USMNT Camp: A Reset with New Faces and Rising Stars

The latest USMNT camp feels less like a tune-up and more like a reset button. New faces, big omissions, and one 16-year-old who suddenly finds himself at the center of it all.

Sullivan steps into the spotlight

Say hello to the teenager everyone has been talking about for years. Now he finally has the stage to match the noise.

Sullivan is only 16, but his rise hasn’t come out of nowhere. The potential has been there for a long time; this season, the numbers finally caught up. Goals. Assists. Real end product, not just viral clips. That’s why he’s here.

Mauricio Pochettino doesn’t hand out call-ups for social media buzz. He calls footballers he trusts. Right now, Sullivan is one of them.

"He deserves all of the praise that he is getting," Pochettino said. "I think it's because he's performing well. He's giving assists, scoring goals, and he's 16. We don't say he doesn't deserve the praise. The important thing is to help, to be with him, and to provide a solid pattern and support, because he still needs to show, improve, evolve, and be more mature. He's only 16. He's a kid, but I think the most important thing is we have the opportunity now because he deserves to join us in the national team."

This camp is a test, but not in the usual pass-or-fail sense. Sullivan might not be ready for this level. He might walk in and look like he has all his life. Either way, the real point is the experience.

You don’t build a star by waiting until he’s 20 and hoping he’s ready. You throw him into camps like this, let him try, let him fail if he has to, and watch how he responds. If the long-term target is a fully formed star by 2030, the work starts now.

The spotlight will follow him. It always does. What happens under it is finally up to him.

Pulisic’s absence and a lingering shadow

Christian Pulisic’s name isn’t on this roster, and the logic is simple. He’s just come back from injury and only recently played his first minutes of the season. Dragging him across the Atlantic for four games in two weeks would have been reckless.

Sensible? Yes. Ideal? No.

Pulisic still sits at the heart of so many conversations about the last World Cup. The disappointment, the frustration, the questions over his leadership and fire. Those narratives haven’t gone away, and his absence means he can’t touch them, let alone change them, any time soon.

He won’t get the chance this fall to show more determination, more visible edge, more of whatever some fans still feel he owes them. For a player with a point to prove, that delay stings. The proving will have to wait.

"I think now is a completely different approach than was in the past," Pochettino said. "The World Cup is in four years. We need to work with different objective and goals, and for different reasons, that roster is the roster that is the the best roster that we can design for this camp."

The message is clear: this camp is about the cycle ahead, not the ghosts behind.

Musah returns to the fold

Yunus Musah knows all about bumpy paths. He’s only 23, but the last few years have felt longer.

His move to Milan stalled. A loan to Atalanta brought little joy. The trajectory that once looked so smooth suddenly twisted. Now, back at Milan and contributing, he’s finally pushing upward again — and Pochettino has noticed.

After more than a year and a half out of the USMNT picture, Musah is back.

"Yunus is still young," Pochettino said. "He wasn't involved in the last World Cup, but now, after seeing from the beginning the season that he is performing in the way that we expect, because some players can play all the game but they are not performing in the way that we expect, but that is why we call again. It's really open, like for rest of the of the players."

He arrives as something rare in this camp: a player who is both young and, relatively speaking, a senior presence. His growth hasn’t been linear. Few careers are. What matters is that he’s fought his way back to the place he wanted to be — in this squad, with a chance to reshape his international story.

This camp can be his second debut. What he does with it will decide how quickly he climbs back into the core group.

World Cup veterans on the outside looking in

Of the 28 players called in, only 13 went to this summer’s World Cup. Many of the familiar names are here: Tyler Adams, Chris Richards, Antonee Robinson, Sergino Dest, Matt Freese. Several others are missing for clear reasons.

Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Folarin Balogun are all out with injury issues. Tim Ream, 38 years old, is not in the squad either. Pochettino hasn’t closed the door on him, and Ream himself has said he’s still available, but age alone raises questions about his place in this cycle.

The real squeeze hits the World Cup role players.

• Matt Turner
• Max Arfsten
• Mark McKenzie
• Joe Scally
• Cristian Roldan
• Brenden Aaronson
• Tim Weah
• Alejandro Zendejas

— all part of the World Cup group, all left at home this time.

Pochettino insists no one has been cast aside.

"The door is open for everyone," he said. "Now it's a new start. It's a new cycle. It's not what happened one year ago, one year and a half ago, what happened in the World Cup. To be honest, it's a fresh start. It's a roster that we consider is the best for that period."

Still, when a coach widens the pool, it’s usually players 15 through 26 on a World Cup roster who feel the heat first. That battle for places has already started, and this camp is a clear signal: reputation alone won’t be enough.

Albert, the wild card

Then there’s Albert.

If he plays just 93 minutes in this camp, he’ll have logged more time for his country than he has for his club. On paper, that sounds absurd. Pochettino sees something else: opportunity.

Calling in a teenager with so few senior club minutes is a bold endorsement. It says the staff believes the talent is real, even if the evidence hasn’t fully surfaced yet.

Unlike Sullivan, Neil Pierre or Adri Mehmeti, Albert hasn’t forced the door open with consistent performances. The context matters, though. He’s at Dortmund, a club that doesn’t casually promote youngsters to the fringes of the first team. If they keep a 17-year-old around that environment, it usually means they think he’s special.

Right now, he is the least experienced player in this camp. He might also be the one with the highest ceiling.

Pochettino wants to see him up close, to put him into this environment and let him absorb it. For Albert, this isn’t just a reward. It’s an education — one that could accelerate everything for both club and country.

This camp, then, is more than a list of names. It’s a statement of intent. The question is no longer who these players have been, but who they’re going to be by the time the next World Cup arrives.