Let's Be Real About The USMNT (It's not as bad as last night, but it isn't good)

Certainly the outing against Switzerland was a waste of everyone's time, but that's all it was.

There is a void when it comes to the USMNT. It has to be filled with something, and that's usually noise. There is no qualifying campaign. The CONCACAF Gold Cup hasn't had any real meaning in at least six years, and probably much longer than that. The US hasn't sent the full squad to it since 2019. There is a year to go before the World Cup and there aren't any "real" matches to play before it, at least not for the full squad.

So therein lies the problem. The full squad for the USMNT still has a lot of questions to answer, and a lot of doubts to turn around. We won't be getting any of those, really, until they kick the ball for real in LA next year. In the meantime, every observer and writer and fan is going to fill that gap with shouting about anything that's presented to them. If they can't find water, they'll drink the sand.

So when a headline of "Switzerland 4 - USA 0 before halftime" crawls across whatever medium they happen to be looking at, it's a perfect time to scream about crisis, disaster, and hopelessness. I'm not here to argue that the USMNT is in great shape a year out from the World Cup. But let's be real about last night.

I'm not even sure last night's starting lineup would qualify as the C-team for Mauricio Pochettino. Only Matt Turner in goal has any hope of being in the starting 11 come next June, and he might be the only one who has hope of being in the squad. Nathan Harriel is a third-choice fullback for Philly. He's, at best, sixth-choice for a fullback spot for a fully healthy US team. Max Arfsten might be fifth, or he might be seventh-choice. I have been flummoxed as to what either of the Aaronson brothers do for any team they play on for at least four years. Paxton won't touch the World Cup squad. Brenden might get on through straight effort, but won't be much more than a deep bench option. Seb Berhalter has been a wonderful surprise for Vancouver this season, but it's been three months. Even with as iffy as the US's midfield has been, there's five or six options ahead of him. Jhonny Cardoso appears to be some prank played on all of us. Brian White, great for Vancouver this season, but would is going to struggle to make the 23 or 26 with Balogun, Pepi, Sargent all healthy.

If people want to use last night's lineup and performance as cause to bemoan the national side's lack of depth, go right ahead. The US does lack depth. So does every national team in their class. That's why they're in that class. If the US had genuine depth, then it would be in the tier of teams that it likes to pretend it's among. That's the deal in the second or third level. Those squads can probably put up a pretty good 11 when everyone's healthy, maybe even a few options off the bench, but that's it. And everyone is never healthy or available at the same time.

To add on, Switzerland is really good! They've been to the quarterfinals of the last two Euros. They kneecapped France, that's France off a World Cup win, in the 2021 Euros, whacked Italy in last summer's Euros, and took England to penalties in the quarters. They're a step above the A-team US, and several miles ahead of the leftovers and resin they got to see last night.

The furor you're likely to hear following that and whatever comes with the Gold Cup is simply frustration or making up for the fact that we won't get to find out much about the team that will be on the field when the real games start. It's mostly filler.

That is super frustrating, because there are so many questions about the full-strength team. Can they create enough chances? Will they ever find a #9? Is Christian Pulisic really built to be on the ball so much? Will Weston McKennie care? Is Gio Reyna going to actually play somewhere and ever prove he's worth all this shit? Are they really going to have to lean on Tim Ream again? Who's the goalkeeper? How exactly are they going to play? Do they have flexibility in their tactics?

That's a lot of questions! That's not all of them, either. We will get answers on exactly none of them this summer. Or in the fall. Or next spring. That's life in the international game.

It's also a weird time of year. Look around. England barely scratched by Andorra and then were thwacked by Senegal at home. Spain nearly blew a four-goal lead to France. Italy were pantsed by Norway and fired their manager. After a long European season, everyone's exhausted and wanting to get to the beach. There's also this evil and stupid Club World Cup gumming up the works.

Some of this is carryover from last summer, and the US's early puke-up in Copa America. It's worth remembering exactly what happened there. The US easily though not thoroughly beat Bolivia, and lost to Uruguay, who are much better than they are. Those results are exactly what everyone expected before the tournament.

They suffered a shock sending-off of Tim Weah against Panama, and then Berhalter tried to completely turtle for 60 minutes after taking the lead. The sight of all 10 US players camped out just outside their own 18 in the first half was an indictment and the exact moment Berhalter got fired. Even down a man, the US should have never ceded so much to Panama. It was also one game.

And that's it. There hasn't been a meaningful match since. The Nations League in March was ugly, but it was also a tournament that players would struggle to care that much about given what else they had on their plate at the time. Especially as they contested their games in front of a 1/8th full SoFi Stadium at 4 in the afternoon. It's not that those results should be completely ignored. But grains of salt need to be added.

I have no idea what the US will look like come the World Cup. As mentioned above, there are a lot of questions. But below Spain and Argentina, find a national team that doesn't have questions a year out from the tournament. So much can happen with these players over another season. Soccer as a sport is weird, the international game exponentially more so.

What I do know is that whatever happened last night in Nashville has next to nothing, or actually nothing, to do with what happens in June of 2026. If it does, then much more that matters will have gone wrong to get to those players that started last night. In which case, they were boned anyway.