USMNT's Journey: From Babies to Men Ahead of the World Cup

Weston McKennie walked into the Chicago Fire training facility on Friday and headed straight toward the microphones. But his mind was somewhere else.

He wanted to find Gregg Berhalter.

Not the former USMNT manager. Not the man whose name has been dragged through every debate about this national team. The man he cried in front of. The one he went to when life off the pitch felt just as heavy as anything on it.

“He’s a great person, and I’m not just saying this because [Sebastian is here],” McKennie said with a laugh, glancing over at Sebastian Berhalter, Gregg’s son, who shared the podium with him.

The scene said plenty. McKennie, now a seasoned Juventus midfielder with a World Cup looming, and Sebastian, a young pro still carving out his own path, both hovering around the same building, hoping to bump into the same figure for very different reasons. One looking to reconnect with a mentor. The other simply looking for his dad.

For Gregg Berhalter, it’s still his team in some emotional corner of his mind, even if he no longer stands on the touchline.

From “Babies” to Men

When Berhalter took the USMNT job in the wake of the 2018 qualifying collapse, he inherited a dressing room that barely had stubble. Teenagers everywhere. Promise, yes, but also rawness, naivety, and the usual chaos of a program trying to rebuild itself from the ground up.

“I think one thing we have to remember is when I got them, they were young, they were babies, and they were just learning what it takes to be a professional athlete,” Berhalter said on Friday. “Now I see them, and they’re men! They have kids, and they’re adults, and they know exactly what it means to maintain themselves as professionals. It’s an amazing thing to see.

“I just greeted them now, and was like, ‘I can’t believe it, they’re grown up!’ I think they’ll be ready for this moment. The one thing I know about this group is that they step up to these moments.”

The bond is obvious. McKennie doesn’t talk about him like a former boss. He talks about him like family.

“I went to him with problems on and off the field. I’ve cried in front of him,” McKennie said. “We’ve had tough times and also amazing times together, and so it’ll be really nice to be able to see him around here, hopefully, today, and just to catch up and just go over some memories. I’m sure he’ll probably give me some advice leading into the game and into the World Cup, because that’s just the type of guy he is.”

This is the emotional undercurrent to a team that, on paper, is entering its prime. The kids who once needed guiding are now expected to lead.

Pochettino’s Balancing Act

On the training pitch, the tone shifted from nostalgia to calculation.

Chris Richards trained with the group on Friday, moving freely, blending into the drills. To the casual eye, he looked fine. But he won’t play this weekend. Mauricio Pochettino confirmed it, and his irritation at the situation was clear.

“When we decided the roster, we thought that Chris could play the final of the Conference [League] because we had designed the roster previously,” Pochettino said. “There was a line of information where we were thinking that he could play that final against Rayo Vallecano in the Conference League. He was on the bench, if you remember. After, that he could maybe be [there] against Senegal. After, today, in the end, the timelines were lengthening and [it] angers me a bit. I’m not happy because we know Chris Richards is an important player, of course, we all know it, but also when I was saying is based on the information that we had, and sometimes there wasn’t clarity.

“In the end, we can hope that Chris can be there. But, in the end, we’re going to find ourselves coming without competing [for a month] and after we have to make the decision if he’s in form to compete or not. There’s not a lot of time in the World Cup.”

This is the tightrope every national team coach walks in the final days before a major tournament. Every sprint, every challenge in a friendly, carries risk. Every player wrapped in cotton wool risks losing sharpness.

Pochettino knows he can’t win that argument in the court of public opinion.

“The haters today with social media, they will never agree if you play normally with the players or if you play with the first team for the World Cup,” he said. “If nothing happens, no one is going to say anything, good decision, but if something does happen, they say I have no clue!

“It’s impossible to know what we need to do. That’s why, from the beginning, it is to prepare in the best way that all the players have the possibility to play or to compete.”

He laughed off a question about specific knocks and niggles, calling them the usual end-of-season issues. The message was simple: the group is largely fine, but every minute between now and the World Cup is a puzzle with no perfect solution.

Germany Again, but Different Stakes

After a win over Senegal, the U.S. now face another heavyweight: Germany. Pochettino has pushed hard for these kinds of fixtures, wanting his team tested by European powerhouses whenever possible.

“We wanted to play the best in preparation for this World Cup,” he said. “I think all the tests of Portugal or Belgium were amazing because they allowed us to improve and to learn what we don’t need to do and how we need to approach it again. I think it’s a great opportunity, after Senegal, this is going to be a beautiful team that we have to face tomorrow, and it’s about approaching in the best way we can.”

This isn’t unfamiliar ground. The U.S. saw Germany in October 2023, a 3-1 defeat in Connecticut despite a sharp Christian Pulisic goal. Fourteen of the 26 players in the current group were part of that squad.

McKennie doesn’t linger on the details of that night, but he remembers the feeling.

“I don’t really remember Germany’s roster for that game, and I don’t know how similar it is to this roster,” he said. “But I think that game showed, obviously, the quality that they have, but also the quality that we have as well. We played a good game, and we had the potential to win that game as well.

“We go into this game with a lot of players that haven’t played against them yet and players that have, so I think the new energy, the new style, the new circumstances in general leading into a World Cup, I think it’s going to be a great test for us and I think we go out there with the same mentality that we always go out with.”

This is what these matches are now: not moral victories, not learning experiences framed as consolation prizes, but genuine measuring sticks. Are the “babies” who grew into men ready to stand toe-to-toe with the elite and expect something more than compliments?

McKennie’s Form and the Role Question

If there’s one player arriving with a full tank of confidence, it’s McKennie. His club season with Juventus ended in frustration — two points short of the final Champions League spot — but his personal numbers tell a different story: nine goals and six assists across Serie A and the Champions League.

For a midfielder who has bounced between roles, that output matters.

“I think any player can say that coming out of club form and being in good club form does a lot, because it’s the confidence that you bring, it’s the desire, the want, the everything,” he said.

The question now is where that energy goes on the international stage. Deeper, breaking up play and driving from midfield? Higher up, arriving late in the box and creating chaos?

McKennie shrugs off the tactical labels.

“I think the system that our coach has here, the type of player I am is a player that adapts. I’m the type of player who can play many roles, so I’m more of a guy that, wherever he needs me to do, I’ll do whatever I’m called upon for.

“I try to step up and just be the best I can for the team. I think that’s one thing that this team does have: no one’s selfish. Everyone’s here for the right reasons. Everyone’s here to get a victory for the U.S., so I think it’s amazing to be able to come here with confidence, and coming off a great individual season. Obviously, my club team didn’t finish where we wanted to finish, but the confidence is still there.”

Form, of course, can be a mirage at a World Cup. Some players arrive flying and vanish. Others stagger in and catch fire when the anthem plays. McKennie understands that, but he also knows what it feels like to carry momentum into a tournament and believe that the ball will fall his way.

On Friday in Chicago, the past and present of the USMNT overlapped in one building: the old coach dropping by to see his “babies,” the current coach wrestling with risk and readiness, and a core midfielder stepping into his prime, still leaning on the man who once guided him through his teenage storms.

The reunion, if it happened, would be brief. A conversation, a few shared memories, maybe a piece of advice before Germany and, soon after, the World Cup.

The real question is whether this group, now fully grown in their former manager’s eyes, is finally ready to prove it on the stage that once broke them.