The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Recapping the USMNT’s 2026 March Camp

Image courtesy of US Soccer.

By Griffin Cappiello

After a largely disappointing March camp, is it time to panic for the USMNT? The team’s results this past international window left much to be desired – a 5-2 loss to Belgium and a 2-0 loss to Portugal – and many fans suddenly feel less confident than they did prior to this past week’s international break. With the World Cup less than 90 days away, this most recent camp was Mauricio Pochettino’s final opportunity to assess his players before deciding on a roster for the World Cup, but it seems that he now has more questions than he has answers.

The Good: Auston Trusty was the standout player of the camp. I’ll be honest – I didn’t have a ton of expectations for our backline in this window, but after a strong game against Portugal, Trusty may have played his way into the starting lineup for this summer. 

The Bad: Poch’s tactical decisions confound me. Prior to this latest international break, the USMNT had gone six games unbeaten playing with three at the back. Poch decides to switch things up and go back to a four-back system, and everything falls apart. Sure, we had good moments, and I don’t think the scorelines accurately reflected the performances we had in the match, but this just wasn’t the same team that dismantled Uruguay back in November. Is Poch still unsure about the tactical identity of this team? Does he think he’s tricking any of the other teams that we might face in the World Cup by shaking things up? There are too many questions floating around, and I’m concerned those questions will follow the team into this summer.  

The Ugly: Poor Tim Ream. As much as I love the guy, he had a really terrible window. Unfortunately, the 38-year-old has just lost his pace, and at this level, opposing players will punish him for it. He may have played himself out of a starting position in this camp, but I would still expect to see him on the roster come this summer – although he’ll have a much more limited role than I initially anticipated. 

The Good: Matt Freese had a fairly solid game against Portugal. He made a couple of big saves and got the team fired up. I don’t necessarily think either of the goals he conceded was his fault, so I think he has established himself as the starter going into this summer’s tournament.

The Bad: Unfortunately for Matt Freese, however, he did not play in the first game of the window against Belgium. Poch gave Matt Turner the start, and while he did concede five goals, his overall performance wasn’t that terrible. Regardless, the fact that Freese, who had started twelve straight games for the USMNT prior to the game against Belgium, was not named the starter again is just plain weird. The last thing Pochettino needs going into the World Cup is a goalkeeping controversy. There’s no need to undermine Freese’s confidence; just let the man go in goal. 

The Ugly: We can’t finish. We had so many chances against both Belgium and Portugal, but we just couldn’t put the ball into the back of the net. I would even go so far as to say that we were the better team in the first half of each game. But until we can figure out how to make soccer games only forty-five minutes long, finishing will continue to be an issue for this team. It’s a major concern that we can’t score (particularly since we also can’t defend), and we need to find an answer ASAP.

The Good: If there is any consolation to be taken away from these two matches, it’s that our players who are out injured – namely, Tyler Adams and Sergiño Dest – will make an impact when they return. Chris Richards, who missed the first game of the window, certainly helped clean up some of our defensive struggles when he returned for the match against Portugal. I’m hopeful that the scrappiness that Adams brings to the table and Dest’s skill going forward will be a big enough addition to the team to eliminate some of the less-than-stellar plays that we saw this window. 

The Bad: Unfortunately, players returning from injury means that we had players who got injured in the first place. We do have several players who have injury concerns, from Adams and Dest to Jedi Robinson and even Christian Pulisic (don’t worry, we’ll get to him soon). If our guys stay healthy, great! If they don’t… well, that’s a different story. 

The Ugly: Oh, Christian Pulisic. He had a real stinker of an international camp. After being AC Milan’s star player throughout the first half of the season, he’s seen a real drop in form over the past several months. This stall in his performances seems to have slipped over from club to country as well, and he really just can’t get going. He really needs to get over this slump; in the past, the US has only been able to get as far as Captain America is able to take them. If he’s not playing his best going into this summer, it will be very difficult for the USMNT to get big results.