USMNT's Evolution: McKennie, Berhalter, and a Growing Team

The first thing Weston McKennie wanted at the Chicago Fire training facility wasn’t a ball or a bib. It was a familiar face.

Gregg Berhalter’s.

Across from him, Sebastian Berhalter didn’t need to say much. His surname explained why he, too, kept glancing around, hoping the Chicago Fire head coach would appear.

"He's a great person, and I'm not just saying this because [Sebastian is here]," McKennie said with a laugh, talking about the man who once built a national team around him and, for a time, around a generation.

McKennie had barely dropped his bags before he and Sebastian took the podium, but his mind was already elsewhere – on the coach who helped shape his career, and on one more conversation before a World Cup summer that could define this group.

"I went to him with problems on and off the field. I've cried in front of him," McKennie said. "We've had tough times and also amazing times together, and so it'll be really nice to be able to see him around here, hopefully, today, and just to catch up and just go over some memories. I'm sure he'll probably give me some advice leading into the game and into the World Cup, because that's just the type of guy he is."

Berhalter’s Boys, All Grown Up

Gregg Berhalter didn’t just inherit a team when he took the USMNT job after the 2018 qualifying collapse. He inherited a project. Teenagers, scattered across Europe and MLS, raw and ambitious, still figuring out what it meant to be professionals.

Now he looks at them and sees something very different.

"I think one thing we have to remember is when I got them, they were young, they were babies, and they were just learning what it takes to be a professional athlete," he said. "Now I see them, and they're men! They have kids, and they're adults, and they know exactly what it means to maintain themselves as professionals. It's an amazing thing to see.

"I just greeted them now, and was like, 'I can't believe it, they're grown up!'. I think they'll be ready for this moment. The one thing I know about this group is that they step up to these moments."

That bond hasn’t dissolved just because he no longer stands in their technical area. He watched them grow, and now he wants to watch them cash in on all those years of learning, all those camps where potential slowly hardened into expectation.

Pochettino’s Puzzle: Risk, Reward, and Chris Richards

Out on the grass on Friday, another piece of this World Cup puzzle moved quietly through warmups. Chris Richards trained with the group, no issues, no visible discomfort. Yet he will not play this weekend. Mauricio Pochettino confirmed it.

For the coach, it’s a decision that stings.

"When we decided the roster, we thought that Chris could play the final of the Conference [League] because we had designed the roster previously," Pochettino said. "There was a line of information where we were thinking that he could play that final against Rayo Vallecano in the Conference League. He was on the bench, if you remember. After, that he could maybe be [there] against Senegal. After, today, in the end, the timelines were lengthening and [it] angers me a bit. I’m not happy because we know Chris Richards is an important player, of course, we all know it, but also when I was saying is based on the information that we had, and sometimes there wasn't clarity.

"In the end, we can hope that Chris can be there. But, in the end, we’re going to find ourselves coming without competing [for a month] and after we have to make the decision if he’s in form to compete or not. There’s not a lot of time in the World Cup."

This is the tightrope managers walk in a World Cup year. Players want minutes. Coaches want rhythm. Physios want caution. Time wants none of them.

Pochettino knows there is no perfect answer.

He looked around at a squad carrying the usual end-of-season knocks and strains and shrugged when pressed on specifics. Nothing dramatic, he insisted, just the standard wear and tear. But Saturday’s friendly sits in that awkward space: too close to the World Cup to be carefree, too important to treat like a training exercise.

"The haters today with social media, they will never agree if you play normally with the players or if you play with the first team for the World Cup," he said. "If nothing happens, no one is going to say anything, good decision, but if something does happen, they say I have no clue!

"It's impossible to know what we need to do. That's why, from the beginning, it is to prepare in the best way that all the players have the possibility to play or to compete."

He can’t control the noise. He can only manage the risk.

Germany Again, and a Different USMNT

The schedule offers no soft landings. After beating Senegal, the U.S. go straight into another heavyweight clash, this time against Germany.

Pochettino wanted this kind of run-up. Big opponents. Big lessons.

"We wanted to play the best in preparation for this World Cup," he said. "I think all the tests of Portugal or Belgium were amazing because they allowed us to improve and to learn what we don't need to do and how we need to approach it again. I think it's a great opportunity, after Senegal, this is going to be a beautiful team that we have to face tomorrow, and it's about approaching in the best way we can."

The U.S. know what Germany can do. They lived it not long ago.

In October 2023, Germany came to Connecticut and left with a 3-1 win. Christian Pulisic scored, but 14 of the 26 players in this current group walked off that pitch knowing they had let a chance slip.

McKennie hasn’t forgotten the level, even if he doesn’t dwell on the details of the German lineup.

"I don't really remember Germany's roster for that game, and I don't know how similar it is to this roster," he said, "But I think that game showed, obviously, the quality that they have, but also the quality that we have as well. We played a good game, and we had the potential to win that game as well.

"We go into this game with a lot of players that haven't played against them yet and players that have, so I think the new energy, the new style, the new circumstances in general leading into a World Cup, I think it's going to be a great test for us and I think we go out there with the same mentality that we always go out with."

Same opponent. Different context. A team older, scarred a bit more, but also surer of itself.

McKennie’s Form, and Where It Fits

McKennie arrives this summer in something close to peak condition. Nine goals and six assists across Serie A and the Champions League for Juventus tell part of the story. The other part is how he feels.

Confident. Sharp. Ready.

Juventus fell short of the Champions League places by just two points, a bitter end to an impressive individual season. McKennie isn’t carrying that frustration into camp. He’s carrying the belief.

"I think any player can say that coming out of club form and being in good club form does a lot, because it's the confidence that you bring, it's the desire, the want, the everything," he said. "I think the system that our coach has here, the type of player I am is a player that adapts. I'm the type of player who can play many roles, so I'm more of a guy that, wherever he needs me to do, I'll do whatever I'm called upon for.

"I try to step up and just be the best I can for the team. I think that's one thing that this team does have: no one's selfish. Everyone's here for the right reasons. Everyone's here to get a victory for the U.S., so I think it's amazing to be able to come here with confidence, and coming off a great individual season. Obviously, my club team didn't finish where we wanted to finish, but the confidence is still there."

The tactical question now hangs over him: deeper conductor or late-arriving runner into the box? Destroyer or difference-maker in the final third? He insists he’ll play wherever he’s needed. The staff will decide how to weaponize his form.

Around him, not everyone rides the same wave. Some key figures arrive short on minutes, some short on rhythm. That’s the paradox of a World Cup. Form can matter. It can also vanish the moment the whistle blows.

McKennie doesn’t sound worried about that. Not with this group. Not with this stage in their lives.

They were kids when Berhalter first gathered them. They’re men now, as he keeps reminding anyone who will listen.

Germany awaits. The World Cup looms. The excuses are gone.