The United States Men’s National Team roster for the 2022 World Cup has been revealed and, unsurprisingly, there’s plenty of debate surrounding the inclusions.
Players like Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, and Gio Reyna being on there came as no shock to anybody. However, it’s hard to deny that seeing the likes of Haji Wright, Sean Johnson, and Shaq Moore make the cut raised a few eyebrows.
With surprise inclusions also come shocking omissions. Here are the top six:
Zack Steffen started six of the USMNT’s 14 qualifiers and has 29 caps to his name to date.
Yes, he’s had his struggles in England with Man City and Middlesbrough, but his form for the latter has improved drastically of late. Not to mention the fact that Steffen played under Berhalter at the Columbus Crew.
“The goalkeeper position, you do evaluate somewhat differently,” Berhalter explained. “Looking at a guy like Sean Johnson, who’s been with this program since day one, and we think he’s a really valuable piece of the team.
“Ethan is a guy that always responds when his number’s called, let’s not forget, this is a guy that got subbed into the Championship [promotion playoff] final last year and was able to hold on and get the team to victory. He subbed on to our Nations League final, if you guys remember that, and ended up saving the penalty kick. He’s a guy that’s Johnny on the spot – if you need him, he’s ready. And I think that’s valuable in a World Cup type of competition.”
Ricardo Pepi’s role in qualifying was monumental, with the teenage striker hitting three goals and two assists in his first two caps to earn wins against Honduras and Jamaica – results that deflected some seriously and rapidly increasing heat away from Gregg Berhalter.
In the time since, there have been obvious struggles both at international level and with Augsburg. But Pepi’s loan move to FC Groningen in the summer looks inspired, with the 19-year-old helping himself to five goals and two assists in his first eight Eredivisie matches.
Still, that wasn’t enough and although it looks like Wright made the plan ahead of Pepi, Berhalter actually revealed he was squared up against ex-FC Dallas teammate Jesus Ferreira and Norwich forward Josh Sargent.
“With Ricardo it was, we’re judging him against Josh and Jesus, and we felt it was valuable that Josh was playing in that [English…
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