What comes next for the USMNT program?
“I want everyone who cares to focus on the U-17 and U-20 World Cups and the Olympics, where our stars of tomorrow compete against the best and build a culture of winning,” said U.S. Soccer secretary general and CEO JT Batson in an interview with Puck’s John Ourand released on Tuesday (🔒).
A new cycle begins for the USMNT program on Saturday when the U-19s face Haiti to kick off the 2026 Concacaf U-20 Men’s Championship in Puebla, Mexico (games airing on FS2).
The tournament serves as qualifying for the 2027 Under-20 World Cup co-hosted by Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, 2027 Pan-American Games and 2028 Olympics, for which the USA has qualified as host.
Problem is, the “stars of tomorrow” won’t be playing. A dozen MLS players (eg: Adri Mehmeti, Cavan Sullivan, Julian Hall and Zavier Gozo) and foreign-based players (eg: Mathis Albert) are unavailable to Coach Gonzalo Segares.
Their teams are under no obligation to release them to the national team program for qualifying or for the finals (if the USA advances). That’s true with every age-group team and every game not on the FIFA men’s calendar.
This has always been true.
Of the 11 USMNT players who started three games at the World Cup, only three played for the USA at the U-20 World Cup level (Tyler Adams, Sergiño Dest and Chris Richards) and only three played for the USA at the U-17 World Cup level (Adams, Dest and Christian Pulisic).
Tab Ramos‘ U-20s who reached the 2019 quarterfinals in Poland featured four players who played for the USA at the 2026 World Cup: Dest, Richards, Mark McKenzie and Tim Weah, who was already a full international but elected to move down to the U-20s.
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