USMNT’s World Cup Puzzle: Reyna’s Spark, Pulisic’s Drought, and Midfield Woes
Gio Reyna finally felt the ball hit the net again. Not in a national team shirt, where he’s so often looked at home, but in Germany, in a game Borussia Mönchengladbach still lost 3-1.
It was a consolation goal on the scoreboard. Emotionally, it was anything but.
Reyna’s late strike was his first club goal in nearly a year and a half, a long, frustrating stretch marked by injuries, bench cameos and stalled momentum. For a player once tipped as the future of the USMNT attack, it has been a long time since he delivered a truly decisive moment at club level.
For the national team, though, Reyna has remained a different story. His last big impression came back in November with the USMNT, before his minutes dried up again. In March, he was reduced to brief cameos in two high-profile friendlies, never really given the stage to dominate against elite opposition.
And yet his name never leaves the conversation. That’s what rare talent does.
Reyna changes games. Even when short of rhythm, even when short of minutes, he has consistently lifted the USMNT when he pulls on that shirt. The team’s recent CONCACAF trophies arrived with him heavily involved, and the numbers and performances both point the same way: the U.S. is usually better with him than without him.
But there’s a reality check here too. Reyna is the flourish, not the foundation. He’s the “cherry on top” of this side’s attack, not the pillar holding it up. If he hits form before the World Cup, the ceiling rises. If he doesn’t, the U.S. still has enough depth in his role to function. The coaching staff can live without a fully firing Reyna.
They might not be able to say the same about everyone else.
Tillman’s minutes dry up at the worst time
On talent, Malik Tillman is not in doubt. He’s shown his quality repeatedly. On minutes, he absolutely is.
Since the end of the March camp, Tillman has played in seven games for Bayer Leverkusen. Across those seven, he has logged just 77 minutes. Only twice did he get more than 10 minutes on the pitch. When the game has needed a creative presence behind the striker, the club has turned instead to Nathan Tella and rising Algerian prospect Ibrahim Maza.
The timing could hardly be worse.
Tillman has been, and still is, firmly in the mix to start for the USMNT in an attacking midfield role. That case would look a lot stronger if he were arriving with a run of goals and assists, rather than a string of short cameos. His last goal came on April 4, a two-minute appearance against Wolfsburg that nudged his season tally to six goals in 1,615 minutes. Respectable numbers. Just not recent ones.
For the national team, that creates a headache. The role is important, the competition is fierce, and one of the key candidates is losing sharpness at club level.
The saving grace? Weston McKennie.
In form and increasingly influential, McKennie can slide into the other advanced midfield slot alongside Christian Pulisic if Tillman’s lack of minutes becomes too big a concern. It’s not an ideal reshuffle, but it’s a powerful safety net.
Pulisic’s goals vanish, but his importance doesn’t
Christian Pulisic has addressed it himself. He knows the numbers. Everyone does.
He hasn’t scored in 2026. It frustrates him. He insists he isn’t panicking. For him, the real test comes in the biggest games this summer, not in Milan’s league grind half a world away.
Still, there’s no escaping the basic truth: when a World Cup looms, you want your stars in peak form. Pulisic hasn’t been at his best this year. Not in front of goal, not in the moments that usually define him.
The U.S. will still lean heavily on him. He is not the only factor in their World Cup hopes, but he remains one of the biggest. He’s a star, but also a tone-setter, the player whose body language and bravery often dictate how bold this team dares to be.
They need him scoring. They also need him leading.
There is still time for the goals to return. But with every week that passes without one, the noise around his form grows a little louder. It shouldn’t reach crisis levels given the context, but the questions won’t go away until the ball does hit the net again.
Center-back picture: one certainty, a lot of questions
Move back a line and the picture becomes even more unsettled.
At center back, Chris Richards looks locked in. He’s the one clear answer in a position where, by this stage of the cycle, most successful teams already know exactly who they trust.
After Richards, everything is up for debate.
Tim Ream brings vast experience, but the clock is ticking. Has he simply played too much football, and will his recent injury linger into the tournament? Mark McKenzie has impressed in Ligue 1, yet those occasional lapses that have surfaced with the USMNT hang over him. Auston Trusty has finally found his feet in Europe with Celtic, but six caps is a thin résumé for a World Cup.
Then there’s Miles Robinson. Will he arrive in form? Can he rediscover the level that once made him a nailed-on starter? And hovering on the edge of the conversation is Noahkai Banks, a potential late riser who could force his way in and change the picture entirely.
These are not the sort of questions coaches want to be wrestling with this close to a tournament. Usually, the center-back hierarchy is settled by now. For the U.S., it may come down to something as simple, and as risky, as who hits form at exactly the right time when the World Cup kicks off.
Midfield blow: Cardoso out, Tessmann limping, Adams exposed
If the center-back situation is a concern, midfield is flirting with crisis.
There was a strong case for either Johnny Cardoso or Tanner Tessmann to start this summer alongside Tyler Adams. That argument has effectively been halved.
Fresh off a Champions League semifinal, Cardoso sprained his ankle. The timeline was always going to be tight, but the worst-case scenario arrived on Monday, when Atletico Madrid confirmed he would need surgery. That operation rules him out of the World Cup.
One potential starter gone.
Tessmann’s issue looks less severe. Lyon have described it as a muscle strain that will keep him out for a spell, but he is expected to be ready for the tournament. Even before the injury, though, his place in Lyon’s XI had been inconsistent in recent months. The rhythm, the week-to-week dominance you want from a potential World Cup starter, simply hasn’t been there.
Put those two situations together and the picture next to Adams becomes deeply uncertain.
Cardoso and Tessmann both carried their own question marks even when fully fit, but their performances in Europe this season had at least narrowed the doubts compared to other options. Now one is out, the other is managing fitness and form, and the U.S. risks walking into a World Cup with a midfield that looks dangerously thin.
All good teams start in midfield. They control games there, protect their defense there, unleash their attackers from there. Right now, as the coaching staff prepares to name the official squad, the USMNT is staring at the possibility of going into the biggest stage with its most important area shorthanded.
Reyna has finally scored again. McKennie is in form. Pulisic is searching. The back line is unsettled. The midfield is wounded.
The pieces are all on the board. The question is whether they can fit into something worthy of a World Cup run.
