The U.S. Men’s National Team released their roster for the upcoming Concacaf Nations League Final Four. Interim head coach Anthony Hudson has called up 24 players, almost exclusively based in Europe, for matches against Grenada on March 25 and El Salvador on March 27.
USMNT roster by position (club/country; caps/goals)
GOALKEEPERS (3): Ethan Horvath (Luton Town/ENG; 8/0), Zack Steffen (Middlesbrough/ENG; 29/0), Matt Turner (Arsenal/ENG; 24/0)
DEFENDERS (8): Sergiño Dest (AC Milan/ITA; 23/2), Mark McKenzie (Genk/BEL; 10/0), Tim Ream (Fulham/ENG; 50/1), Bryan Reynolds (Westerlo/BEL; 2/0), Antonee Robinson (Fulham; 33/2), Miles Robinson (Atlanta United; 20/3), Joe Scally (Borussia Mönchengladbach/GER; 3/0), Auston Trusty (Birmingham City/ENG; 0/0)
MIDFIELDERS (6): Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United/ENG; 28/6), Johnny Cardoso (Internacional/BRA; 4/0), Luca de la Torre (Celta Vigo/ESP; 12/0), Weston McKennie (Leeds United/ENG; 41/9), Yunus Musah (Valencia/ESP; 23/0), Alan Soñora (Juárez/MEX; 2/0)
FORWARDS (7): Taylor Booth (Utrecht/NED; 0/0), Daryl Dike (West Bromwich Albion/ENG; 8/3), Ricardo Pepi (Groningen/NED; 12/3), Christian Pulisic (Chelsea/ENG; 56/22), Gio Reyna (Borussia Dortmund/GER; 16/4), Tim Weah (Lille/FRA; 29/4), Alex Zendejas (Club América/MEX; 1/0)
Despite the controversy surrounding his parents and the US Soccer investigation into Gregg Berhalter, Gio Reyna is back on the roster. Additionally, Daryl Dike, Ricardo Pepi, Bryan Reynolds and Zack Steffen all return after various absences.
Auston Trusty is in line for his first international cap after starring for Birmingham City in the English Championship. Taylor Booth could also earn his first appearance after scoring two goals and three assists this season for FC Utrecht in the Dutch Eridivisie.
Club América winger Alex Zendejas is on the roster and set for his first cap in an official match, after the Mexican dual national committed his international future to the United States.
Miles Robinson is the only MLS-based player on the roster. Anthony Hudson addressed this in a Q&A with USSoccer.com, saying:
As we look at the next several months, we have to balance out a number of factors. We have the Nations League in March, the Allstate Continental Clásico against Mexico in April, and then hopefully the Nations League Final Four in June followed by the Gold Cup immediately after. So that’s a lot of matches with players at different stages of their seasons. Players based outside the United States will need to have a break at some point this summer, and the domestic-based players could wind up missing a number of league games if they played in all the competitions.
We had a similar situation in 2021 and we won both competitions with almost two entirely different groups, so we feel really good about the pool of players.
In the short term, we feel like we have a strong group coming into Orlando and will have another strong group that will have a valuable opportunity against Mexico. In the case of Miles, we haven’t seen him in a year and felt like this was the right opportunity to reintegrate him into the group. Given he is still coming back from his injury and it would be a challenge for him to play multiple games in a week both now and in April, this is the best chance to get him back on the field with the National Team before the summer.
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