There is a strong temptation on Roster Release Day, an unofficial holiday before the World Cup, to pick apart a coach’s decisions. It’s an inevitable part of the process in the lead up to the tournament.
More than anything, though, it’s a public relations exercise. An opportunity to build excitement — and in the United States, generates awareness — as the tournament draws nearer. That was the case when World Cup rosters were 23 players and even more so now that the rosters have swelled to 26.
The reality is that anyone who was on the fringes of a roster this size wasn’t going to factor into tournament in a meaningful way. If someone wants to argue for adding a fourth striker or changing a seventh midfielder, that’s their prerogative but any assertion that those types of tweaks would have a major bearing on how a team performs is intellectually dishonest.
With that said, it’s still worthwhile to try to review the choices and try to understand why the decisions were made. The final roster provides clearest picture of how a coach views his player pool.
That’s particularly true for United States men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter, who seldom airs public criticism of his players or speaks definitively about preferring one player to another. Rosters for friendlies and competitions like the Gold Cup or Nation’s League are often experimental, built with an eye toward development and assessment for World Cup. That’s less true in qualification where the stakes are real, but there’s still mixing and matching that goes on.
The World Cup roster is different. The roster is zero-sum game.
Let’s take a look at what we learned from Wednesday’s U.S. roster release (projected starters in bold):
Goalkeepers (3)
In: Matt Turner (Arsenal), Ethan Horvath (Luton Town), Sean Johnson (NYCFC)
Out: Zack Steffen (Middlesbrough)
There was a sense for a long time that Steffen was Berhalter’s guy. He played for him in Columbus and seemed to be the preferred option for most of the cycle when healthy. It’s tough to say how much injuries — and uneven play that resulted from them — might have factored into his omission but, either way, it was surprising.
Berhalter’s comments Wednesday made it pretty clear that Turner is the preferred No. 1, he values Horvath’s track record of being ready when called upon unexpectedly (high praise for the likely No. 2) and Johnson’s longevity with the team (the No. 3 goalkeeper is mainly there for good vibes).
