Mauricio Pochettino names his USA squad for FIFA World Cup 2026
by Alex Lawes ·
Updated
USA manager Mauricio Pochettino has announced his 26-man squad for FIFA World Cup 2026.
The USMNT are co-hosting FIFA World Cup 2026 alongside Canada and Mexico so, naturally, there is a lot of pressure and expectation placed on the shoulders of their 26-man squad.
‘Captain America’, as he is nicknamed, Christian Pulisic is the most high-profile member of the squad with the AC Milan man set to burden a lot of those demands.
He is among a few other fairly big name stars, though, with Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams set to anchor the midfield in front of a defence that includes Chris Richards, Antonee Robinson and Sergino Dest – who had missed out on selection in March but now comes back to compete with Borussia Monchengladbach’s Joe Scally.
The ‘number nine’ spot is the subject of a very competitive race between Monaco’s Folarin Balogun and PSV’s Ricardo Pepi, with Coventry City striker Haji Wright beating off the likes of Josh Sargent and Patrick Agyemang to make the squad.
Alongside Pulisic in providing support to the forward line are the likes of Brenden Aaronson, off the back of an impressive season at Leeds United, Scally’s Gladbach teammate Gio Reyna, Marseille winger Tim Weah and Bayer Leverkusen’s Malik Tillman.
There aren’t too many majorly surprising calls made by Pochettino, given that the likes of Zack Steffen and Yunus Musah have been out of contention for a while now.
However, some eyebrows have been raised by the omission of Diego Luna, as well as Lyon midfielder Tanner Tessmann. Atletico Madrid man Johnny Cardoso suffered an ankle injury in early May that also ruled him out.
