INGLEWOOD, Calif. – As of Thursday afternoon LA time, United States men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino knew the identity of the 11 players he will send out to start the World Cup 2026 opener Friday evening against Paraguay. And eventually, you will, too.
And in between, the players will find out.
Probably.
The man they call Poch was giving away no secrets on matchday-minus-1 at SoFi Stadium, when he addressed the media in the customary press conference. This was particularly true with respect to central defender Chris Richards, the 2025 U.S. Soccer Male Player of the Year and quite possibly the most irreplaceable individual on the USMNT.
“I think we celebrate that at the start of the competition we have 26 players available to be selected,” Pochettino said. “He is available to be selected, and then we will decide if he starts from the beginning of the game or is on the bench. But I think we celebrate that our medical state and performance (team) worked really hard on the recovery.
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“It’s a really good feeling to have 26 players available.”
Pochettino said that even though he knew what the lineup would be, he was reluctant to tell his squad because of concern it would be leaked. So even goalkeepers Matt Freese and Matt Turner hadn’t been told who will start against Paraguay. They alternated in those final two exhibitions; Turner was the starter in the 2022 World Cup, but Freese has made 15 starts since the start of 2025; Turner has made three.
Richards injured his ankle on May 17 playing for Crystal Palace in the Premier League. He missed his club’s final regular-season league game as well as the championship game in the UEFA Conference League, Europe’s third-tier club tournament. And then Richards sat for each of the two pre-World Cup exhibitions for the USMNT, against Senegal and Germany. Without him, the defense yielded two goals in each game.
He has been practicing at least for a week, and Wednesday he told reporters he feels ready to play. He was with the team during the 15 minutes reporters were permitted to view practice Thursday, and he participated fully in drills during that period.
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“When you’re an athlete, you’re always 100 percent healthy,” USMNT World Cup veteran Marcelo Balboa, now an analyst for Apple TV’s broadcasts of Major League Soccer, told the Sporting News. “You have to take into account: Has he played? Is he in training full speed? Is he turning, is he tackling, is he cutting?
“If he’s ready … I would think you have to play him. He’s that pivotal a piece for this group. But if he’s not, then maybe we see him in the Australia game. Better to have him long-term than short-term. If he’s not 100 percent and he does twist it again, then he’s out for the rest of the tournament. No one knows, but he seemed pretty confident.”
Neither Mark McKenzie of Toulouse in France’s Ligue 1 or Miles Robinson of FC Cincinnati in MLS was overwhelmingly effective in the two exhibitions. One of them would be the likely replacement for Richards if he weren’t ready to go.
In many cases with an attacking player coming back from injury, the idea might be to start him and see what his sharpness and stamina look like, and if he can provide 60 or 70 good minutes, that’s enough. The back line depends so much on chemistry, however, that it isn’t ideal to be pulling off a player from that position because he’s not ready to go a full 90.
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Balboa suggested if Richards is ready to start, he’ll be fit to go the distance.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s a World Cup,” Balboa said. “We know what Richards can do. He does it at Crystal Palace. He does it for the U.S. men’s national team. Great in the air, good leader in the back, good, hard tackler, covers space well. When one of your best defenders is ready to play, then you don’t mess around, you play him. You need that leader in the back line.”
