The U.S. Soccer Federation has announced that five players are departing the United States Men’s National Team camp and will return to their clubs instead of traveling to Guadalajara to play Mexico in a rare away friendly.
Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Marlon Fossey, Ricardo Pepi, and Zack Steffen will all be unavailable for the upcoming USMNT match on October 15th. Per the press release, Pulisic is being released in order to manage his minutes, while the other 4 are departing camp due to minor injury issues.
In the press conference following the match, Pochettino mentioned a minor injury for McKennie and expressed that it was not worth the risk for a friendly. He also expressed concern for the prospect of overloading Pulisic in an earlier press conference.
Pulisic is of course currently the highest profile American player in the men’s game. He supplied the assist for Yunus Musah’s winning goal against Panama. Ricardo Pepi came on as a substitute and scored a second goal to seal the match. While McKennie is also a mainstay with the USMNT and a regular with the Italian side, Juventus, he did not play against Panama on Saturday. Zack Steffen and Marlon Fossey, who play for the Colorado Rapids and Standard Liege respectively, also did not play.
The USMNT will not call in players to replace the departing ones.
With these departures, the current camp’s roster is down to 20 players for the match in Guadalajara on Tuesday:
GOALKEEPERS (3): Ethan Horvath (Cardiff City/WAL; 9/0), Patrick Schulte (Columbus Crew; 2/0), Matt Turner (Crystal Palace/ENG; 46/0)
DEFENDERS (7): Kristoffer Lund (Palermo/ITA; 6/0), Mark McKenzie (Toulouse/FRA; 15/0), Tim Ream (Charlotte FC; 63/1), Antonee Robinson (Fulham/ENG; 47/4), Miles Robinson (FC Cincinnati; 29/3), Joe Scally (Borussia Mönchengladbach/GER; 13/0), Auston Trusty (Celtic/SCO; 2/0)
MIDFIELDERS (6): Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United/ENG; 45/8), Gianluca Busio (Venezia/ITA; 14/1), Aidan Morris (Middlesbrough/ENG; 8/0), Yunus Musah (AC Milan/ITA; 42/1), Tanner Tessmann (Olympique Lyonnais/FRA; 3/0), Malik Tillman (PSV Eindhoven/NED; 15/0)
FORWARDS (4): Josh Sargent (Norwich City/ENG; 26/5), Brandon Vazquez (Monterrey/MEX; 8/4), Haji Wright (Coventry City/ENG; 14/4), Alex Zendejas (Club América/MEX; 8/1)
