Thereโs reason to be worried about the United States menโs national team and the 2022 World Cup following the latest round of player call-ups from Gregg Berhalter.
Thatโs not because this roster in itself is inherently bad, or that Berhalterโs choices are a singular terrible moment that signals the downfall of his tenure.
And itโs also not because this unit will not qualify for Qatar. They probably will. Itโs worth discussing whether they should be entering this window without qualification in the bag, yes, but this is more of a big-picture discussion.
[ MORE: Best XI for qualifiers | USMNT World Cup qual. schedule]
Most people would agree that the age of the USMNT roster and an analysis of the player pool means the side is likely to be at the peak of its powers heading into the 2026 World Cup, but that doesnโt mean the Yanks canโt do real damage at this winterโs World Cup with a halfway decent draw. Talking about how darn young your team is compared to historical version of it is only impressive if you arenโt leaving older players behind out of principles or stats (Just ask Frank Lampard how good it was to play the youth of Chelsea when Thomas Tuchel put the vets back out there and won the European Cup).
Look at the philosophy behind, construction of, and performance by Berhalterโs unit and itโs very difficult to imagine heโs going to make an unbiased selection of the best group of players for a World Cup, adopt the appropriate mentality for a growing power in the sport, and humbly appreciate whichever international opponent stands between him and USSF immortality.
By far the least of the problems caused by the uncertainty of Berhalterโs plan for the program is our USMNT Player Pool Power Rankings, for there is now a โTop 25 USMNT players in the worldโ and a โTop 25 USMNT players to Gregg Berhalterโ that are very different. The key word is the modifier:ย Very.ย Every national team manager is going to have a preference or three โ Ask any MLS fan about Jurgen Klinsmann and Benny Feilhaber โ but Berhalterโs got a bunch than are more than hunch than punch.
The prevalence of advanced stats now makes it possible to compare players from different leagues. If we accept that the top five leagues in Europe are, while a different animal in style, largely superior to MLS.
John Brooks as an example
Letโs start here: Even without explicit acknowledgment or even much innuendo, we have to operate in a mindset that Gregg Berhalter sees John Brooksโ personality or reputation inside of the team as reason to keep him out of the squad. His omission in the Fall felt appropriate given form and both coach and player handled the issue with class, so it seems like the veteran back โgot it.โ
But Brooks is healthy and playing well for Wolfsburg now. Of backs to play more than 15 league matches, heโs
- 18th In clearances
- 11th in aerial duels won percentage
- 18th in ground duels won percentage
- 37th In interceptions
- ninth in accurate long balls per game
- 18th in clearances
- 20th in passes attempted
- ย not made an error thatโs led to an opposition shot
- is 25th in SofaScore rating.
Regardless, even a dipped-in-form Brooks is superior to most of the backs of the pool, so whether itโs just a clash of strong personalities or a story we wonโt get for a long time, letโs try to accept that Berhalter knows what heโs leaving home and hope that somehow the trade-off is worth it.
As an exercise and with expectation but without pre-judgment, Iโve used the site FBRef.com and its collection of StatsBomb data to put Brooks and the four called-up USMNT pool center backs into the same FBRef.com comparison.
With the caveat that we used the 2021 MLS seasons of James Sands, Miles Robinson, and Walker Zimmerman instead of Sandsโ rarely-used start at Rangers and three-match sample sizes for the latter, hereโs how Brooks and Erik Palmer-Brown stack up alongside the aforementioned trio. Weโve excluded Aaron Long as he returns from a long-term injury.
Current USMNT CBs stat leaders in club play, per 90 minutes
Passes attempted: Robinson, 59.9 (Brooks 2nd, 59.6)
Passes completed: Robinson, 51.5 (Brooks 3rd, 50.5)
Pass percentage: Sands, 90 (Brooks 3rd, 84.7)
Pass progression distance: Brooks, 410.5 yards (Robinson 2nd, 364.9)
Tackle percentage: Palmer-Brown, 73.7 (Brooks 3rd, 54.3)
Pressure percentage: Palmer-Brown, 38.8 (Brooks 2nd, 38.6)
Shots blocked: Brooks, 1.94 (Robinson 2nd, 1.84)
Tackles+interceptions: Brooks, 4.22 (Palmer-Brown 2nd, 4.18)
Clearances: Zimmerman, 5.9 (Brooks 2nd, 5.5)
Distance progressed: Robinson, 290 (Brooks 2nd, 243.7)
Aerial duels won %: Zimmerman, 76.7 (Brooks 5th, 65.3)
Yep. Brooks leads in some huge categories lauded by Berhalter and is only worse than 3-of-5 in aerial duels won (which is, actually, stunning). And itโs encouraging to see the deeper numbers/analytics explain the Erik Palmer-Brown call-up, a long-time promising defender who is probably not meriting a ton of eyeballs at Troyes.
Thatโs not to say that heโs a beast among beasts and destined for the very upper reaches of the Bundesliga, which was once a thing. But heโs a strong player who is going to have a strong selection of very good teams from which to choose his next club this summer, and it wouldnโt be surprising if sometime soon we read a hit-piece on why heโs out of the national team fray right now, or learn that he said, โDonโt call me up if Iโm not starting.โ
I have zero proof of either, which are concocted in a logical lab, but I just canโt calculate another explanation.
Two Big Worries
Presuming the Yanks qualify for Qatar โ because if they donโt (and they wonโt), U.S. Soccer House should be the most dramatically and peacefully overturned apple cart in sports history โ there are two huge worries for U.S. menโs national team fans.
1) The omitted XI
Realistically, in how many meaningful international should an argument be able to be made that a program the stature of the United States menโs national team has 11 healthy players that could defeat any group of XI chosen from the called-up squad.
So, letโs be true here, who wins this matchup?
Called up XI
Sean Johnson, Reggie Cannon, Aaron Long, James Sands, DeAndre Yedlin, Kellyn Acosta, Luca de la Torre, Cristian Roldan, Paul Arriola, Jordan Morris, Jesus Ferreira.
Healthy and uncalled XI
Brad Guzan, John Brooks, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Tim Ream, Joe Scally, Julian Green, Frankie Amaya, Paxton Pomykal, Sebastian Lletget, Djordje Mihailovic, Josh Sargent
Guzan, Amaya, Pomykal, and Ream probably shouldnโt be a part of the discussion and Green and Greuther Furth have struggled, but could you make an argument for calling the others up over the โCalled up XIโ members (which includes Johnson, Acosta, and Yedlin who are easy to explain as members of the roster but we needed to hit 11)?
We thinks so.
2) Know-it-all arrogance limits USMNTโs ceiling
But really, it just feels at times like Berhalter is one of those managers who believes heโs operating on a higher plane, one that a writer or a player or most of his peers could not possibly understand with their non-galaxy brains. And thatโs combined with a stubborn streak thatโs made him walk from proverbial beach sand into chest-deep ocean waters, shift back and forth in his stance until heโs ankle-deep, and just hope heโs read the waves right.
And maybe that hope isnโt even coming from Berhalter, but from USMNT fans who are looking at one of the less than 20 World Cups they get to see in their lifetime (until Gianni Infantino starts staging them monthly, at least). Hope is powerful and never dies, paraphrasing the famous quote from โShawnshank Redemption,โ and to be staring down the next World Cup with varying hopeful pleas โ one that Berhalter wonโt mess up the next week or the players will overcome the nonsense and another that he wonโt bungle the World Cup once in Qatar โ is a tremendously disappointing vibe.
One Big Asterisk*
Letโs also celebrate the incredible depth of the United States menโs national team, which barely registered blips with Julian Araujo choosing Mexico for his national future and Tyler Boyd not being on the radar after starring right away following a switch from New Zealand to the USMNT.
There was a time that either of those wouldโve dominated all of our conversations โ remember Jonathan Gonzalez and Gedion Zelalem โ but are now just met with mild exhalations and groans.
Not only are MLS academies churning out top players in Major League Soccer as well as a bevy of exports to Europe, but hereโs a list of players not even mentioned above or in the player pool rankings below:
Nicholas Gioacchini, Montpellier
Konrad de la Fuente, Marseille
Mark McKenzie, Genk
Justin Che, Hoffenheim
Henry Kessler, New England
Matt Miazga, Alaves
Bryan Reynolds, AS Roma
Sam Vines, Antwerp
Shaq Moore, Tenerife
Gyasi Zardes, Columbus Crew
Jackson Yueill, San Jose
Matthew Hoppe, Mallorca
Jonathan Lewis, Colorado
Top 25 players in the USMNT player pool right now
Before we go any further with this list, hereโs a reminder of how we sort the talent with some ground rules:
- The ranking is meant to illustrate who would be most likely to positively affect a USMNT match, regardless of manager or teammates, right now.
- Health doesnโt matter to our rankings if a current injury isnโt one that could drastically alter the playerโs skill set moving forward.
- Age/potential/experience doesnโt matter either, at least not much; Itโs how likely you are to contribute to the team if put on the field right now. Obviously Konrad de la Fuente is a better long-term prospect than Gyasi Zardes, but the Columbus Crew forward is currently better prepared for the stage than the Marseille youngster.
- Finally, if youโre breaking a tie between playersโฆ ask which youโd be more upset to hear was unavailable for a USMNT camp.
Here we go
Players with an * were unavailable for this monthโs qualifiers, # went unselected, last ranking In parentheses
1.ย Christian Pulisic, Chelsea (1)
2. Tyler Adams, RB Leipzig (2)
3. Weston McKennie*, Juventus (3)
4. Timothy Weah, Lille (4)
5. Yunus Musah, Valencia (5)
6. Antonee Robinson, Fulham (6)
7. Miles Robinson, Atlanta United (13)
8. John Brooks# , Wolfsburg (18)
9. Giovanni Reyna, Borussia Dortmund (9)
10. Chris Richards*, Hoffenheim (11)
11. Walker Zimmerman, Nashville (7)
12. Jordan Pefok, BSC Young Boys (16)
13. Sergino Dest*, Barcelona (8)
14. Joe Scally#, Borussia Monchengladbach (15)
15. Brenden Aaronson, Red Bull Salzburg (12)
16. Zack Steffen, Manchester City (10)
17. Kellyn Acosta, Colorado Rapids (22)
18. Jordan Morris, Seattle Sounders (20)
19. Ricardo Pepi, Augsburg (17)
20. Gianluca Busio, Venezia (19)
21. Ethan Horvath, Nottingham Forest (NR)
22. Erik Palmer-Brown, Troyes (NR)
23. Cameron Carter-Vickers#, Celtic (NR)
24. Matt Turner*, New England Revolution, loan from Arsenal (21)
25. Cristian Roldan, Seattle Sounders (NR)
