USMNT World Cup roster announcement event May 26 set for Pier 17 at the Seaport in lower Manhattan, 3 pm ET on Fox platforms.

Open to public, with registration:https://t.co/DJYnl2OlYf

— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) April 30, 2026

Hell yeah! Nothing like a hype party at 1400 central on a Tuesday.

Not sure where to put this but figured here works, I'm curious to listen to the rest of the discussion.





Full ep is here:

Quote:

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"Youth soccer in America is horrific"

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Fact.


We are now a decade removed from Jurgen Klinsmann being fired in 2016. The senior men's national team had under-performed in WC qualifiers and the powers that be decided that Bruce Arena was needed to try to qualify down the stretch.

Maybe that was needed at the top then, but consequences of that meant the decade Jurgen had put into revamping youth soccer: the cohesive and comprehensive national programming, standards, and guidelines of the Development Academy, the competitions, the scouting network, etc., was all thrown out the window.

USSF got rid of the DA completely. Left development up to MLS academies with different goals and motivations. Left MLS clubs competing with US Youth Soccer leagues and programs like ODP and US Club Soccer leagues with programs like ECNL. In cities across the country, youth soccer has been in disarray with high costs, dirty politics, and no good scouting or development standards for the USSF to help the USYNTs and USMNT pools get deeper and more talented.

Also, there may be an uptick or even a little surge in the next few years with the WC being on our soil, I think the popularity of the sport has been struggling. High cost of club soccer, our lone professional league moving off cable networks and onto apple TV+, probably a lot of factors.

I wish they had gone deeper there. But I agree with them that it's a uniquely American problem that's going to need a uniquely American solution.

I think the biggest gap is the lack of opportunity at the college level for men's soccer.

College athletics drives youth sports in America. Period. I've grown to loathe it now, btw, but since it's our uniquely American thing, we maybe ought to lean into it.

So maybe NIL presents an opportunity. USSF starts somewhere where people are nuts about their schools… SEC for example. And you approach donors and get an NIL structure that subverts Title 9. Don't give scholarships to men and mess with the school's ratio… just NIL it. Take advantage of rich donors who want to one-up their rich buddies and make men's soccer lucrative. These schools already have good soccer infrastructure for their women's programs, so it's low-hanging fruit. Do this after the World Cup when people are excited (hopefully). And maybe it needs to happen in the B1G or somewhere else where more of the rich elite donors might be amenable to such a project… but I think it could happen.

And then it takes years of this but it builds a culture where boys want to do soccer because they could have fun and get paid while going to school and then go to MLS or who knows what. Youth programs would naturally grow from there.

yes- big problem for boys youth soccer in USA.. all other sports have scholarship opportunities. all other sports have that as the big carrot. ...but Title XI means 100 men's scholarships are taken by football at most universities and thus most universities don't have men's soccer as a sport. so few scholarships drives Americans away and drives the popularity of the sport down and impacts competitiveness and overall development. ..and despite such efforts, a pro-track model with MLS youth academies cannot come close to emulating the pro tracks in other countries and would still have the whole college scholarship aspect with other sports to compete with. The MLS academies continue to sign youths that aren't American. and there aren't enough clubs with only one viable professional tier in the USA anyway. no money for that many professional soccer players here.

spot on.

but look at MLB.

Almost all the Americans are kids who grew up playing travel ball. Middle to Upper Middle class.

Guys like Jorian Wilson are rare.

🚨🇺🇸 Johnny Cardoso, set to undergo surgery as Atlético Madrid confirm and now expected to miss the World Cup. pic.twitter.com/haPX8FdqfO

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) May 11, 2026

Ugh, that sucks for him.

Muscle injury 5 weeks from the World Cup. pic.twitter.com/Qs7wGfloCc

— Tactical Manager (@ManagerTactical) May 10, 2026

Don't love this either

i read today they might have him back this weekend.

Rudyjax said:

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i read today they might have him back this weekend.

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He has been so bad this spring I would almost rather him take the rest of the month off and come back fresh

tcow715 said:

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Rudyjax said:

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i read today they might have him back this weekend.

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He has been so bad this spring I would almost rather him take the rest of the month off and come back fresh

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He hasn't been bad. he's had terrible luck which made him bad. and he's been battling injury and mental health things.

either way i'm not expecting much from him.

The kids are alright

🚨 JULIAN HALL HAT-TRICK 🚨

He's now the youngest player in MLS history to score a hat-trick!

History for the 18-year-old!! pic.twitter.com/GULV66EGrh

— Major League Soccer (@MLS) May 14, 2026

First MLS brace for our homegrown kid 🤩 pic.twitter.com/Zs0uos6H0Z

— Real Salt Lake (@realsaltlake) May 14, 2026

Aaronson just subbed out with a lower leg injury.

BREAKING: USMNT defender Chris Richards has ‘two torn ligaments in his ankle’ per Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner — who says it's "50/50" if he can play in the UEFA Conference League final.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is in three weeks.

Oh no. 😰 pic.twitter.com/EjHgglaVVw

— USMNT Only (@usmntonly) May 21, 2026

Five days before WC rosters apparently

Crap

50/50 if he can play in 6 days with two torn ankle ligaments? I'm confused.

In a perfect world, we win the first two games without him, have the group locked up, get him some playing time in the final group match on 6/25, and he's good to go for the knockout round.

Europe uses "torn" instead of "strain", so this is likely strained ligaments in his ankle. Still not great going into the world cup but better than a full tear.

tcow715 said:

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Europe uses "torn" instead of "strain", so this is likely strained ligaments in his ankle. Still not great going into the world cup but better than a full tear.

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Yea I was thinking either the coach is an idiot or he has to mean strain

Technically a sprain is a tear but we use tear for fully torn.

losing more faith in this tourney by the day. Still hard to fathom how much of a bust Poch has been to this point. Would be quite a magical turnaround if he can get us through knockout.

I say we throw obscene numbers at Pep for 2028 cycle.

zgolfz85 said:

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losing more faith in this tourney by the day. Still hard to fathom how much of a bust Poch has been to this point. Would be quite a magical turnaround if he can get us through knockout.

I say we throw obscene numbers at Pep for 2028 cycle.

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Unless pep can also bring the best players with him, I dont think he'd sort us out.

Yeah if he hasn't been ruled out for that game, this is barely an issue for us… unless he plays anyways when he shouldn't be playing and injures it further.

If he skips that and rests, he ought to be good to go for us.

zgolfz85 said:

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losing more faith in this tourney by the day. Still hard to fathom how much of a bust Poch has been to this point. Would be quite a magical turnaround if he can get us through knockout.

I say we throw obscene numbers at Pep for 2028 cycle.

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Not sure Pep's style fits our player pool. Iraola isn't back for Bournemouth and I don't think it's known where he's going to end up. He's been awesome the past couple years there.

Vessel said:

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zgolfz85 said:

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losing more faith in this tourney by the day. Still hard to fathom how much of a bust Poch has been to this point. Would be quite a magical turnaround if he can get us through knockout.

I say we throw obscene numbers at Pep for 2028 cycle.

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Not sure Pep's style fits our player pool. Iraola isn't back for Bournemouth and I don't think it's known where he's going to end up. He's been awesome the past couple years there.

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You're right, but couldn't be any worse than Poch's WC run up. Man I hope it's an anomaly.

Honestly, I'm convinced our problems require an American to understand. Who that guy is, I have no idea - but our situation is so different from everywhere else in the world.

deadbq03 said:

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Honestly, I'm convinced our problems require an American to understand. Who that guy is, I have no idea - but our situation is so different from everywhere else in the world.

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I think you're right, but it doesn't make any sense. It'd be one thing if we were still a roster predominantly made up of MLS players, but our squad is almost exclusively made up of players across the top leagues around the globe now, and mostly European. Just so strange.

The guys in Europe are a big part of what makes it a unique challenge (travel, motivation, cohesion).

Also a European coach simply isn't ready for the CONCACAF ****show. Poch is far better equipped here than Klinsmann was, but he also seemed surprised by certain things.