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- Poch Rolls the Dice Against Paraguay & Uruguay 🇺🇸
Poch Rolls the Dice Against Paraguay & Uruguay 🇺🇸
Plus, Rog sits down with Gio Reyna.
The USMNT Prepare for Paraguay & Uruguay 🇺🇸
Rog writes: Soccer's coming home. The U.S. men's national team are back for the second-to-last international window before the World Cup. Are we running out of time? We will play Paraguay and Uruguay, all the ‘guays. But the squad still feels, let's say, incredibly experimental. Lots of massive players not called in, including Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Chris Richards. But one huge, almost marquee name is back: Gio Reyna, returning like a prodigal son for the first time since the doomed tragedies of the CONCACAF Nations League in March. Lots of intrigue to unpack. The process that we're meant to trust remains — I've got to be candid — somewhat of a mystery. 🤨
More: Our team at The Give N Go broke down the biggest omissions from the most recent USMNT roster earlier this week. Watch that here. 📺
ii. Let’s start with Gio. Football writer Henry Bushnell tweeted that Gio has played fewer club minutes this year (just 146 total for German duffers Borussia Mönchengladbach) than any other USMNT player and hasn't scored or created a goal since January. "Players need to perform" was the rule for months. The reality is Gio is suddenly good enough for Pochettino — not because of anything he has done on the field, but based on our memory of what he could do four years ago in the last cycle, the Gio of our imaginations. This is some gamble by Poch, it completely changes the dynamic of the message he has been giving the other players and that is a risk.
I want to say, I am happy for Gio as a human being. He came on our show last week and I found the interview very moving. To listen to this 22-year-old kid, who’s had everything in his world buckle with his family, his club career, and his international career, all conflating together in this mess. A player who was once on the same starboy trajectory as his friend Erling Haaland, now on the bench in a German relegation battle barely getting minutes. This is his chance for redemption and I hope he seizes it. 🦅
iii. What does his return mean from a “trust the process” perspective? Again, this is the second-to-last camp before the World Cup squad is announced, but I am old enough to remember back in August when Poch announced, “This is going to be the last camp to have the possibility for us to see players, new faces,” and here we are. Gio, back. Reliable Joe Scally, back. I am happy they are. I think they could and should have been called up earlier, but this issue of “trust the process,” you either have to articulate the process intelligently, clearly, or it just looks like you're muddying the waters. 🤔
iv. In many ways, this is an outcome — not process — driven World Cup for the USMNT. Poch inherited the job mid-cycle and is trying to play catch up while learning international football management, the peculiarities of American football culture and U.S. Soccer on the fly. He will be judged on whether or not he wins a knockout game in the World Cup, that is all that matters. So the rules of how we get there, we can make them up along the way. Right now, we are like the plant-based meat of world football: it sounds good, it sounds like we should be the next big thing, but it is impossible to tell if we are really going to catch on. 🏆
v. All of that said, I'm ready for this quite intriguing pair of games: Paraguay (on Saturday) and Uruguay (on Tuesday), 39th in the world and 15th in the world. Both qualifiers for our World Cup and two really stern tests for this team. Just to recap, in case you missed the last couple of friendlies on Friendly Avenue: Over the past six months, we got taught a lesson by Türkiye, Switzerland and South Korea. We've drawn with Ecuador and we’ve beaten, let's call them, a Japan 11 and a midnight oil version of Australia. We are three games unbeaten against top 25 teams, but let’s see how we fair against the two mighty ‘guays. Make us proud, boys. Go, go USA! 🇺🇸
vi. The best place to enjoy the upcoming friendlies with your fellow USMNT fans? That would be our Discord channel. Join us here this weekend and next Tuesday, and come prepared with your best Gio questions, Poch theories, and Balogun vs. Pepi takes. 🍻
Tell me how you’re feeling about the USMNT right now. I would love to hear from you. 📧
PS - Is this the best overtime game-winner in U.S. high school soccer history?
Courage,
Rog
“It’s Like We’re Living in the ‘Stranger Things’ Upside Down”: Herc Gomez on Poch’s No. 9s, Gio Reyna, and a Certain Missing Goalkeeper 🇺🇸
Herc on How This Window Can Help Change the USMNT Narrative 🗣️
“If they play well and beat what I think are two very quality opponents in terms of player personnel and… two of the best coaches in South America, then Mauricio Pochettino and his squad will get into what this team actually means. [If they] can pull off good results and play well, then that's going to change the narrative for sure.”
How Herc Ranks Poch’s Current No. 9 Options 🗣️
“I think right now, if we were asking ourselves who’s in pole position, it's got to be Folarin Balogun. He's done so well the last couple USMNT camps and he's shown an incredible ability to work off players like Christian Pulisic, who are so important and vital to this team. He's one of the few forwards that can create for himself if he plays by himself… Then, it's going to be Haji Wright two, and Ricardo Pepi three.”
On Diego Luna Getting Listed as a Potential Second Striker 🗣️
“I'm very intrigued. Does that mean they’ll go two strikers? Because I look at this team and it doesn't really scream three at the back. It screams like a four-man backline. Are you going for two? And is that with a true No. 9 and a playmaker underneath? If that's the case, I can see why Diego Luna is listed as a striker.”
On the Return of Gio Reyna 🗣️
“In every team I've been on, there have been special cases, special players who get treated differently. [Poch] needs to see what Gio Reyna is about now because come March, that's your last window. That's got to be, ‘I'm going to the World Cup with these 26 players.’ That's got to be the moment. So you’ve gotta see what he has and what better opportunity for a player like Gio then against a very stingy defensive specialist in Paraguay.”
On Matt Turner’s Absence 🗣️
“What happened to Zack Steffen is now happening to Matt Turner. Steffen went from being the No. 1 with the USMNT to Gregg Berhalter to “Here comes the World Cup” and not even being one of the three. Turner went from being No. 1 — record setter, two shutouts in a World Cup — to now not even being one of the four [in consideration]. I'd be very worried if I was Turner right now.”
Herc’s Score Predictions for the Two Friendlies 🗣️
🇵🇾 “Against Paraguay, you're in store for a very difficult game to break down in terms of attacking and they're going to make things difficult for the USMNT. I think we're heading toward a gritty 0-0 draw.”
🇺🇾 “As far as Uruguay, it's 1v1 defending all over the place. If Pochettino and the USMNT get a back-and-forth going, it's going to be a very long afternoon. I think I'm gonna lean all the way in this one, 3-1.”
Watch the full preview to get all of Herc and Rog’s thoughts on the USMNT's upcoming friendlies against Paraguay and Uruguay (or listen here), and make sure to follow VAMOS on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for so much more.
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News & Notes 🗞️
If you’re confused about when, how, and which European countries are getting into World Cup 26, we’ve got you covered.
Some big changes are coming to MLS.
How many Champions League winners have flipped the switch on the Empire State Building?
No jokes, just a great read: Jamaica harbour World Cup dream amid storm devastation.
What is a nationality anyway? All borders are arbitrary.
As Spike Lee (and apparently Thomas Tuchel) always says, “It’s gotta be the shoes.”
The future of the USMNT looks very bright.
A rematch of the 1998 World Cup final is coming to Boston.
And finally: Meet the man who played in two games, in two countries... in one day.
As a Reminder 🗓️
We won’t be sending a newsletter in between the upcoming friendlies, but we will be back in your inbox next week after the Uruguay game with all of our thoughts on the results and what’s next for the USMNT going into 2026.
Here’s when and where you can catch the two games:
🇵🇾 USA vs. Paraguay (Saturday, 5 p.m. ET, TNT/HBO Max/Peacock)
🇺🇾 USA vs. Uruguay (Tuesday, 7 p.m. ET, TNT/HBO Max/Peacock)
Until next week, courage!
Rog and the USMNT Only team 🇺🇸 🦅
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