil showcase – so would a slew of European-tested standouts.
“It’s sort of the backbone of this team,” Reyna said. “A lot of us are similar age and have known each other since we’ve been teenagers or even younger. So I think one of our strengths is just how close we are off the pitch, and I think this will – and has – brought us success.”
That group has plenty of feathers in its cap: three titles at the regional Concacaf Nations League and a knockout-round appearance at the 2022 World Cup. But it has failed to elevate the program beyond the status quo.
Four years ago, the Americans were outclassed by the Netherlands in the World Cup round of 16. They also crashed out of the 2024 Copa América group stage on home soil and finished fourth in the most recent Nations League. Tune-ups against high-caliber opposition – South Korea, Belgium, Portugal and Germany – consistently ended in defeat.
Through the group stage, however, this U.S. team has already made history. A 4-1 thrashing of Paraguay and a 2-0 handling of Australia clinched the Group D title with a game to spare, marking the Americans’ first World Cup winning streak since the inaugural 1930 tournament. (A reserve-heavy lineup then lost narrowly to Turkey.) And they’ve played not with the underdog grit of past U.S. teams but possession-dominating, crowd-pleasing swagger.
“I love these guys,” Weah said. “I think we’re a big family now, we’re all brothers, and we know each other like the back of our hands. In the preparation to this World Cup, we had some bumps in the road, some things that we had to fix, and I think we’re getting to a spot where it’s looking really nice.”
There’s a difference between “looking really nice” and leaving a legacy. When the U.S. faces Bosnia in the round of 32 on Wednesday in Santa Clara, California, it will be pursuing just its second World Cup knockout victory and its first since 2002. Such is the U.S. men’s program’s history of World Cup mediocrity. But with a golden generation of players at home in their primes? It feels like now or never for the American program to announce itself as a budding contender.
“This is the beauty of World Cups: Your legacies are defined by this tournament, and this World Cup will define this generation of players,” said Stuart Holden, a former U.S. midfielder who serves as the lead analyst for Fox’s World Cup broadcasts. “I think they were prematurely dubbed a golden generation. You’re not golden until you win something or achieve something that nobody has done before.”
Ups and downs
The U.S. brought only one World Cup veteran – reserve right back DeAndre Yedlin – to the 2022 tournament in Qatar. This time around, half of the 26-man roster entered the event with World Cup experience. It’s a belated benefit of having taken the second-youngest team, with an average age of 25.2 years, to Qatar.
That such a green U.S. squad advanced out of its group, with draws against England and Wales and a win over Iran, was no small feat. Yet the Americans also showed their inexperience. They struck first against Wales, then surrendered a late equalizer against an opponent they should’ve beaten. That result ultimately left them settling for second in the group and a clash with the Netherlands, which punished the American defensive lapses in a 3-1 victory. Reyna’s frustration with his role off the bench also prompted behind-the-scenes consternation that came to light after the tournament ended.
“The last World Cup, maybe we’re all just a little bit young,” Reyna said. “I think it’s normal to struggle in certain big moments like we did last tournament with most of the team being 23 or younger. I think the biggest strength now is everyone is just four years older, to keep it pretty simple, and have matured as players and as people.”
There’s no doubt about that. Last month, Aaronson was excused from the start of training camp to attend his wedding. He joined the likes of Adams, Reyna and Haji Wright – a reserve striker who also played with the core group for the U.S. youth teams – in tying the knot. Robinson, Adams and Richards have become fathers, and Reyna used his goal celebration against Paraguay to announce that his wife is expecting.
“It’s really special,” said goalkeeper Matt Turner, who at 32 is the squad’s second-oldest player behind 38-year-old captain Tim Ream. “Sometimes you can lose touch with the fact that there’s a human side to players. And sometimes the biggest growth you can see within those lives is welcoming children to the world, the big life moments, like weddings and things like that, and just staying in touch with each other.”
Coming out of the pandemic, then-coach Gregg Berhalter phased out most of the previous cycle’s lingering stalwarts and doubled down on the prodigious teens and 20-somethings. A pulsating extra-time victory over Mexico in the 2021 Concacaf Nations League final – featuring goals by Reyna, McKennie and Pulisic – started the new era in earnest. A second-string squad also managed to win the Concacaf Gold Cup that summer, and the Americans embarked on a successful World Cup qualifying campaign in the fall. The next two years brought a repeat and a three-peat in the Nations League as the U.S. team widened the gap with its regional rivals.
But the 2024 Copa América, a special edition of South America’s prestigious championship expanded to include North American competitors, was a disaster: Weah was ejected for striking an opponent during a loss to Panama, and the Americans were then blanked in a do-or-die defeat to Uruguay. The first-round exit cost Berhalter his job. Even the hiring of Mauricio Pochettino – an esteemed Argentine who had coached such renowned clubs as Tottenham, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea – didn’t prevent another stunning loss to Panama in last year’s Nations League semifinals.
All the while, the American stars kept performing admirably on the club level. AC Milan’s Pulisic and Juventus’s McKennie are among the top game changers in Italy’s Serie A. Adams, Richards, Robinson and Aaronson are dependable Premier League starters. Dest is a key cog for Dutch champion PSV. Yet none of them – not even Pulisic – has taken that next step and entered the conversation about the world’s best players.
“This group grew up quickly, but then this group was almost given a little bit too much,” Holden said. “There was a little bit of complacency.”
A necessary reset
Pochettino took notice after the Nations League embarrassment. He expanded his player pool at last year’s Gold Cup, where an experimental squad finished second to Mexico. Yunus Musah and Josh Sargent, members of that young core who started in Qatar, were dropped. MLS-based newcomers such as goalkeeper Matt Freese, defender Alex Freeman and midfielder Sebastian Berhalter – the previous coach’s son – became fixtures.
But amid the scrutiny, most of that group stuck around. Pulisic, Adams, McKennie, Richards, Robinson and Dest started against Paraguay, and all but Pulisic – who has been nursing a left calf injury – returned against Australia. Reyna and Weah have been key players off the bench, and Aaronson joined them in starting against Turkey.
“Of course, there is going to be outside noise – there always is – but you can’t let it bother you at the end of the day,” Aaronson said. “I think that we believe in ourselves, we believe in the group that we have, we believe in each other individually, and I think that’s all you need to do when you’re at a World Cup stage.”
That group has gotten plenty of help from international recruits Malik Tillman (a German-born midfielder) and Folarin Balogun (an English-raised striker of Nigerian descent), both of whom are playing in their first World Cup. The veteran Ream and the youngster Freeman have also left their marks. Still, it’s clear this team lives and dies by the play of its enduring nucleus.
Whether it was McKennie and Dest combining on the right side or Pulisic and Robinson wreaking havoc down the left, the Americans handled their group-stage opposition. Richards anchored the back line, and Adams confidently ran point in midfield. All the while, their inherent chemistry crackled.
“You want to fight for guys like that,” Pulisic said. “I’ve played with some of these guys for so long. You don’t want to let them down. You want to give them everything. You want to have their back, always, and I think that pushes you through tough times.”
McKennie added: “Everyone has a comfortability with each other, a freedom to be themselves, to be who they are. You can be completely honest with them, and you can hold them accountable.”
It’s a connection unique to the international soccer landscape. Amid all of the change that has defined these players’ lives over the past decade-plus – the trades and the transfers, the weddings and the gender reveals – gathering together in U.S. uniforms has been the constant.
“I feel like when I come around these guys, I’m always able to be myself,” Adams said. “When you play in a foreign country, you’re around a lot of foreigners, and you don’t always get to act and be yourself. These guys I’ve known since I was, I don’t know, 14, 15 years old. It always feels like home coming back here.”
Rick Maese contributed to this report.
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