Of all the 26 players named to the USMNT’s World Cup roster, Tim Ream was among those with the least to worry about. He’s captained the team for 16 of 23 matches under coach Mauricio Pochettino, and even amid a dip in form at Charlotte FC, it would have been a true stunner to leave him off.
Even so, when a WhatsApp message came in Friday afternoon with a video of Pochettino telling him and the rest of the squad that they had made it, Ream said: “It made me stop in my tracks, to be completely honest.” He had been leaving the training ground in Charlotte, his arms full of a box of bobbleheads to give to his kids. Now he was calling his wife to share in the joy.
“I’m usually a pretty cool customer,” Ream said. “There was definitely some anxiety, some nerves going on in the last couple weeks, but it’s one of those that when you want something so bad and you want to be a part of something that’s much bigger than yourself, that tends to happen. I’m not overly emotional, but it was definitely a relief and there was a little bit of quivering, for sure, with my family when I found out.”
It’s all real now. The tournament that’s been circled on the calendar ever since it was awarded to the United States, along with Canada and Mexico, eight years ago, is hurtling toward this team at light speed. Tuesday at Pier 17, the 26-man group — which leaked over the weekend before being officially announced in a made-for-TV spectacle — was together for the first time.
For the Tanner Tessmanns and Diego Lunas of the world, who had played key roles for the last year under Pochettino only to be left out of the final roster, surely there was devastation. Pochettino said he only slept three to four hours every night for the past two weeks, so much was the stress of picking this group.
“I put the trust and the confidence and the belief in every player that made the roster,” Pochettino said. “… I trust in everyone. That is why we select them. We believe they can do a fantastic job, that we can perform.”
From New York, the USMNT got on a plane to Atlanta, where it’ll spend the remainder of this week at its brand new training facility before playing Senegal in Charlotte over the weekend, the first of two friendlies scheduled before the World Cup officially starts.
This group will hop coast to coast, with a second friendly in Chicago against Germany before setting up base camp in Irvine, Calif., just down the road from where it’ll play two of its three group stage games in Los Angeles. The next time these players are apart, it’ll mean this once-in-a-generation home World Cup, and the opportunity of a lifetime that comes with it, is over.
Tuesday afternoon, and the ensuing seven weeks, is what they have been building toward for so long.
Christian Pulisic was 19 when the World Cup was awarded to the US. He was on the field in Couva, Trinidad, eyes red with tears, when the USMNT failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, and has been a constant in the national team’s rebuilding project since. Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie are the same age, and most of their teammates are, if anything, younger. They’ve all grown up together on the national team, all penciled in as 2026 starters before they were old enough to drink.
“I think people probably don’t really understand, when you play in a foreign country, you’re around foreigners and you don’t always get to act and be yourself,” Adams said. “These guys, I’ve known since I was 14, 15 years old. It always feels like home coming back here.”
Now, a moment eight years in the making is in front of them, and this group of 26 must grab it or spend the rest of their lives with regrets and what-ifs.
“We want this so bad,” Pulisic said. “If you’re not a little bit nervous, you don’t feel a little bit, you don’t care. We care so much.”
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