On Tuesday, the USMNT faced New Zealand in a Cincinnati, Ohio friendly to close out the September international window. Just before the match, U.S. Soccer officially announced Mauricio Pochettino as the new USMNT manager. On Sunday, we published a poll to get readers’ picks for the starting lineup. After receiving 234 responses, let’s look at the results!
Here’s the roster readers were choosing from:
GOALKEEPERS (4): Ethan Horvath (Cardiff City), Diego Kochen (Barcelona Atletic), Patrick Schulte (Columbus Crew), Matt Turner (Crystal Palace)
DEFENDERS (8): Auston Trusty (Celtic FC), Marlon Fossey (Standard Liege), Kristoffer Lund (Palermo), Mark McKenzie (Tolouse), Tim Ream (Charlotte FC), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace), Joe Scally (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Caleb Wiley (Strasbourg)
MIDFIELDERS (5): Johnny Cardoso (Real Betis), Luca de la Torre (Celta Vigo), Aidan Morris (Middlesbrough), Yunus Musah (AC Milan), Malik Tillman (PSV Eindhoven)
FORWARDS (6): Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United), Folarin Balogun (Monaco), Cade Cowell (Chivas), Ricardo Pepi (PSV Eindhoven), Christian Pulisic (AC Milan), Josh Sargent (Norwich City), Haji Wright (Coventry City)
With those players available, here’s the lineup readers selected. The readers wanted to change 9 of the 11 starters from the 1-2 loss to Canada, with Christian Pulisic and Malik Tillman the only holdovers. The closest battles were in net (Diego Kochen’s 99 votes edged out Patrick Schulte’s 80), and in the midfield (Yunus Musah got 115 votes, but not enough to surpass Luca de la Torre’s 157 or Malik Tillman’s 147).
Now let’s look at the polling trends over time. Matt Turner’s numbers have dropped off drastically since Copa America. Patrick Schulte and Diego Kochen are the two leading candidates to take his spot. The old Philadelphia Union center-back tandem of Auston Trusty and Mark McKenzie were the top choice, replacing Richards and Ream, who started against Canada. Readers also wanted to see the back-up fullbacks, with Caleb Wiley and Marlon Fossey replacing Kristoffer Lund and Joe Scally. Aidan Morris and Luca de la Torre were top midfield choices after both of them played well off the bench in the loss to Canada, combining for the only U.S. goal. Malik Tillman maintained his spot, as did Pulisic, with Sargent and Haji Wright rounding out the attack.
What do you all think? How can we keep improving this format in the future? What do you think of the results? What lineup do you think we’ll see tonight? Which players are you excited about? Hit the comments to discuss.
