Pochettino admits January USMNT squad isn't 'alternative team'
Today at 08:59 PM
Many of the players in Mauricio Pochettino’s January roster will fight for opportunities throughout the 2025 schedule, but the Argentine head coach admitted that his current roster isn’t the guaranteed backups going forward.
The USMNT closes their two-match schedule on Wednesday against Costa Rica in Orlando. Four days after earning a 3-1 home victory over Venezuela in Fort Lauderdale, the MLS-heavy USMNT roster will seek a winning end to their first action of the new year.
It is the first January camp for Pochettino as head coach, opening the door for him to get an early look at many promising talents. From Jack McGlynn to Diego Luna to Ben Cremaschi, the amount of options for Pochettino to consider for the remainder of 2025 are endless.
“I don’t like naming it an alternative team. For me, it’s the team with the circumstances of the moment,” said Pochettino to reporters Tuesday. “Today I was telling our players, they can’t feel that they are the alternative team. They are the team that, at this moment, have been selected from the many players available.
“They have to feel that they can also be important players,” he added. “And when they compete with all the range of possibilities that we have, they can have the possibility of also playing a position. For Costa Rica, with their circumstances, I think we have to give them importance so that the players can perform to the maximum level and so that they can have hope in the future when, as I said earlier, that opens up, they can have the possibility of fighting.”
Many of the European stars will be back in the fold for March’s CONCACAF Nations League semifinal vs. Panama. In addition, the Gold Cup is back on the horizon this summer, and although MLS-based players have been used more frequently in the past, this summer’s competition will be a good chance for the USMNT to prepare with their best roster for the 2026 FIFA World Cup on home soil.
Whether or not we see a lot of the current roster in Pochettino’s short-term plans remains to be known, but their involvement in January’s camp could provide a major spark to their futures in the program and their upcoming club campaigns in MLS.
“[This window] for the players it’s important, but for us as a technical team it’s a little more important because being able to extend the list of players we already know to have the possibility to select in the future is incredible,” Pochettino said. “The whole technical team is here, and it’s not the same seeing players in their teams, how they perform, than having them here for two weeks and getting to know them.
“In the end, the confidence they transmit to us is what makes us make certain types of decisions,” he added. “And that for us is a calculable value, it is difficult to calculate that value. There are many players who are thinking, ‘well, this player has the level of players who have been before, they can compete’ and that gives us tranquility knowing that we have players that can return in the future. That’s why I think the value for the players is quite similar. Maybe we give them a little more value than they do. They have to feel the tranquility that they have to perform freely to be able to show the talent they have.”
Eight players earned their USMNT debuts in last Saturday’s victory while Matko Miljevic, Patrick Agyemang, and McGlyn all scored their first senior goals.
