CHICAGO, IL — As the 2026 FIFA World Cup looms, the questions surrounding the U. S. Men’s National Team are rote and familiar.
Will Mauricio Pochettino play with a back three or a back four, and in what phase of play? Will he sink Weston McKennie or Malik Tillman into a deeper midfield role, or will he exclusively rely on Tyler Adams, Sebastian Berhalter and Cristian Roldan? Is Alex Freeman a right-sided center back, a right fullback or a right wing back? Is Sergino Dest a right wing back or a right winger? And please, in the name of all that is holy, will Chris Richards be available to start against Paraguay?
These questions share themes: tactics, formation, execution. They are base-level, hands-on operational asks posed by a distant media trying to suss out, and eventually transcribe, how the USMNT actually pulls itself together for big games.
What these questions are not, though, are accurate reflections of how the USMNT understands its own tactics. Make no mistake: the American soccer ecosystem might be desperate to figure out Dest’s technical positional title, but the USMNT isn’t. It’s so locked in on its tactical approach that it’s moved past tactics altogether in service of focusing on mentality and resilience.
USMNT midfielder Tyler Adams was quick to point that out after his team’s 2-1 loss to Germany in its World Cup send-off match. When asked about the team’s tactics in the lead-up to the World Cup, Adams just shrugged.
“I don’t think any of these tune-up games are about tactics, you know what I mean?” he said. “We’ve trained together, we’ve played together, we’ve worked under Mauricio for a year and a half now. We understand the tactics.
“It has to be about the mentality.”
Beautiful, concise and clear. Take Adams’s word for it, because he knows better than anyone: the USMNT has its tactics locked down. It’s the rest of the American soccer ecosystem that’s confused.