Gregg Berhalter announced his World Cup roster today, and it looks like he’s betting on the players that he thinks are in the best shape heading into the tournament. Even if those players were not necessarily part of his squad during the qualifiers. As is the case with all countries there were some notable snubs from the final roster. Will the US miss any of these players in the tournament? These are the players that are going to be headed to Qatar.
GK: Turner, Johnson, Horvath
CB: Carter-Vickers, Long, Zimmerman, Ream
FB: Dest, Moore, Robinson, Scally, Yedlin
DM: Adams, Acosta
CM: McKennie, Musah, Aaronson, de la Torre, Roldan
W: Pulisic, Reyna, Weah, Morris
ST: Ferreira, Sargent, Wright
Zack Steffen Will Not Be Headed To Qatar
Zack Steffen started the road to the World Cup as the starting goalkeeper for the USMNT. He had some major blunders at Manchester City that hampered his confidence and he accepted to be loaned out to a Championship side to be able to get more games under his belt and perhaps compete for a spot in the World Cup. In the last few months though he hadn’t been a consistent fixture in the call-ups, so we could make the argument that the writing was on the wall for him. The position battle seems to be between Turner and Johnson still.
We’ll have to wait and see until that first game of the World Cup to know who’s going to be the starter throughout the tournament. There’s not a lot of certainty between the sticks with the USMNT though. We’re not saying Steffen would not provide that, but it’s just interesting to note that he fell off the map big time!
Ricardo Pepi May Be Missed In The World Cup
Let’s not get it twisted Ricardo Pepi’s time at FC Augsburg was abysmal in his first season of European football. He’s thankfully been able to find his footing this season in the Netherlands at FC Groningen where he’s scored 6 goals in 9 total games. Unfortunately his play with the USMNT has not been spectacular by any stretch of the imagination.
The reason though, why we mention that the team may miss him is because none of the 3 strikers that the team’s taking to the tournament have proven to be the answer either! In fact, there’s a chance that Neither, Sargent, Ferreira nor Wright get to start at that number 9 spot. The 3 up front could end up being Pulisic, Reyna, and Weah. With maybe Weah or even Pulisic taking that role as the starting number 9. Gregg Berhalter recently told The Athletic that the team was going to play with intensity and determination, but quite frankly positive thinking is only going to get you so far. Berhalter seems to have a lot of doubts when it comes to 11 players that will start versus Wales in their World Cup debut.
Matt Miazga’s Absence Could See That Back Line Suffer From Lack of Depth
Miazga’s situation is very similar to Zack Steffen’s. They started out the road to the World Cup as team regulars, but fell out of favor with Berhalter. Just like Steffen, Miazga had to fall back to a lower league team to be able to find the consistency that he was looking for. The reason why Miazga may be a snub that the team ends up regretting in the World Cup is because Long, and Zimmerman haven’t proven to be “the answer” in that back line. There’s an argument to be made that this is one of the weakest defensive teams that the US has ever taken to the World Cup. What other snubs do you think the team might miss?
