Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
The USMNT will announce its World Cup roster on Wednesday. Which strikers will make the cut?
The United States men’s national soccer team will announce its roster for the 2022 World Cup on Wednesday evening.
The striker position has been in flux for most of the year but with just two weeks until kickoff in, some clarity has started to emerge.
Before the roster is revealed, here’s the final edition of Pro Soccer Wire’s 2022 striker stock watch series, with players ranked 1-3 expected to make the flight to Qatar.
That’s five goals in six games for Pepi
Ricardo Pepi is loving life in the Netherlands.
The U.S. men’s national team striker scored a 90th minute goal as Groningen strolled to a 3-0 win over FC Dordrecht in the first round of the KNVB Cup.
The tap-in marked his fifth goal in six games since moving to Groningen on loan from Augsburg. Pepi’s instant success has made him an every-game starter for head coach Frank Wormuth, and he played the full 90 minutes as Groningen comfortably beat their second-division opponents.
While scoring the goal required little more than side-footing into an empty net from the doorstep, Pepi’s work rate was the key to the chance ever happening. With Dordrecht in possession and looking to spark any kind of hope for a miraculous comeback, Pepi dipped back into the midfield to catch Toine van Huizen by surprise.
Pepi pounced to knock the ball back to Ragnar Oratmangoen, and then took off to join the counter-attack. Oratmangoen fed Florian Krüger on the right, and Groningen quickly had two players in against Dordrecht goalkeeper Trevor Doornbusch. Krüger drew Doornbusch out before passing to Pepi, who effectively walked the ball over the line to end the game as a contest.
The difficulty for Pepi and Groningen will go up a level or two this weekend, as they face a difficult home match against second-place PSV on Sunday.
Provided he stays healthy, Pepi’s place on the USMNT roster for the World Cup seems secure. However, for Gregg Berhalter, the fact that Pepi keeps scoring is a significant boost, particularly coming in the same week that Jordan Pefok and Josh Sargent both had to leave matches early due to minor knocks.
Pepi goal in the KNVB Cup. He’s unlucky not to have scored more today he’s had a handful of good chances. pic.twitter.com/h4Eb4MgIf7
— Qatar🔜 (@GETSOCCERD) October 19, 2022
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Who will make Gregg Berhalter’s list?
We’ll know the 26-player U.S. men’s national team roster for the 2022 World Cup in less than a month.
U.S. Soccer announced Thursday that they will announce the full squad heading to Qatar on Wednesday, November 9, at Brooklyn Steel in New York City.
ESPN2 and ESPN+ will broadcast the event, with coverage beginning at 5:00pm Eastern. Gregg Berhalter and some players from the squad will be present in person.
In World Cups past, the run-up would mean a roster reveal coming out as far as a month before the tournament. However, with Qatar holding the World Cup in November and December, in the thick of the European club season, the announcement will come just 12 days before the USMNT opens its schedule against Wales on November 21. Many players will likely have one more round of club matches the following weekend before joining up with the USMNT and heading to a pre-tournament training camp in Qatar.
USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter is expected to call up one of the youngest squads going to the World Cup. Per data from U.S. Soccer, the average age of the USMNT in their 14 qualifying matches was 23.82, making them by some distance the most youthful group to qualify for the tournament.
Berhalter will have some tough calls to make over the next few weeks. A dispiriting pair of friendlies against Japan and Saudi Arabia saw few players improve their stock, and while important players like Christian Pulisic and Ricardo Pepi have since gotten into better form with their clubs, fans are justifiably nervous with the group’s struggles in their last pair of rehearsals.
It feels as though there are few roster mysteries, provided that some key players stay healthy. Recent call-ups like Johnny Cardoso and Sam Vines appear to be on the outside looking in, while striker Brandon Vazquez has said that Berhalter told him it was too late to integrate him.
With Berhalter seemingly not particularly moved by Jordan Pefok’s excellent start with Union Berlin, the strike force question also seems close to settled. Center back should see the most heated competition, though that stems in part from injuries and poor showings in September for several candidates.
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Knock on wood but … the USMNT’s injury situation is looking quite rosy a month before Qatar
If there’s one thing the September window showed, it’s that the U.S. men’s national team desperately needs a select few players to be healthy.
Shorn of the injured Yunus Musah, Antonee Robinson and Tim Weah, the USMNT struggled badly in its two friendlies. Clearly the team’s issues went deeper than that trio’s absence, but the Americans’ awful displays would’ve at least been lifted with their presence.
This weekend saw a number of Americans abroad find the net, but no development was more important than the return to the pitch of Musah, Robinson and Weah.
The USMNT seems to be getting healthy at the right time. Knock on wood.
Let’s get to the Five.
The striker has four goals in four games with Groningen thus far
Ricardo Pepi continues to enjoy life in the Netherlands.
The U.S. men’s national team striker scored two goals for Groningen on Friday, as his side fell 3-2 to RKC Waalwijk in an Eredivisie match.
Pepi has played just four games for Groningen since joining on loan from Augsburg but he’s now scored four goals and added an assist in those matches.
It’s a notable turnaround for the 19-year-old, who failed to score or assist a goal for Augsburg after a $20 million move from FC Dallas in January.
Pepi scored from the penalty spot in the first half of Friday’s game, before adding another in the second half after some neat combination play with Florian Krüger.
— Eredivisie Goals (@EredivisieGolBR) October 7, 2022
Per Opta, Pepi has now become the first player this century to be directly involved in five goals in his first four Eredivisie matches with Groningen.
Pepi’s scoring blitz, of course, comes at a most opportune time for his World Cup chances. Having been handed a surprise recall for last month’s USMNT friendlies, the striker is doing everything he can at the club level to keep himself right in the mix for a World Cup roster spot.
With just one month until Gregg Berhalter names his 26-man squad, more night’s like Friday could see Pepi find his way onto the plane for Qatar.
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Could this be the start of another fightback at Chelsea for Christian Pulisic?
Ahead of Saturday’s game against Crystal Palace, Graham Potter acknowledged the relationship between Christian Pulisic and his predecessor Thomas Tuchel had at times been frosty.
“I can only comment on him in terms of how he’s been with me,” Chelsea manager Potter said of the USMNT star. “Really positive, he’s an intelligent guy, articulate, knows how to express himself.
“My conversation with him has been good and positive, I’m not going to judge anybody on what has happened in the past, I’m going to make my own mind up. Football hopefully decides.”
Pulisic has been out of favor before with Chelsea, and has always managed to fight his way back. His game-winning assist against Palace, then, could be the start of another fightback for the USMNT star. Or it could be a false dawn.
That assist did come from Pulisic’s favored left-wing position, rather than the wingback spot he’s played so often this season. If Potter at least gives Pulisic a chance at his best position, then the American star will back himself to prove his worth. Football hopefully decides.
Pepi bounced back from a rough USMNT window in the best way
Ricardo Pepi is wasting no time in bouncing back from an unpleasant international break.
The U.S. men’s national team struggled in the September FIFA window, with Pepi among the players who didn’t come away from friendlies against Japan and Saudi Arabia looking their best.
However, a key aspect for a good striker is to shake it off and be ready for the next one, and that’s just what Pepi did Saturday, scoring for Groningen in his first game back as they squared off with AZ.
In many ways, the goal was incredibly simple. Groningen, trailing 2-0 at the time, took a goal kick short. With AZ pressing high, defender Neraysho Kasanwirjo ended up going long to find an outlet.
From there, the goal was all Pepi. His slashing run across the path of Maxim Dekker cut the defender (who eventually stumbled and fell down) off. Still, AZ’s Sam Beukema had the better angle to chase the bouncing ball down, getting in front of Pepi as the ball bounced into the box.
Beukema couldn’t put the brakes on fast enough, though, and that gave Pepi a chance to muscle his way within reach of the ball. He took a touch, spinning away from Beukema as both fell to the ground, but still had the composure to swing around and fire a shot off before goalkeeper Hobie Verhulst could close the angle down.
It’s still early days for Pepi with Groningen, but the move is looking like exactly what he needed. In three appearances since moving there on loan from Augsburg, the USMNT No. 9 has been involved with a goal in every game. He got an assist in his debut, and scored in Groningen’s next match, ending a nearly year-long slump in front of goal.
🇨🇷 Ricardo Pepi
🇨🇷 Ricardo Pepi
🇨🇷 Ricardo Pepi
FC Groningen 1-2 AZ Alkmaar#GROAZ pic.twitter.com/bQRuCtm6xn— ' Burak | #Eredivisie 🇹🇷🇳🇱 (@hollandaligleri) October 1, 2022
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Too many USMNT arrows are pointing down rather than up
The U.S. men’s national team came into September’s international window hoping to find clarity and belief, but after two dispiriting performances, they certainly didn’t get the answers they wanted.
If anything, more players saw their stock drop, and in many cases there’s no recourse beyond hoping they go back to their clubs and tear it up. Gregg Berhalter has plenty to chew on over the next several weeks, but he was probably hoping to have more “good problems” than what he’s looking at right now.
Who hurt their chances of playing a major role at the World Cup? And who seems more important today than they did a few weeks ago? Let’s check the markets and see where the individuals are trending.
We have to start with the fact that the USMNT, against two very different systems, struggled with progressing the ball from their back line into the midfield. There were multiple causes for that problem, but the one that stood out more than the rest was that the center backs were both inaccurate with their passes, and very predictable with their intentions.
Walker Zimmerman wasn’t at his best, but for Long, the possession side of things was a major source of concern. Injuries to Chris Richards and Cameron Carter-Vickers didn’t help, and Berhalter ended up subbing Long off in both games to get a look at Mark McKenzie.
The fact that Long started both games seems to indicate that Berhalter holds him in esteem, but it’s not like he lacks for competition. With Richards vying for time in the Bundesliga and all of McKenzie, Carter-Vickers, and Palmer-Brown all getting regular minutes at European clubs, Long’s form with the New York Red Bulls will need to be much sharper than what we saw in this window to ensure his place on the plane to Qatar.
There’s a lot of talk at the moment about whether Berhalter simply prefers Steffen to the extent that the starting goalkeeper job is a settled issue. That seems unlikely, but either way, Turner was the best USMNT player in this window, and there’s not much more someone can do than that.
The worry for Turner coming into this camp was that he’d played just one competitive match since moving to Arsenal this summer. Those fears of lost sharpness or confidence ended up being unfounded, as Turner was precise, fundamentally sharp, and kept Japan from walking away with a bigger margin of victory. He had less to do in the second friendly, but still responded well when called upon.
Based on recent play with the USMNT, it’s Turner that should have the edge to start against Wales on November 21. If Steffen is going to win that job, he’s going to have to impress with Middlesbrough in very short order.
Reyna’s place in the USMNT squad isn’t in question, and when healthy, he’s obviously one of the best players in the entire pool. Berhalter is frankly lucky to have Reyna and Tim Weah possibly vying for one spot (we hear you, play-Weah-centrally advocates, but it really doesn’t seem like Berhalter is interested).
But despite some initial success with Borussia Dortmund’s cautious approach to his season, Reyna was once again having to come out of the game due to what Berhalter said post-game was some muscle tightness.
Dortmund boss Edin Terzić has since announced that Reyna’s recovery time is less than two weeks, which is the good news. The bad news is that on a team with several other key players who aren’t exactly the most durable, it’s now worth wondering whether the USMNT can lean on Reyna as a starter in a World Cup match. At the very least, they need to enter each game with a very specific plan on how they’ll adapt if he pulls up.
It’s not that Scally was a revelation against Saudi Arabia. Rather, the fact that he managed to get high and wide in the attack on a regular basis meant that he had to be accounted for, which had a positive ripple effect for the USMNT going forward.
The USMNT doesn’t function well without a fullback taking care of this task, and with Antonee Robinson missing out due to injury, no other fullback in camp was able to reliably get to the right places at the right time. Berhalter gave this responsibility to Sam Vines against Japan, and then to DeAndre Yedlin on the other side against Saudi Arabia, before Scally’s movement allowed for some more familiar patterns of play to take hold.
It wasn’t a good camp for the USMNT fullback pool in general, so Scally — who has had something of a difficult time getting call-ups, despite being a reliable starter at Borussia Mönchengladbach — is benefitting from simply not doing too badly while others disappointed. But then, that’s kind of the story of this entire international window, and being a player who didn’t run into some kind of problem means Scally’s odds of being on the final 26-man roster should be better today than they were two weeks ago.
Progress isn’t linear, and anyone hoping that Pepi finally breaking his long goal drought meant that he’d come roaring into this USMNT camp was disappointed by how he struggled to really get enough touches to be a factor against Saudi Arabia.
Some of that was simply the entire team struggling to break into the attacking third with consistency, and there’s only so much Pepi can do to fix that. He’s not a channel-running No. 9, and he’s not going to drop off the front line as a false nine either. If the team can’t get out of their own end, he’s not going to be involved.
But the real reason Pepi’s stock fell a bit is that Jesús Ferreira came in, and the USMNT attack instantly started finding angles it hadn’t been seeing earlier. Ferreira has taken some flack for jumping too early for a header against Japan, and he didn’t bury any looks against Saudi Arabia, but the entire attack was more lively once he came on. Not to get too into the weeds on modern soccer thinking, but an attack that is creating chances is believed to be better for winning games than a team that can’t get out of second gear going forward.
With Ferreira seeming to be the best fit for the players around him, Jordan Pefok being the hot hand as a finisher, and both Pepi and Josh Sargent skewing towards being best as pressing forwards, it feels like Berhalter has to sort through some tough questions. There’s a really good case to be made for there only being one spot for Pepi and Sargent, given that they’re the two most similar players in this group.
For Pepi, the best cure would be to light it up over the next few weeks at Groningen. If his profile becomes pressing/target man who is also scoring regularly, the questions here are not nearly as pointed. It’s just that, like we said, progress isn’t linear, and one goal in nearly a year could be a blip rather than the start of things to come.
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The winger missed Friday’s defeat to Japan with a minor injury
Christian Pulisic will return for the U.S. men’s national team in Tuesday’s friendly against Saudi Arabia, according to U.S. Soccer.
Pulisic missed Friday’s 2-0 defeat to Japan with what U.S. Soccer called a “knock he took in training earlier this week.”
But the federation calmed any fears over Pulisic’s status on Monday, announcing that he would start against the Saudis along with Ricardo Pepi.
https://twitter.com/USMNT/status/1574394679638085634
The USMNT will be looking for an improved performance on Tuesday in Murcia, Spain after struggling badly against Japan. Pulisic and Pepi will look to bolster an attack that failed to muster a single shot on target against the Samurai Blue.
Jesús Ferreira started at striker against Japan and Josh Sargent came on at the break but neither was able to threaten consistently, giving Pepi a chance to impress against Saudi Arabia.
Pepi was called in to USMNT camp after recently breaking a scoring slump for club and country that reached nearly a year.
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How much does club form really matter for Gregg Berhalter?
How much does club form matter for the U.S. national team?
To a certain extent, a lot. Gregg Berhalter would find it hard to call up any players outside his core group who aren’t at least getting regular minutes with their club side.
But as this past week has shown, Berhalter also has a pretty clear idea of which players fit his system and which don’t — and no amount of club success is going to change that.
To wit, let’s look at the examples of two strikers in Europe who have experienced vastly different fates over the past year, and what their USMNT status says about club form.
Let’s get to the Five.
