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Washington Post
13 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Unpacking the Christian Pulisic Gold Cup drama
Sports Unpacking the Christian Pulisic Gold Cup drama June 20, 2025 | 8:18 PM GMT The U.S. Men's National Team star has chosen to sit out some games this summer. Ella Brockway and Ava Wallace break down the aftermath of his decision.
USA Today
a day ago
- Sport
- USA Today
USMNT vs. Saudi Arabia: Time, how to watch Gold Cup match
USMNT vs. Saudi Arabia: Time, how to watch Gold Cup match Show Caption Hide Caption Weston McKennie: Landon Donovan's dig at Christian Pulisic was sad U.S. Men's National Team standout Weston McKennie reacts to Landon Donovan's comments regarding Christian Pulisic. Sports Seriously The U.S. men's national team ended a four-game losing streak in emphatic fashion on Sunday, June 15, cruising to a 5-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago in its Concacaf Gold Cup opener. The USMNT — which is playing the tournament without a number of its key players, including Christian Pulisic — should get a sterner test from its next Gold Cup opponent: Saudi Arabia. Just two and a half years ago, Saudi Arabia pulled off a World Cup stunner, upsetting eventual champion Argentina in the tournament's group stage in Qatar. In Sunday's win, Malik Tillman was a standout performer for the U.S., scoring two goals. Patrick Agyemang, Brenden Aaronson and Haji Wright also scored goals in the rout. Manager Mauricio Pochettino will be looking for the team to carry over the impressive form from its Gold Cup opener into its next game against Saudi Arabia. Here's what to know for Thursday night's Concacaf Gold Cup match between the USMNT and Saudi Arabia: The Concacaf Gold Cup group stage game pairing the USMNT with Saudi Arabia is set for 9:15 p.m. ET at Q2 Stadium in Austin, Texas. Q2 Stadium is the regular home of Austin FC of Major League Soccer. CONCACAF GOLD CUP: How to watch, game times, USMNT and Mexico schedule Time: 9:15 p.m. ET 9:15 p.m. ET Location: Q2 Stadium (Austin, Texas) Q2 Stadium (Austin, Texas) TV: FS1 (TUDN for Spanish-language broadcast) FS1 (TUDN for Spanish-language broadcast) Stream: Fubo Watch USMNT vs. Saudi Arabia with a free trial of Fubo Sunday, June 15: 5-0 win vs. Trinidad and Tobago 5-0 win vs. Trinidad and Tobago Thursday, June 19: vs. Saudi Arabia, 9:15 p.m. ET (FS1) vs. Saudi Arabia, 9:15 p.m. ET (FS1) Sunday, June 22: vs. Haiti, 7 p.m. ET (FOX) The Gold Cup is a biennial tournament for national teams in the North and Central American and Caribbean region associated with Concacaf. Mexico (nine times), the U.S. (seven times) and Canada (one time) are the only nations to have won the Gold Cup. Mexico won the last Gold Cup competition in 2023. Goalkeepers (3): Chris Brady (Chicago Fire), Matt Freese (New York City FC), Matt Turner (Crystal Palace/England) Defenders (9): Max Arfsten (Columbus Crew), Alex Freeman (Orlando City SC), Nathan Harriel (Philadelphia Union), Mark McKenzie (Toulouse/France), Tim Ream (Charlotte FC), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace/England), Miles Robinson (FC Cincinnati), John Tolkin (Holstein Kiel/Germany), Walker Zimmerman (Nashville SC) Midfielders (9): Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United/England); Tyler Adams (Bournemouth/England), Sebastian Berhalter (Vancouver Whitecaps/Canada), Johnny Cardoso (Real Betis/Spain), Luca de la Torre (San Diego FC), Diego Luna (Real Salt Lake), Jack McGlynn (Houston Dynamo), Quinn Sullivan (Philadelphia Union), Malik Tillman (PSV Eindhoven/Netherlands) Forwards (5): Paxten Aaronson (FC Utrecht/Netherlands), Patrick Agyemang (Charlotte FC), Damion Downs (FC Köln/Germany), Brian White (Vancouver Whitecaps/Canada), Haji Wright (Coventry City/England)
Yahoo
a day ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Gold Cup 2025: Why Mauricio Pochettino's vision for the USMNT starts with culture, not results
AUSTIN, Texas — Weeks after the U.S. men's national team named its initial summer roster, the dominant conversation was not about who made the squad — but who didn't. Most of the core group was absent due to injuries, Club World Cup duties, or, in Christian Pulisic's case, a hotly debated need for rest. In their place, head coach Mauricio Pochettino refreshed the roster not just to evaluate fresh faces, but to ignite more competition in his player pool. A 4-0 loss to Switzerland in the team's final Gold Cup warm-up suggested Pochettino's omissions — the 'football decisions,' in his words — had backfired. But a commanding 5-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago to open the tournament paused early doubts. Advertisement Pochettino's project, however, runs deeper than scorelines. After March's deflating Nations League defeats to Panama and Canada, Pochettino began challenging the team's internal standards. 'What we want to create in our national team is people desperate to come, desperate to perform,' he said. 'To perform means follow the rules, create [a] good atmosphere, be part of the team, be able, in every single aspect, [to meet] our [federation's] demand and understand that it's possible (for it to) be the last [opportunity] to be with us.' Then he made his point clearer. 'If you arrive to the camp and you want to spend a nice time, play golf, go for a dinner, visit my family, visit my friend — is that the culture that we want to create? No, no, no, no, no. What we want to do is to go to the national team, arrive and be focused. And spend all my focus and energy on the national team. Because we need to create this culture about winning.' Advertisement Pochettino insisted he wasn't punishing individual players for the Nations League losses. But collectively, he clearly sought to adjust their approach to camp. It was always going to be a tricky balance after he inherited a veteran-heavy squad from Gregg Berhalter, one with a European pedigree that is unprecedented in USMNT history. And for players who spend most of their year abroad, coming back to U.S. soil — and U.S. camps — often means carving out time for family and friends. 'When we speak about the mentality of the national team, and you look at the most successful teams in the world, a lot of them go in to camp, and they stay at one place the entire time and travel to games,' midfielder Tyler Adams said the day before a friendly against Türkiye in Hartford, Connecticut, just 90 miles from his hometown in New York. 'Based off the geography of the country, we're traveling all over the place. We're obviously playing abroad, and we come back home and it is nice to see your families. But we have to find the right balance.' USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino is reshaping the team's culture ahead of the 2026 World Cup. (Photo by John Todd/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images) (John Todd/ISI Photos/USSF via Getty Images) Adams, who captained the squad at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, will again be central to building that culture over the next year. So will center back Chris Richards, who has emerged as a leader this cycle and wore the armband against Türkiye. Advertisement 'There's a line that we kind of need to teeter-totter,' Richards said in Nashville, a few hours from his hometown in Alabama. 'Sometimes in our off time, we'd want to go hang out with family a lot more than the guys are at the camp. But again, I think if you need to make this new culture with new guys, that you have to spend time with each other outside of the pitch. … It's finding the line between friends and family, but also blending both of them, so that we have a good culture both on and off the pitch.' Walker Zimmerman, a Georgia native and Nashville SC center back, echoed that view after starting against Switzerland. 'He's just stressing the point that we need to be focused each and every day, especially in training,' Zimmerman said. 'But I also think this staff is really good about, 'Hey, when you have the day off, you can have the day off.' You gotta have a work-life balance and enjoy it.' And to a certain extent, Pochettino agrees. Before the Switzerland friendly, he emphasized the point with a typically lengthy response. Advertisement 'I am the first person with my coaching staff who likes the players to be able to have free time,' he said. ' … They're young boys, the young boys need to have different possibilities to be able to do things that are in this moment, when you are young. What I always say is when you have your work done, when your responsibilities are covered, after, yes, we can do all that we want. What we can't do is not have all those things covered and I go out for a walk. If I don't have my work done, I can't go for a walk in Nashville to see the city. I do my work, and then I go to see Nashville.' The Argentine circled back to an earlier comment he had made that drew attention: his criticism of golf outings and dinner plans during camp. What he's really after, he stressed, is a fight-to-the-death level of intensity and energy on the field. 'I want 11 lions. Or wolves. Or the animal that you may like the most — the most aggressive. [I want players] on the field that may fight as if there had been death,' Pochettino explained. 'But if we do all of that and enjoy life but after we don't fight like a team, a true team, we raise a lot of doubts. It means there's something that isn't well, that isn't balanced. The balance is the most important in all the soccer teams.' Adams summed it up more succinctly: Advertisement 'He talks about balance quite a lot, and mak[ing] sure that we understand that we need to be top professionals. That's the most important thing.' Pochettino believes that there is a specific psychological uniqueness to soccer compared to other team sports in the U.S., and he is not trying to create an overly regimented environment. 'This isn't a closed system, it's not the navy, it's not a military camp,' he said. 'It's a soccer team that has to prepare itself to compete against another soccer team.' Zimmerman added: 'It's not like we're locked down at a hotel or anything like that, but from a culture standpoint, yeah, we're focusing on the intensity in trainings, the intensity in the games and being competitive as a group.' Advertisement And when the Gold Cup began, the natural constraints of tournament life reinforced the shift. 'Everybody's been focused on maximizing rest,' center back Mark McKenzie said. 'Preparing ourselves with the training sessions, preparing ourselves with little things you do after the training sessions. And then when we get back to the hotel, kick your feet up. We got a player's lounge and what not. So guys have time to laugh and joke and be together, continue to build on what we're doing, but most important is making sure we're ready for the next match.' It won't be the same group traveling throughout the U.S. next summer during the World Cup. But there could be more players on this Gold Cup roster than expected who will crack the squad or have a substantial role, and they'll all have been part of a process Pochettino is prioritizing — calibrating a culture — that is definitely on a tight schedule. Advertisement 'We're all professional,' midfielder Brenden Aaronson said ahead of Thursday's group stage match against Saudi Arabia. 'We all know what we're gonna do and what's needed of us and how we're gonna approach every situation. So for us, it was like, we're gonna go out there and be really, really focused on the tournament. I think we always are, but for him to say that, and he had something to say about it, so for us it was just tunnel vision. Tunnel vision and just gonna come here and not do any of that type of stuff, and be really focused.' This is Pochettino's only tournament prior to the World Cup, and if the U.S. makes a deep run next summer, the intangible progress toward a winning culture will be spun as its legacy.
New York Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- New York Times
Christian Pulisic USMNT situation is ‘unfortunate' but crazy to question his love for football says Tim Weah
USMNT forward Timothy Weah says that it is 'crazy' to question his and teammate Christian Pulisic's love of football after the national team captain opted to miss his side's Gold Cup tournament. As reported by The Athletic on May 22, Pulisic was not selected to be a part of the U.S.'s Gold Cup roster. Advertisement The 26-year-old winger seemingly wanted a break after a long season with AC Milan, as he had been nursing and playing through several slight injuries over the course of the Serie A campaign. Pulisic's decision has provoked some criticism, but he told CBS's Call It What You Want podcast that he was doing 'what I felt was best for my body'. The USMNT head coach, Mauricio Pochettino, did not select the forward for his side's pre-Gold Cup friendlies. The Argentine coach opted to pick one roster for both the June friendlies and the Gold Cup rather than allow Pulisic to play just the two friendlies before departing for a summer of rest Weah, who is also missing the Gold Cup due to his participation in the Club World Cup with Juventus, said after his side's 5-0 victory over Al Ain on Wednesday: 'The situation with Christian, that's unfortunate. 'Obviously, you have all these guys talking behind the scenes, which, at the end of the day, we just want to play football. I think to question our love for the game or our love for the badge. It's kind of crazy, but we just got to let them speak and show it out on the field. 'I'm rooting for those guys at the Gold Cup. I'm following them, the whole way. And hopefully they're gonna bring the cup home.' The hope is that resting Pulisic in the Gold Cup will give him a better chance at being healthy for next season and, by extension, next summer's World Cup. Also absent at the Gold Cup is Weah's Juventus club-mate Weston McKennie. 'I think they have a camp group chat, but I'm always in touch with the guys, obviously,' Weah continued. 'I'm just keeping up with them, making sure that everything's on the right track and we're heading in the right direction. 'It's important to stay in touch. I wish I could have been there, but I have club duties.' Advertisement 'I actually haven't talked to Pochettino yet, but I'm always the guy to reach out to a coach and ask. I hope everything's going well, and I can't wait to be back in camp in September.' After the U.S.'s 5-0 opening day victory over Trinidad and Tobago, they are next in action against Saudi Arabia on Friday while McKennie and Weah will face Wydad in their second Club World Cup group stage game on Sunday.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Deserted stadiums, marines deployed on the streets and Mauricio Pochettino's team at a crossroads: Is the US really ready to host the World Cup in less than a year?
It isn't the most auspicious moment to be marking one year out from the next World Cup. US Marines have been deployed to restore order in one of the host cities, Los Angeles, and USA men's team manager Mauricio Pochettino has been engaged in verbal combat of his own with star player Christian Pulisic. Chelsea 's opening Club World Cup game played out in a deserted stadium on Monday night. From the outside looking in, it's tempting to ask: 'Is the US actually ready to help stage the 2026 tournament?' Roger Bennett, the podcaster and broadcaster who through his hugely popular Men in Blazers shows has become the voice of Premier League football for millions in the US, offers the experience of June 17, 1994, by way of answering this question. He'd just arrived in Chicago from his native Liverpool, to be told by many Americans that the imminent US World Cup held no interest for them. He arrived at Chicago's Soldier Field stadium for the opening game, Germany v Bolivia, to find the place swamped with fans. 'Before that World Cup, there were studies saying that no one cared and no one would go but it was delirious,' he says. 'America loves a circus. We love a party.' That 1994 tournament still holds the record for the highest total attendance, at 3.57 million, and the highest average attendance at 68,626. Building a US men's national team which might flourish is the difficult bit. Before beating Trinidad and Tobago in the Concacaf Gold Cup on Sunday, Pochettino's side had lost four straight games and Pulisic needled Pochettino by declaring himself too tired to play the tournament. Even Bennett, an eternal optimist who loves this generation of Pulisic, at AC Milan, Weston McKennie at Juventus, Crystal Palace 's Chris Richards and Bournemouth 's Tyler Adams – one of Men in Blazers' podcasters, wonders whether Pochettino will be able to bring them all together. 'There's something about America where on the men's side we feel such pressure,' he says. 'Where we know that you know that we desperately want this and it's the one place where the rest of the world can laugh at how much we've not succeeded. 'So, to some degree we've always over complicated it. In the modern period, we tried to make them play dazzling football. We've tried to swagger rather than play effective football. We don't have to be Barcelona 2009/10 to win! We just have to bloody win games!' History tells us that the current geopolitical concerns will temporarily melt away when the opening game - Thursday, 11 June 2026 at the iconic Estadio Azteca Mexico City – comes around, Bennett says. Even though the travel bans on 12 countries, which Donald Trump is considering extending to 48, could render many nations' fans persona non grata. The people of Iran, already qualified, are banned. Cuba, Haiti, Sudan and Sierra Leone, all subject to travel bans, are in contention to qualify. On Trump's possible extended banned list, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Egpyt, Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia all still harbour hopes of reaching the finals. 'Right now, the world is in chaos, the geopolitics are utterly dispiriting and I only hope that the mechanism that's always kicked in when that first ball is kicked happens again,' Bennett says. 'And that we do, however fleetingly, feel united. That's testament to the power of football.' His abundant positivity reflects the tone of the Men in Blazers shows in which he approaches interviewees from a position of reverence and fascination, and a stellar list of Premier League managers and players and celebrity guests have been keen to appear. 'We are watching human decision-making in moments of transcendent glory and howling mistakes,' Bennett says of these people's professional challenges. 'Managers leading in the most strategic and highly evolved and complex ways. We will never take that for granted.' Broadcast on the NBC Sports network, which has the US rights to the Premier League, the main show has featured Pep Guardiola describing his friendship with Boston Celtics' basketball coach Joe Mazzulla and Mo Salah discussing the importance of chess in his life with Swedish grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, a guest on the same show as him. Cole Palmer admitting he borrows his mate's Spotify account and Mikel Arteta discussing the value of his chocolate labrador to the Arsenal team ethic. 'You want the player to lean in,' Bennett says. Carlsen, incidentally, revealed that Trent Alexander-Arnold last eight moves longer in a chess match against him than Bill Gates had. These are no ordinary conversations. It's propelled Men in Blazers – which takes its name from the classic trope of American sports broadcasting teams wearing matching blazers when on air - from a single podcast-turned-television show in 2010, to a media network with strands for the Premier League/Champions League, the women's game, and Hispanic fans. It will broadcast 2,000 shows this year and as a media company is now bigger than the MLS. The growth reflects the way the US has fallen for the Premier League and European football since 1994. Bennett likes to tell a story of how, soon after he'd arrived from his native Merseyside, his beloved Everton had reached the 1995 FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham, yet nowhere on his '365 cable channels' could he find a broadcast of it. He called his father, who held a transistor radio broadcasting the commentary of Liverpool station Radio City to the phone. 'We've come so far, so fast,' Bennett says. NBC, which just paid $2.7 billion for a new six-year rights deal, says the Premier League reached more than 30 million viewers last year, up from around 13 million in 2012. The Club World Cup, with its half-deserted stadiums, is no reflection on the US appetite for football, Bennett insists. 'I would not say it is a campaign that's been put together in the most thoughtful fashion,' he observes. 'The American audience has become so much more discerning and knowledgeable about which football to spend their dollars on. While this feels like a tournament which is being workshopped, the World Cup is being put together meticulously.' Men in Blazers recently raised $15 million to support its plans for next summer, with the joint venture co-founded by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney to buy Wrexham and the fund headed by Crystal Palace co-owner David Blitzer among the investors. It will host live pre-game shows during the tournament in eight of the 11 US host cities, including Atlanta, LA, Houston and Philadelphia. 'Those places are going to incredible lengths to seize the moment,' Bennett says. 'Philadelphia will be celebrating its 250th anniversary as the birthplace of the nation next year. Houston is the least known and will become the most beloved.' The US, it must be said, is not the only host country: 13 matches will be played in both Canada and Mexico. The 60,000 dollar question is whether Pochettino's side will be a competitive irrelevance and merely incidental to a tournament which is poised to create $13bn of revenue, according to New York Times analysis. 'It pains me to hear those words,' Bennett says of that question. 'There is a scenario where the US hosts a World Cup on home turf and score one of the biggest one goals on home turf by just never being ready. 'On paper, Poch is what America needs. A man who talks about 'grinta' ('grit') fight, struggle, a willingness to do whatever it takes to win. At Spurs, it took him a moment with that team he inherited. Getting ridding of the players who weren't willing to give, looking at who were his people - Eric Dier, Ryan Mason and Harry Kane, who back then had been on loan at Norwich and Millwall – and making them his players. 'We're at a crossroads for Poch and this team. We're a year out and the World Cup feels like it's tomorrow for them. Time is very short. So, the real question is can he find his people, sift through and find a core where he can build that culture of fight and struggle?' His uncertainty belongs to an eternal fascination with football which has built Bennett such a following.
