CARSON, Calif. – The 2026 World Cup may still be more than a year away, but the reminders of the tournament are hard to ignore for the U.S. men’s national team. Head coach Mauricio Pochettino remains the figurehead for U.S. Soccer’s ambitious plan to deliver a statement-making showing in a year’s time, while the Concacaf Nations League offers a first chance to lift silverware under the new boss. The literal setting also inspires discussion of the World Cup since the USMNT will play their first game of the competition at SoFi Stadium, where they will take on Panama on Thursday in the CNL semifinals live on Paramount+. The tournament is not exactly top of mind for the group, though.
“As crazy as it sounds,” Christian Pulisic said, “I’m not even thinking about the World Cup at all.”
USMNT vs. Panama odds, where to watch, live stream: Nations League prediction, pick, predicted lineups
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The group is fully focused on the game in front of them, a wise choice if only considering recent history – this Panama team put the first nail in the coffin of their Copa America run, which ended with a surprise group stage exit last summer. That loss feels like a long time in many ways, in large part because of the managerial change that afforded a fresh start for a promising team that hit their lowest low despite their lofty ambitions. The timing of that fresh start, though, comes with its own challenges. Pochettino, who will coach just his seventh USMNT game on Thursday, has a limited amount of time to ensure this team lives up to their potential. His first priority, he said, is to focus on a most necessary intangible – competitive edge.
“I think if you are able to compete at your best, in the way [of] the demands of the competition, at a high level,” Pochettino said. “I think after, we can add all the ideas – tactical ideas, the strategies and game plan, and you can be efficient because it’s easier … But if you don’t compete in the way that the competition demands, it’s difficult to be efficient in all the ideas and the tactical plan, the game plan, and that for me, that is the most important.”
Though Pochettino does not carry the baggage of last summer’s Copa America disappointment, his comments seem to address the lack of intensity that defined their doomed run. It is an approach the players have fully embraced, despite having just three training sessions under their belts heading into Thursday’s game. There’s a level of familiarity that has set in at this point – though the likes of Tyler Adams and Gio Reyna are in camp for the first time since Pochettino took over, just about everyone else is getting used to the new coach’s rhythms and ideas.
“We’ve been in camp a couple times with Pochettino and some of the guys that are relatively new here for this camp have been with him in the January camp as well,” Weston McKennie said. “I think it’s a challenge that everyone faces but I think obviously for the players that are here, they’re here for a reason and they wouldn’t be here if they couldn’t catch on quickly to what the plan is and to what we’re trying to accomplish here, so obviously I think everybody has the ability to manage quick turnarounds and comprehend paying styles and ideas quickly.”
Pochettino’s players are also in alignment that making the competitive edge a defining aspect of their game plans is a foundational element of their future success.
“With the short time that we have, it can be difficult,” Pulisic said. “Everyone deals with the same thing with the national team but I guess just ingraining that into our identity, kind of a little bit of nastiness, a little bit of that extra bite to us is really important. I think the coach wants that as well and just putting it in every day in training and preparing and taking it with us into the game.”
The pressure is naturally on the USMNT to win a fourth consecutive CNL title, especially after U.S. Soccer’s big splash to land Pochettino. Pulisic feels the next natural progression under the new head coach is to “win a trophy,” but the consensus seems to be that the main purpose of the CNL Finals is to show improvement. They will have a unique opportunity to do just that this week, especially as it pertains to testing the USMNT’s depth. The team will be without several key players through injury, most notably Antonee Robinson, while nine players from the MLS-heavy January camp made the cut, an unusually high number when the full senior squad is available.
How Pochettino chooses to answer his lineup questions will be a major focus on Thursday, with the possibility that new tactical ideas will finally be front and center after he made some more subtle choices in his first games with the USMNT. It may be a difficult position to be in with a trophy on the line, but it might also be helpful to work out those issues with a year-plus to go before the World Cup. Even as the team embraces the one-day-at-a-time mindset, there’s no way to ignore the big event that’s right around the corner.
“If you ask me if I want to win, of course. I want to win the competition because that is going to help us to build our confidence and trust,” Pochettino said. “At the same time, we need to be intelligent and to try to discover the best players to build a strong team, core of [the] team with the possibility to fight for big things … We want to win, it’s not an excuse, but I think important for us, the objective is the World Cup.”
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