USMNT Camp: Spotlight on 16-Year-Old Sullivan and New Beginnings
The latest USMNT camp is supposed to be a reset. A fresh cycle, a new manager in Mauricio Pochettino, and a roster that blends World Cup regulars with kids who still need permission slips to miss school.
But one name cuts through the noise.
The 16-year-old in the spotlight
Say hello to the boy wonder. At just 16, Sullivan walks into his first senior USMNT camp carrying a level of hype that would crush most players twice his age. The difference now is that his numbers finally match the noise.
He isn’t here because he trends on social media. Pochettino doesn’t pick influencers; he picks footballers. And right now, Sullivan is exactly that.
“He deserves all of the praise that he is getting,” Pochettino said. “I think it's because he's performing well. He's giving assists, scoring goals, and he's 16. We don't say he doesn't deserve the praise. The important thing is to help, to be with him, and to provide a solid pattern and support, because he still needs to show, improve, evolve, and be more mature. He's only 16. He's a kid, but I think the most important thing is we have the opportunity now because he deserves to join us in the national team.”
This camp isn’t about crowning him. It’s about testing him.
He may not be ready for this level. He may stroll in and look like he’s been here for years. He may struggle. None of that is the real point. What matters is that he gets thrown into the deep end and asked to swim.
The plan is long-term. If the vision is a 20-year-old star in 2030, the work starts now. This camp is a step, not a destination. From here, it’s on Sullivan to decide what this opportunity becomes. The cameras will find him. They always do.
Pulisic watches from afar
While one attacking talent arrives, another stays home.
Christian Pulisic’s absence hangs over this camp. The logic behind it is straightforward: he’s just come back from injury and only recently played his first minutes of the season. Dragging him across the Atlantic for four games in two weeks would have been reckless.
Sensible? Yes. Ideal? No.
Pulisic still lives in the shadow of a disappointing World Cup, and many of the narratives around that tournament linger because he isn’t here to challenge them. There’s a section of the fanbase that wants to see more fire, more edge, more visible desperation from him in a U.S. shirt. That audition will have to wait.
He’s a player with a point to prove. Proving it just became a little harder. The process restarts another day.
“I think now is a completely different approach than was in the past,” Pochettino said. “The World Cup is in four years. We need to work with different objective and goals, and for different reasons, that roster is the roster that is the best roster that we can design for this camp.”
Musah’s return from the wilderness
If Pulisic’s story pauses, Yunus Musah’s finally resumes.
After more than a year and a half out of the USMNT picture, Musah is back. He didn’t drift away quietly; his club career stalled. He stagnated at Milan and found little joy on loan at Atalanta. The spark that once made him one of the most exciting young midfielders in the pool dimmed.
Now he’s back with Milan and actually contributing. That shift has clearly changed something — both in his own confidence and in Pochettino’s view of him.
Musah is only 23, but in this group he feels almost like a veteran. Even so, he’s still a project with room to grow. His path has zigzagged, not climbed in a straight line. That route has brought him back to where he always wanted to be: in the national team.
“Yunus is still young,” Pochettino said. “He wasn't involved in the last World Cup, but now, after seeing from the beginning the season that he is performing in the way that we expect, because some players can play all the game but they are not performing in the way that we expect, but that is why we call again. It's really open, like for rest of the of the players.”
This camp is his second chance to impress a new manager and reset his international career. He’s earned his way back. Now he has to make it stick.
World Cup core, with cracks at the edges
Of the 28 players called in, 13 went to this summer’s World Cup. The spine is familiar: Tyler Adams, Chris Richards, Antonee Robinson, Sergiño Dest, Matt Freese. Several big names are missing for obvious reasons. Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Folarin Balogun are all dealing with injuries. Tim Ream, at 38, is in that uncertain space where he hasn’t retired from international duty, but no one is sure how much longer he fits into a four-year cycle.
For those who weren’t locked-in starters in Qatar, the landscape looks harsher.
Matt Turner, Max Arfsten, Mark McKenzie, Joe Scally, Cristian Roldan, Brenden Aaronson, Tim Weah, Alejandro Zendejas — all World Cup veterans, all left off this list. These are the players who once filled roster spots 15 through 26. Now they’re the ones sweating every announcement.
Pochettino insists this isn’t a closed door, just a different moment.
“The door is open for everyone,” he said. “Now it's a new start. It's a new cycle. It's not what happened one year ago, one year and a half ago, what happened in the World Cup. To be honest, it's a fresh start. It's a roster that we consider is the best for that period.”
The message is blunt: reputations from the last cycle don’t protect anyone. The fight for places has already started, and it’s the fringe World Cup names who feel it first.
Albert, Dortmund, and a gamble on upside
If Sullivan is the headline, Albert is the curiosity.
If he plays 93 minutes in this camp, he will have more senior minutes for his country than his club. That alone tells you how bold this call-up is. Pochettino still felt it was worth it. That’s a powerful statement about what the staff thinks he can become.
Unlike Sullivan, Neil Pierre or Adri Mehmeti, Albert hasn’t forced his way in with consistent performances at senior level. The obvious caveat: he’s 17 and at a European giant. Dortmund rate him highly enough to keep him around the first team at an age when most players are still figuring out youth football. History suggests that when Dortmund believe in a teenager, it’s usually for good reason.
So he arrives as the least experienced player in camp, but maybe the one with the highest ceiling. Pochettino wants to see that up close. This is a learning trip for Albert, a chance to absorb the level, the pace, the demands of international football.
If he handles it, this won’t be the last time his name appears on a USMNT roster. It might be the moment his trajectory shifts — for club and country — and the moment this new era starts to look a little less theoretical and a lot more real.
