What is next

The first match after the World Cup, and the first of Pochettino's second cycle under a contract that runs through 2030. It opens a four-match fall window: Chile in St. Louis on September 29, Mexico in Glendale on October 3, Canada in St. Paul on October 6. Peru missed the World Cup from a CONMEBOL qualifying group that included the eventual runners-up, Argentina, and are coached by Mano Menezes. Pochettino's stated purpose is a variety of experiences for the group at the start of a new chapter. What this one is for is the roster. Every player who started the round of 16 against Belgium has to be asked the 2030 question, and the first answer is who gets called in, and who plays.

The biggest match of the era, and the one it will be judged by. Pochettino sent out the same eleven that beat Bosnia, with Balogun in it after FIFA turned his one-match ban into a year of probation. The United States were behind inside nine minutes, level for two minutes after Tillman's deflected free kick, and behind again two minutes later. A Freese error gave Belgium the third. Belgium had ended the 2014 World Cup in the same round. The counting stats survive: a group won, eleven goals, the most the United States have scored at one World Cup, and Tillman the first American to score in consecutive knockout matches. Pochettino said afterward the team was "not good enough." He has since signed an extension through 2030.

The program's second World Cup knockout win, and the first since 2002. It also ended a ten-match losing run against European opposition. Balogun opened the scoring on the stroke of halftime and was sent off just past the hour after a video review of his studs landing on Tarik Muharemovic's leg, the fifth American shown a red card at a World Cup. The last half hour was played with ten men, and Tillman's free kick from the edge of the box settled it. Tillman was the player who emerged from this tournament, and this was the match that made the case. The reward was Belgium in the round of 16, the side that had ended the 2014 tournament in the same round.

A dead rubber with a cost. First place in Group D was already secured before kickoff, so Pochettino made nine changes and kept only McKennie and Pepi from the Australia eleven. What the match was for was minutes for the reserves and a return for Pulisic, who came on in the second half after an injury had kept him out of the Australia match. Trusty scored his first goal for the national team inside three minutes and went down with an ankle injury in stoppage time. Berhalter's equalizer from distance was the other thing worth keeping. Kaan Ayhan's winner in the 98th minute changed nothing about the path: Bosnia and Herzegovina in Santa Clara in the round of 32.

The match that put the United States into the knockout rounds, and it was won without Pulisic, who was ruled out injured before kickoff. Pochettino made one change from the Paraguay eleven, and it was Pepi's first World Cup start. An own goal inside eleven minutes and Freeman's header before halftime did the rest. Freeman, who had never scored for the national team before November 2025, became the first American defender to score at a World Cup since John Brooks against Ghana in 2014. It was the program's eighth World Cup shutout. Two wins from two meant the final group match against Türkiye could be given to the reserves, which is what happened.

The opening match of a home World Cup, and the best result of the era to that point. Balogun scored twice before halftime and the United States led 3-0 at the break against a Paraguay side they had beaten 2-1 in a friendly the previous November. ESPN's match report called Tillman probably the best player on the pitch. Reyna's goal in stoppage time was his second for the national team in seven months. What it set up was everything: a win in the opener meant the Australia match could clinch a place in the knockouts, and it did. Balogun finished the tournament as the first-choice striker, and this was the match that settled it.

The last warm-up, and the closest thing to a dress rehearsal. The eleven that started at Soldier Field was, with one exception, the eleven that started the round of 16 against Belgium a month later: Miles Robinson played this one at center back and Richards played that one. Germany scored inside two minutes, Antonee Robinson equalized from the top of the arc, and Sané won it. Nine substitutes came on between the 62nd and 70th minutes, which is how a coach uses a friendly six days before a World Cup. 63,636 were at Soldier Field. The team left Chicago for its California base the same weekend.

The first match after the World Cup roster was named, and the first win of 2026. Pulisic scored for the national team for the first time since late 2024, which mattered more than the result: the March window had produced two losses by a combined 7-2, and he had not scored in either. Fox Sports counted roughly six of Pochettino's intended starters in this eleven, Pulisic, Dest, Antonee Robinson, Adams, Freeman and Ream among them. The two Mané goals came from the same source, turnovers and a defense that lost track of him, and that was the concern the World Cup did not fix. Germany in Chicago was the last test before the tournament.

The last match before Pochettino named his World Cup squad, and a second loss to a European side in four days. He changed the goalkeeper to Freese and brought Freeman, Trusty, Richards, Morris and Berhalter into the eleven, and both Portugal goals came off Bruno Fernandes passes. Pulisic had not scored in 2026 for club or country, and Pochettino remarked that he was not sure whether he had. Nine substitutes came on. Read against what came later, this was the window that decided nothing and worried everyone: Freese, Freeman, Richards, Morris and Berhalter all made the squad, and Freese started every World Cup knockout match. The roster was named in late May, five days before Senegal.

The first of the last two matches before the World Cup squad was picked, and the return of Antonee Robinson after 495 days: he had missed all of 2025 through injury. Pochettino started six of the seven most experienced players on the roster, Pulisic on his 83rd cap. McKennie's opener from Robinson's assist held for six minutes. Belgium then scored five, including a De Ketelaere penalty; he scored twice more against this team in July. Eight American substitutes came on under the expanded friendly rules. As a warning it was accurate. As a selection exercise it was thin, because the players who would decide the World Cup were the ones already on the field.

The last match of 2025, played by the second eleven, and the one that changed the World Cup squad most. Pochettino made nine changes from the Paraguay match, with Pulisic, McKennie and Adams not in camp, and started a back three of Trusty, McKenzie and Freeman. Berhalter, Freeman and Tessmann scored their first international goals; Freeman scored twice. The margin tied the program's biggest win over a South American opponent and its biggest over a FIFA top-15 side. It closed a 10-6-2 year. Freeman started the World Cup round of 16 at right back seven months later, and Berhalter and Trusty both scored at the tournament. Pochettino's line afterward was that the job is to see the projection of a player, and that requires giving him the chance.

A win over a World Cup-bound opponent, in a window Pulisic, McKennie and Adams did not attend. Reyna headed in Arfsten's cross in the fourth minute and Balogun scored the winner in the 71st, his goal in a third consecutive window after Japan in September and Ecuador in October. The eleven had Scally and Arfsten at fullback and Tessmann and Roldan in the middle, none of whom started the World Cup knockout matches. The opponent is the reason this one gets remembered: the same Paraguay were the World Cup opener seven months later, and that ended 4-1. Three days later the reserves beat Uruguay 5-1, which is the match from this window that actually moved the squad.

Pulisic lasted half an hour. He was tripped in the 26th minute, examined, and replaced by Luna in the 30th, having already been limited by an ankle problem against Ecuador four days earlier. What followed was the first time a Pochettino side had come back to win from behind, per ESPN's report. Wright scored both goals, both from Roldan, who had made his first start in more than two years the month before. Pochettino had made six changes to the eleven. It ended a 12-match unbeaten run for Australia and was only the second win over a top-25 opponent in ten matches. Four matches remained before the pre-World Cup camp, and Wright and Roldan had made their case for it.

The back three carried over from the Japan win, this time Miles Robinson, Richards and Ream, with Weah and Arfsten as the wingbacks and Tessmann and Morris in the middle. Ecuador led from the 24th minute and Balogun equalized from Tillman's pass in the 71st. Pulisic started on the bench and came on in the 73rd. A sellout of 20,738 in Austin. The result was a draw against a World Cup-qualified side, which is neither a finding nor a failure. What it did was extend Balogun's run: goals in September, October and November, in three different windows, against three different opponents. By the World Cup he was the striker, and the run started here and in Columbus.

Three days after South Korea, five changes and a different shape. Richards, Ream and Blackmon formed a back three with Freeman and Arfsten wide, Roldan made his first start in 26 months, and he and Adams started together for the first time since 2018. Zendejas and Balogun, both substitutes in Harrison, both scored. It ended a seven-match winless run against top-25 opponents that reached back to March 2024. The back three stayed for the October window. Balogun's goal was the first of a run that carried through Ecuador and Paraguay and into the World Cup. For Roldan it was the start of a case for the squad that he would strengthen against Australia a month later.

The first match with the Europe-based core back after a summer most of them sat out, and it went badly. Pochettino picked a 4-2-3-1 with Pulisic and Weah wide of Sargent, Adams and Berhalter behind them, and Dest at right back for his first appearance since a ruptured ACL. Son Heung-min scored one and made one before halftime. The United States outshot Korea 17-5 and Jo Hyeon-woo saved the rest, so the performance and the result pointed in different directions. Pochettino's answer was to change five starters and the shape for Japan three days later. Read backward from the World Cup, this was Dest's first start of the cycle that mattered, and he started the round of 16 against Belgium.

A trophy lost, in front of a crowd ESPN put at three quarters pro-Mexico. Richards headed in Berhalter's free kick in the fourth minute and the United States did not score again. Jiménez equalized and Álvarez's diving header in the 77th was first ruled offside and then given on video review. Mexico's tenth Gold Cup, and their sixth win in eight finals against this opponent. The eleven was the one that had carried the tournament, without Pulisic and the rest of the Europe-based regulars who sat out the summer: Freese, Freeman, Richards, Ream, Arfsten, Adams, de la Torre, Berhalter, Tillman, Luna, Agyemang. Six of them started the World Cup round of 16 a year later. The final was the ceiling for that group without the core.

Luna's tournament. He scored twice in the first fifteen minutes, three days after his first international goal in the quarterfinal, and the United States held on after Escobar pulled one back with ten minutes left. A sellout of 22,423 in St. Louis. The eleven was unchanged from the Costa Rica match and stayed unchanged for the final: Freese; Freeman, Richards, Ream, Arfsten; Adams, de la Torre; Berhalter, Tillman, Luna; Agyemang. That is the whole meaning of the semifinal. A squad without the Europe-based core reached a Gold Cup final on the strength of a 21-year-old from Real Salt Lake. The final was Mexico in Houston four days later.

The match that made Freese the goalkeeper. Costa Rica led from the 12th minute, Luna scored his first international goal before halftime, Arfsten scored his first two minutes into the second half, and Martínez leveled it in the 71st. In the shootout Freese saved in the second, fifth and sixth rounds. Berhalter missed in the third and Tolkin was saved in the fifth, so the United States needed all three of those stops, and Downs converted the sixth to send them through. Freese started the final, and a year later he started both World Cup knockout matches. Luna and Arfsten, two January-camp players six months earlier, were now scoring in a knockout round. Guatemala in St. Louis came next.

Nine points from three, the group won, and the first goal conceded of the tournament. Tillman scored in the tenth minute, his third of the group stage, Haiti equalized nine minutes later, and Agyemang's 75th-minute winner was his second of the tournament. Tolkin started at left back. The group stage had established two things: Tillman was the best player in this squad, and the squad could beat the sides it was supposed to beat. It had not yet been tested by a side that could hurt it, and that was the quarterfinal, Costa Rica in Minneapolis a week later, which went to penalties.

The first time Pochettino named an unchanged eleven in consecutive matches since taking the job. That was the news. The match itself was thin: one American shot in the first half, few chances either way, and Richards' tap-in from a Berhalter free kick just past the hour. Richards also tracked back to cover a Freeman mistake and block a shot, which is the kind of thing that keeps a center back in the eleven. The win, with Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago drawing the same night, clinched a quarterfinal place with a match to spare. Berhalter's set pieces produced this goal and Richards' opener in the final.

The end of a four-match losing run, in San Jose, against the weakest opponent of the summer. Tillman scored twice in the first half and set the tone with the one-touch passing that ESPN's report singled out. Luna, playing near his Sunnyvale hometown, assisted twice and covered more ground than anyone. Pulisic was not in the squad; Pochettino had said a player does not dictate which matches he plays. The margin is not the finding. The finding is that the eleven that started here, with de la Torre in midfield and Ream as captain, was kept intact for Saudi Arabia four days later, the first unchanged lineup of the Pochettino era, and stayed the spine of the run to the final.

Four goals conceded in 36 minutes, a fourth straight loss, the longest run since 2007, and only the second time the program had lost four in a row at home, the other in 1988. Pochettino made nine changes from the Türkiye match and took five of those starters off at halftime. The squad was missing as many as ten regulars, Pulisic, McKennie, Antonee Robinson, Balogun and Pepi among them. Fox Sports' read was that this ended the idea a third- or fourth-choice lineup could contend for the Gold Cup against full-strength Mexico or Canada. Five days later the same squad beat Trinidad and Tobago 5-0 and went on to the final, which says more about the Gold Cup than about the squad.

The first match of a summer without the Europe-based core, and the first look at the squad that would play the Gold Cup. Richards captained a 4-2-3-1 with Cardoso and McGlynn in the middle, de la Torre, Tillman and Luna behind Agyemang, and Freeman and Arfsten at fullback. McGlynn scored from Tillman's pass inside the first minute. Güler and Aktürkoğlu answered three minutes apart before the half hour. Adams came on at halftime for Cardoso. Seven of these starters were in the eleven that lost the Gold Cup final a month later. Türkiye, who scored a 98th-minute winner against the reserves at the World Cup a year later, were a harder opponent than the June schedule usually provides.

Fourth place in a competition the United States had won all three previous times. Pochettino made five changes from the Panama loss, including a back three with McKennie in it, Agyemang up front for his first tournament start, and Luna on the left. Agyemang scored from Luna's pass, his third goal in four senior matches, and Canada scored either side of it. What the two March matches established was the gap between the squad's reputation and its results in Concacaf knockout games, and that gap became the summer's Gold Cup problem. Luna and Agyemang, both January-camp players two months earlier, left this window as starters and were both in the eleven for the Gold Cup final.

The first real failure of the era. The United States had won all three Nations League editions and this was Pochettino's first elimination match, at the stadium that would host the World Cup opener fifteen months later, and Panama scored in the fourth minute of stoppage time. Pochettino said the approach and the start were not right, that the team played too slow and did not show aggression with the ball, and called the first half painful to watch. Panama under Thomas Christiansen were now 4-1 in competitive matches against the United States. The consequence was a third-place match against Canada three days later and a fourth-place finish, and a summer in which the Gold Cup was played without the core that lost here.

Two wins from two in a January camp built from MLS players. Steffen started in goal behind Miles Robinson, Zimmerman, Ream and Jones, with Eneli and Cremaschi in midfield and White up front. Clark, Miljevic and McGlynn came on at halftime and Agyemang in the 75th; Clark and Agyemang both scored. The camp's value was not the two results against Venezuela and Costa Rica. It was that Luna, Arfsten, Agyemang and McGlynn were all in the Gold Cup eleven or squad six months later, and Luna and Arfsten scored in a Gold Cup quarterfinal. The next match was the Nations League semifinal against Panama in March, with the full squad.

Eight debuts in one match. Agyemang, Miljevic, Clark, Gutiérrez, Arfsten and Campbell all started their first international, and Eneli and Vassilev came off the bench for theirs. The lineup was almost entirely MLS-based, with the Europe-based regulars at their clubs, and had ten days of training after the MLS offseason. McGlynn, Agyemang and Miljevic scored their first international goals; Miljevic had missed an early penalty. Pochettino's stated plan was to play all 20 in camp across the two matches. This is what a January friendly is for, and it worked: Agyemang and Arfsten started the Gold Cup final in July, Arfsten scored in the quarterfinal, and Agyemang scored in the Nations League third-place match in March.

The second leg that made the Nations League semifinals, 5-2 on aggregate. Pulisic scored in the 13th minute and forced the own goal twenty minutes later, both from McKennie's passes. Pepi scored for a third consecutive match under Pochettino. Weah, played on the left rather than his usual right, restored the four-goal aggregate lead with a volley after Jamaica had pulled one back. Pochettino said afterward the group was starting to feel like a real one that would fight for something special. What it bought was two more competitive matches in March, the semifinal against Panama and whatever followed. Those two turned out to be losses, which is why this window reads better than the one it set up.

Pochettino's first competitive match. He brought McKenzie, McKennie, Tessmann, Cardoso, Pulisic and Pepi into the eleven, and Pepi scored in the fifth minute from Pulisic's run through the middle, mis-hitting the shot in off Andre Blake's far post. Turner then saved Demarai Gray's 14th-minute penalty, his third save in eight penalties faced for the national team. Jamaica finished with ten after Holgate's second yellow in the 86th. A one-goal lead to take to St. Louis was the whole point of a first leg in Kingston, and it was the base for the 4-2 that followed four days later. Pepi's form was the emerging story of the window: a goal in each of his first three matches under the new coach.

Pochettino's first loss, in his second match, with Pulisic back at Milan. Turner started behind Scally, Miles Robinson, Ream and Antonee Robinson, Busio and Morris sat in front of them, and Tillman made his fifth start for the national team underneath Sargent. Miles Robinson came in for McKenzie, who felt groin tightness before kickoff. Jiménez scored a free kick and set up Huerta. It ended a seven-match unbeaten run against Mexico, five wins and two draws, the longest in the ninety-year history of the rivalry. A friendly in Guadalajara without Pulisic is a small sample, and it was treated as one. The next assembly was the Nations League quarterfinal against Jamaica in November, the first competitive test.

The first match of the era. Pochettino's debut ended a four-match winless run and the program's first four-match home winless streak since 2010-11. Musah scored his first goal in 42 appearances, a volley from Pulisic's cross in the 49th minute, and Pepi added the second in stoppage time. Sargent made his first start since the 2022 World Cup. Pulisic was playing for his eighth national-team coach, a record for an American. Pochettino's line afterward was that the objective was 2026 and this was only the first step. Musah, Sargent and Pepi were all in the eleven here; none of them started the World Cup round of 16 twenty-one months later. Pulisic and Ream did.