CHESTER, Penn. — Landon Donovan sat on the shower floor and bawled his eyes out. Jeff Agoos set his U.S. national team uniform on fire. Brian Ching headed straight to a hotel lobby bar, intent on drowning his sorrows.
All three men were among the last players cut from an American World Cup roster, a devastating blow that each will surely carry with them — despite all making at least one other U.S. roster for soccer’s signature event — for the rest of their lives.
“You put in a year and a half of physical and mental hardship, you get that close, you’re pretty close to being insane,” Agoos said many years not making the 1994 squad, the biggest disappointment of an otherwise sterling career that included 134 caps.
Jeff Agoos and Landon Donovan were among previous USMNT stars left off World Cup rosters in heartbreaking fashion.
Ching went to the 2006 World Cup in Germany but didn’t play. He appeared in the USMNT’s first send-off game in 2010 before then-manager Bob Bradley delivered the bad news.
Donovan had made 156 international appearances and scored five World Cup goals — more than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo combined at the time. But back in 2014, then-USMNT coach Jürgen Klinsmann pulled Donovan aside after training at Stanford University to inform the 32-year-old that he wouldn’t be among the 23 Americans going to Brazil. Four years removed from his iconic strike against Algeria that won the U.S. its World Cup group for the first time in history, Donovan retired from soccer that December.
Current USMNT boss Mauricio Pochettino wants to avoid a repeat of that scenario this May, when he must submit to FIFA his final 26-man list for the 2026 World Cup on home soil. As much as Pochettino would like to invite a larger group to compete for the final few spots at next spring’s pre-tournament training camp in Atlanta, the former Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain coach on Friday suggested that he’s already decided against it.
“I think it’s difficult when you bring more than 26 [players] and then you need to tell [them] on the last day you are out,” the Argentine said on Friday, a day before his team meets Paraguay in 2025’s penultimate World Cup tuneup.
“I prefer [to do things in a] different way, to bring the 26 that you believe are going to be in the squad. And if something happens, you call someone,” Pochettino added.
In just 14 months at the U.S. helm, Pochettino has summoned an astounding 71 players. He must settle on his best 55 for the provisional World Cup roster. The final 26-man list must be comprised of names on that one.
The last few decisions promise to be agonizing. Several members of the 2022 squad that reached the round of 16 in Qatar are bubble players at best this time around — midfielders Yunus Musah and Gio Reyna, striker Josh Sargent and defender Joe Scally among them.
With projected starters such as midfielder Tyler Adams, forward Christian Pulisic, center-back Chris Richards, left-back Antonee “Jedi” Robinson and midfielder Weston McKennie all missing for Saturday’s contest and Tuesday’s game against Uruguay, this window might represent the last and best chance for the understudies to stake their claim for a roster spot.
The World Cup-bound Paraguayans won’t be easy for the shorthanded Americans to beat.
“It’s a team that is very competitive,” Pochettino said when I asked him what his side could expect from La Albirroja. “I think it’s a good test for us, even if for us maybe the first time that we are going to play with this starting 11.”
The USMNT’s World Cup hopefuls are well aware of the stakes.
“There’s a little bit more bite in training,” said 38-year-old center back Tim Ream. “There’s more aggressiveness. Guys are doing everything they possibly can to be a part of the team. And I think as we’ve gotten closer and closer, you see that more and more. And that’s a good thing. Guys are desperate to be a part of the team and be a part of a home World Cup.”
The flip side is that falling just short will hurt even more. Pochettino doesn’t want to crush the dreams of those he can’t take any more than necessary.
“From the beginning, if you say, OK, that is the 26, that is a shock,” he said. “But this is OK. You accept [it]. But after, to be involved and then to go home — I think it’s more cruel in that situation.
“I think for me, it’s easier to call more players than 26,” Pochettino added. “But I think I need to think of the human being and decide not to be cruel. Because when you train, you train, you train and you go home, it’s tough.”
Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports who has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ByDougMcIntyre.
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