"It f*cking hurt, and it still hurts to this day." That's Zack Steffen, three years removed from being left off the 2022 World Cup roster by Gregg Berhalter. He was the starting goalkeeper for a cycle. He got a phone call and suddenly he wasn't going to Qatar. No amount of time has really fixed that.
On Friday, 26 USMNT players got the call that changes everything — they're going to the 2026 World Cup, on home soil. Diego Luna was reportedly among those who didn't get it. He won't be the only one processing that silence for years.
This is what that actually costs people.
How coaches deliver the news — and why it matters
Mauricio Pochettino knew before he was ever a coach what this felt like. He was on the periphery of Argentina squads in 1994 and 1998 without making the cut. He finally made the 2002 roster. That experience shaped his entire approach to how he communicated with players for this summer.
His decision: call the 26 who are in, let the rest find out elsewhere. No pre-tournament camp, no false hope, no final week of competition that ends in heartbreak. He wanted the news to land cleanly rather than drag out over weeks of training.
"When you are not on the final roster, I am going to call the player and say what?" Pochettino said. "If they feel the necessity to call me, for sure, I'm very open to explaining why."
Jurgen Klinsmann took the opposite approach in 2014. He brought 30 players to Stanford before cutting seven face-to-face — including Landon Donovan, in what remains the most debated roster decision in American soccer history. Clarence Goodson, Maurice Edu, Brad Evans, Terrence Boyd, Joe Corona, and Michael Parkhurst heard the same news in person. Klinsmann still carries it.
"I was exhausted myself after those talks," he told GOAL. "I needed a bit of a break. If you were a player yourself, you never want to hear that decision of a coach."
Neither method is painless. You're just choosing which kind of hurt to inflict.
The players who lived it
Paul Arriola didn't even see it coming. Berhalter called him into his office in 2022 and told him he was on the outside looking in. No explanation that landed, no real closure.
"I didn't ask questions. He said he just didn't have a spot for me. All I could do was stay quiet."
Arriola is 31 now. He played two games after Qatar. That's largely the end of his World Cup story.
Mark McKenzie processed his 2022 omission differently. He was 23 when Berhalter left him off. He's reportedly made this summer's squad at 27 — a four-year redemption arc that started the moment he got that gut-punch call.
"It ripped me apart, bro," he said. "When you get that call that you're not going, that you weren't selected, it's a punch to the stomach."
Ricardo Pepi and Malik Tillman are similar cases — both omitted in 2022, both reportedly on the plane in 2026. The hurt became fuel. That doesn't happen for everyone.
Then there are the injuries, which carry their own specific cruelty. Chris Richards missed the 2022 squad by two weeks. Miles Robinson went down with an Achilles at Atlanta United earlier that year and knew immediately what it meant for Qatar. Both are reportedly back for 2026.
This cycle took its own toll on others. Johnny Cardoso, Patrick Agyemang, John Tolkin, Cameron Carter-Vickers, and Benjamin Cremaschi all saw their World Cup windows close before Pochettino even reached his final 26.
- Richards and Robinson: injured in 2022, back for 2026
- McKenzie, Pepi, Tillman: cut in 2022, reportedly in for 2026
- Steffen, Arriola: cut in 2022, not going back
- Cardoso, Agyemang, Tolkin: injured this cycle, won't be there
Richards watched the 2022 tournament from a pub in London, alone, rehabbing, cheering on players he should have been alongside. "It was lonely," he said. "Yeah, that's what it was: lonely."
Robinson partied through it, watched every game, refused to sulk — then admitted, quietly: "You're still a little bit salty that you're not a part of it."
There's no clean way through any of it. Pochettino said it plainly in March: "It's going to be really sad to make some decisions, because there are only 26." He's right. And for the players on the wrong end of those decisions, a World Cup at home — the loudest, most visible stage American soccer has ever had — will pass without them.
Steffen said it best. It still hurts. It just does.
