When Weston McKennie signed for Juventus in 2020, it had only been 30 days since Andrea Pirlo was made the Italian club’s manager. A few weeks ago, Luciano Spalletti was appointed as Juve’s fifth manager since McKennie joined – or his seventh, if you count the interim head coaches. It’s not a new situation for the American. But according to US men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino, it’s why McKennie isn’t with the US during their upcoming friendlies with Paraguay on Saturday and Uruguay on Tuesday.
Pochettino could have selected McKennie, trusting that Spalletti is the first Juventus manager in years to be instantly convinced of the multifunctional Texan’s value. Rather than the usual routine of a manager trying to push McKennie out of the club, only to realize that there’s a reason only three players in the squad have been at the club longer, Spalletti has given McKennie starts in all three matches he’s overseen. The 27-year-old has played all but five available minutes in that span.
Still, Pochettino chose caution.
“These next few weeks, with the possibility for the new coach to work with the players there, I think it’s important for Weston to be there and to convince the coach to keep playing [him],” said the Argentinian. “I think that’s more important than to be with us, because we already know what he can provide the team.”
McKennie isn’t the only absentee. So too are Christian Pulisic, Malik Tillman, Antonee Robinson and Chris Richards, all of whom are recovering from injuries. Tyler Adams, meanwhile, was a late scratch after freak injuries in consecutive Bournemouth games – a stray cleat to his knee and then a head-to-head conk with teammate Adam Smith, which left the latter concussed.
The absences mean that, at most, Pochettino will have a single international window to work with his full, first-choice team before he assembles it for next summer’s World Cup. And when he does, it will be March 2026, with his European-based players already coming off seven-or-so mostly uninterrupted months of club soccer.
In his year-and-change in charge, Pochettino has never had a full complement of his best players – whether they combine to form his best team or not. Even last March , at the ill-fated Concacaf Nations League Finals that triggered a total reset of Pochettino’s project, he was without strikers Folarin Balogun and Ricardo Pepi, and full-back Sergiño Dest, whose creativity out wide completely changes the team’s setup. During Pochettino’s only other tournament, the summer’s Gold Cup, the US were without an astounding 10 regulars – but nevertheless made a spirited run to the final.
This litany of absences is, in part, a policy. The US head coach could have insisted on the presence of Pulisic, who injured his hamstring while with the national team in October but made his return with Milan on Saturday. Or Tillman, who is also back from an injury sustained at that same US camp. Or Richards, for that matter. After all, the Crystal Palace defender has played all 90 minutes in his club’s last three matches.
But there are relationships to maintain. Richards’ club manager, Oliver Glasner, was upset at the October call-up, when Richards played all 180 minutes in the heat of Texas and at the altitude of Colorado in spite of an apparent calf issue. This time, Pochettino opted to keep the peace, to be diplomatic and strategic, even though Glasner’s words “made me feel very disappointed, because I am very respectful with all the coaches and all the clubs.”
“It’s not common sense to call a player that maybe is coming [back from] a small injury,” Pochettino said. “We never risk players … Always what we want is to do the best for the player, to be in a very good condition and then to have in March, and of course when arrives the moment to select the roster for the World Cup, to be in the best place, in the best form, in the best shape.”
Pochettino, then, trusts that the March camp, and the weeks-long preparations for the tournament proper, will suffice to forge something cohesive out of all those puzzle pieces he has laid in disconnected clusters.
“I have no concerns about that,” Pochettino said of his dwindling time with the team. “We have settled the principles and I think the team has responded very well. That is the time that we have, and we are not going to complain. We cannot give excuses to ourselves. I think we have time enough.”
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But the broader conundrum here, of whether to prioritize team building or enabling his players with their clubs in hopes of a long-term payoff, also underscores just how much is out of Pochettino’s control. At the World Cup next summer, the USMNT will continue to be at the mercy of injuries and the unrelenting churn in European club management. There is a huge amount of randomness baked into the recipe of any international job. For all the good intentions in this ploy to play it safe, there is no telling which key US player will lose a friendly manager at just the wrong time. Or who will get benched down the season’s home stretch, their form fading in critical months
Because McKennie is hardly alone in cycling through coaches.
Not even halfway through his third Milan season, Pulisic is on his fourth manager. Gio Reyna, who made a surprise return on this US roster, had six Borussia Dortmund managers before leaving for Borussia Mönchengladbach this summer, where he got yet another new manager by mid-September. Upon his move from PSV, Tillman’s Bayer Leverkusen manager was gone just two league games into the season, all of two days after Tillman made his club debut. Glasner is Richards’ third Palace manager in his fourth season there. Brenden Aaronson has had four Leeds managers since joining the club in 2022. Although now apparently out of the US picture,Josh Sargent has had six Norwich managers since 2021.
There will surely be more managerial upheaval at the USMNT players’ clubs, possibly at the expense of their form and match fitness. But all the caution and planning and diplomacy in the world can’t protect Pochettino and his US squad from it.
Leander Schaerlaeckens’ book on the United States men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out in the spring of 2026. You can preorder it here. He teaches at Marist University.
