Leander Schaerlaeckens discusses the US men’s national team's (USMNT) tradition of relying on young players as future saviors, from Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey to Christian Pulisic. The article notes that despite high expectations for Pulisic leading up to the 2026 World Cup, his performance was underwhelming. Following the tournament, coach Mauricio Pochettino introduced a wave of new players, including 13 debutants and eight teenagers, resulting in impressive victories over Peru, Chile, Mexico, and Canada. This shift suggests that the USMNT may be moving past its dependency on individual saviors to embrace a broader talent pool.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-10-08,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
In 1990, then-United States men’s national team manager Bob Gansler made a critical and somewhat controversial choice.
asserted
Gansler → make → choice
He left three of the program’s laureled veterans at home and brought a young and little-tested team to the World Cup in Italy, the USA’s first in 40 years.
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He → leave → years
As Gansler recalled later: “I was thinking not only for ’90, but I was thinking about the 90s.”
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I → recall → 90s
In 1998, Steve Sampson was looking to the future as well.
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Sampson → look → future
He had lucked into the USMNT’s managerial gig and had barely clung on to it going into that year’s World Cup, but he nevertheless made a confident proclamation.
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he → lucke → proclamation
“In 10 to 15 years, we’ll win the title, there’s no doubt about it,” he told the Washington Post.
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he → win → Post
“When we Americans decide to do something, we’ll see it through.”
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we → decide → it
A sense took hold sometime during that period, while never really acknowledged or said out loud, that the USMNT were the team of the future.
They never really stopped being that.
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They → take → future
And this bullishness on the hazily outlined not-right-now-but-definitely-sometime-later-on tended to coalesce around one player, maybe two.
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bullishness → outline → player
The USMNT made their modern World Cup breakthrough powered by the energy and unfettered talent of 20-year-olds Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley in 2002.
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USMNT → make → 2002
When those two foundered at the 2006 World Cup, another young player, Clint Dempsey, emerged.
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player → founder → Cup
That year, a 16-year-old Freddy Adu made his USMNT debut.
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Adu → make → debut
And so a pattern formed: the US soccer community waited to be lifted to the next plane by a savior.
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community → form → savior
He’ll do it for us.
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He → do → us
Dempsey outlasted Donovan and faded just as Christian Pulisic emerged.
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Pulisic → outlast → Donovan
Because even as a golden-ish generation coalesced around him, Pulisic was seen as the player expected to make something happen at the 2026 World Cup, the culmination of an eight-year project of rebuilding the national team.
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something → coalesce → team
He was expected to activate Hero Mode, the way he briefly had in Qatar in 2022, throwing himself in front of a cross at the expense of a pelvic contusion but bundling the make-or-break winner into the Iranian goal.
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he → expect → goal
He never did it in 2026.
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He → do → 2026
Aside from a great first half in the tournament opener, Pulisic’s home World Cup was a bust, and the USMNT’s campaign ended with a whimper.
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campaign → end → whimper
On its face, it felt odd that Mauricio Pochettino should launch a youth movement in the first camp after the World Cup.
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Pochettino → feel → Cup
The core of his team had hardly aged out; all but defender Tim Ream are comfortably on the right side of 30.
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all → age → 30
All the same, he called in 13 debutants and eight teenagers.
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he → call → debutants
If results in the months after a World Cup count for anything at all, they have vindicated the Argentinian’s decision to freshen things up.
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they → count → things
The kids, sprinkled in among a robust base of veterans, reeled off 4-1 and 4-2 victories over Peru and Chile, respectively, before dispatching Mexico in a merciless 3-0 walloping.
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kids → sprinkle → walloping
On Tuesday, they concluded this jumbo-sized international window with a mature 1-0 win over Canada in a scruffy, scrappy game, vanquishing a team whose fierceness and physicality had given the US a great deal of trouble in the recent past.
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fierceness → conclude → past
What was startling, however, wasn’t just how much young talent is waiting down the depth chart – or now, perhaps, very much on the surface of it – but how little Pulisic, the latest savior, was missed in his absence.
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Pulisic → wait → absence
You easily might have forgotten that he wasn’t even there while watching a composed and polished team reel off four straight wins.
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team → forget → wins
The same was true for Weston McKennie, one of the USMNT’s load-bearing players for the last half decade.
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same → bear → decade
They both stayed with their Italian clubs, either hoping to use the time off to get back in favor with their manager (Pulisic at Milan) or to heal up an injury (McKennie at Juventus).
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They → stay → Juventus
In their absence, so many players carried the load, contributing in ways big and small, taking turns coming up with the big play, that the burden was never on any one player.
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burden → carry → player
Cavan Sullivan may well be next in line in the succession of the USMNT’s star players – or maybe it will be Julian Hall, or Adri Mehmeti, or Zavier Gozo, or Justin Ellis, or Mathis Albert – but there was no intimation that this was his ship to propel under his own power.
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this → be → power
This was not Sullivan’s team now, as then-manager Bruce Arena told Pulisic after the US failed to reach the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
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US → tell → Russia
The big takeaway from this mega-pack of an international break – which encompassed more games than the USMNT’s run at several big tournaments – is that this team may, at long last, no longer be so dependent on one player, or even a small handful of them.
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team → encompass → them
If this program is entering into a post-savior age – moving on from Pulisic-pendencia, as it were, or whoever-pendencia – that’s a clearer sign of progress than the emergence of some new prodigy, or indeed a cluster of them.
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that → enter → them
What this team, and this soccer country writ large, appear to have grown instead, is the kind of depth US fans used to envy in other, more developed soccer nations.
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fans → writ → nations
If at the 2030 World Cup, the US TV commercials don’t all feature the same player, in the way Pulisic largely hogged the commercial blocks this past summer, it will represent another step forward.
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it → feature → step
He teaches at Marist University.
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He → teach → University
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