KANSAS CITY, Mo. — They’ve played for AC Milan and Juventus, PSV Eindhoven and Borussia Dortmund, four different English Premier League clubs, Monaco and Celtic. Often described as a “golden generation,” they’ve inspired a hype like no other. They’ve competed in Germany’s Bundesliga and Spain’s La Liga, in waters previously uncharted for American male soccer players.
And yet there they stood on a brutal Monday night at Arrowhead Stadium, bruised and beaten 1-0 by Uruguay, eliminated from the 2024 Copa América.
There they stood, bodies empty, their buttocks on the grass, their gazes searching, perhaps for answers to the question that had millions on their minds: What had gone so egregiously wrong for the U.S. men’s national team?
In Kansas City and elsewhere around the country, all eyes were on their head coach, Gregg Berhalter.
But in the bowels of Arrowhead and in the minds of critical thinkers across the country, they also turned their attention to the players.
They are widely regarded as the most talented group of USMNT players ever, but are they really as good as the average person thinks?
The answer is that they could be are; but no, at the moment they are not. The prestige of their employers has overestimated their current abilities and perhaps raised expectations a little too high, too soon for the 2026 World Cup.
Of the 26 players fresh from the Copa América, 15 played in the Big Five European leagues last season. Three played in the Champions League. One scored huge goals in the English FA Cup quarter-finals and semi-finals. Fullback Sergiño Dest, who also played in the Champions League, missed the Copa through injury.
But how many of them have fought for their club? How many start consistently? How many are more than role-playing cogs, as opposed to protagonists who can lead a national team?
Christian Pulisic has established himself as the latter, but, well, have others? Of the rest, only Antonee Robinson has started every game for a Big Five club.
Many have their places at prominent clubs partly because of who those clubs think they can become, not just because of who they currently are. And their European migration is unprecedented, partly because those prominent clubs are far more willing and able to sign Americans than the same clubs were decades ago.
They are, to be clear, still easily the most talented generation of American players ever. They’re also at those clubs because they have technical or tactical skill, developed through a reformed (if still flawed) youth pipeline. They are, to the naked eye and to the data, more skilled than most of their USMNT predecessors. When they went to Qatar and reached the World Cup knockouts, they did so as the youngest of the 32 teams in the tournament. The sky-high expectations for a 2026 home World Cup — a quarterfinal, maybe even a semifinal — were justified.
However, some outsiders made a mistake in expecting to make quadrennial leaps right away. We are not yet halfway through 2026. The leaps have been limited so far.
Their progress as a group, meanwhile, is even more limited, perhaps even non-existent, and that’s why Berhalter needs to go. Even though international football is 90% controlled and defined by the people who play it, the 10% who coach are the most volatile — so worth changing. This group of promising-but-not-key players needs a coach who can elevate them. Berhalter doesn’t do that.
But they’re not out of the Copa América because Berhalter is a bad coach. “I don’t think this tournament really had anything to do with the staff or the tactics,” Gio Reyna said Monday. They’re out because of a stupid red card; and, more broadly, because they don’t yet have the top-flight talent to beat Uruguay (or Brazil or Colombia), nor to overcome a 10-v-11 deficit against a lesser opponent like Panama.
Some also claim they are out, partly because they think they are better than they actually are. And because Berhalter’s starting lineup was set, the players have become too comfortable.
None of these reasons, however, are a reason they can’t excel in 2026. They were still the second-youngest team at the 2024 Copa América, behind only Costa Rica. Thirteen of the 14 outfielders who appeared in Monday’s game were 26 or younger; suspended Tim Weah, 24, would have been another.
Some of those 13, like Robinson and Weston McKennie, are likely at or near the peak of their career parabolas. But others, like Reyna and Tyler Adams, have been limited by injuries and still have plenty of room to grow if they stay healthy. Folarin Balogun, 22, has the tools and the underlying numbers to become an elite forward. Yunus Musah, 21, should continue to grow. Dest, 23, should bounce back from his injury.
In their current state, they are nowhere near a World Cup semi-final. But a lot can change in two years; 23-plus months; 710 days.
“We have time to improve until then,” Pulisic said Monday. “I think everyone needs to take a step back and we need to find our identity again. … I don’t know exactly what’s missing. But, um, yeah — I think we’re on the right track and I think we can expect good things.”
