Former United States men’s national team members and soccer analysts Stu Holden and Alexi Lalas came to the defense of USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino after the coach had faced criticism for how he informed players they didn’t make the 2026 World Cup squad.
Pochettino told players who did not make the 23-man World Cup squad by email — players who did make the team were also sent an email along with a video message from Pochettino — which has sparked some controversy.
Holden and Lalas, who have both been part of World Cup teams in the past, did not have any problems with the whole thing.
Holden called the whole thing “completely overblown.”
“If you make one call to 30-odd that didn’t make the roster, there’s 55 [players] on the provisional roster,” Holden said on the “Alexi Lalas’ State of the Union Podcast.”
“And if you call one person, but then don’t call the rest, well, why did you call Diego Luna? Why did you call [Tanner] Tessmann and not everybody else? Look, if I’m a player, do I really want the coach to call me and say, ‘Hey Stu, you were close, but you’re not going to the World Cup.’ No, I wouldn’t want that. I want to process that and have time to process that in my own way.
“Getting an email and opening that email is going to suck, but sitting there and going through a conversation of the whys I didn’t make it and all the different reasons and all the different questions I have. I imagine that would be a 10-second phone call at max.”
Lalas backed the USMNT coach’s handling of the situation in a post on social media on Tuesday after Pochettino spoke with reporters in lower Manhattan following the official roster reveal.
Pochettino defended the tactic as consistent with how they have communicated with players. He said he did not want to hear from a coach after he missed out on the Argentine World Cup Squad in 1994 and 1998.
“As much as I love professional players, they are a pain in the ass and they will find a way to criticize or complain about everything,” Lalas said on the podcast.
“I’m not bent out of shape about what Mauricio Pochettino did,” he added. “This seems like Mauricio Pochettino. He doesn’t suffer fools. We know there’s a kind of ruthlessness that he brings and so this is kind of, for me, par for the course for Mauricio Pochettino.”
National team players arrived in Georgia on Tuesday night to begin a pre-tournament camp at U.S. Soccer’s new training center just south of Atlanta.
