Mauricio Pochettino: MLS growth evident in USMNT January camp 

Right from the jump, Mauricio Pochettino made clear to the players he convened for the US men’s national team’s January 2025 camp that their quality and productivity on the pitch, not the league or continent where they ply their club ball, will determine who earns future call-ups.

“The first meeting that we had with Poch,” Real Salt Lake midfielder Emeka Eneli told reporters earlier this week, “we were all in the meeting room, and he said, ‘It doesn't matter where you're playing. We take the players that are in the best form, and those are the players that are going to make the final roster.’”

Proving ground

The USMNT’s Argentine leader drove home that message again as he addressed the media on Friday, one day before a friendly vs. Venezuela at Inter Miami’s Chase Stadium (3 pm ET) that marks the first of two matches in which this young-ish, MLS-dominated squad will look to impress the coaching staff.

“We want to add players to compete for a position on the national team, and then, yes, to be confident and to show their real quality,” Pochettino said of what he called a “fantastic” opportunity to evaluate emerging and domestic-based talent in his program’s player pool. “It’s not important from where they come. For us, it's important how they are going to perform here, with us.

“The message is, please show me that we can come with you and you, playing here in MLS, can compete with players that are competing in Europe.”

The subtext to all this is the legacy of previous regimes, particularly Jurgen Klinsmann’s, which placed varying degrees of emphasis on finding a path to Europe, the sport’s traditional power center, in order to draw the most attention and consideration from the USMNT staff.

First impressions

Pochettino seems set on pushing back against any such mentality, speaking even more bluntly in his first language about how much he’d welcome seeing January campers race their comrades overseas for spots and minutes in the countdown to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Plying your trade in one of the so-called ‘Big Five’ leagues doesn’t grant anyone a “green card,” as he called it, to walk into the national team.

“[The camp] is important, because we are seeing players in our league who can become important, who can have the same level as the players who are playing abroad. Because MLS has grown a lot in recent years,” said ‘Poch’ in Spanish. “Maybe the idea remains that to compete well, you have to go outside the United States, but this camp helps us to see the competitive level and quality, to be able to compare it with the players. There are many of these players who could be abroad, just as many of those who are abroad could be in MLS.

“We are seeing players who have nothing to envy of the guys who have been here before, and I think that has to reach the players who are in Europe who think that they are going to come just because they are in Europe. They have to feel that there are players here who are pushing for a place, and they have to push, too.”

Time to shine

That spirit of possibility and openness has flooded that much more optimism and drive among this month’s group, many of whom are experiencing this level for the first time in their careers.

“We all saw that Brandon Vazquez, he went from Monterrey to Austin, and he said that he called Poch and asked him, ‘Is this move going affect my ability to get called up to the national team?’ He said, ‘No, why would it? If you're playing well in MLS, scoring goals, doing what you do in MLS, you can get called up to any camp you want to,’” noted Eneli, who Pochettino hinted has earned game time in these friendlies.

“So I think just him going out of the gate by saying that, it just makes us all believe that we have a really good chance at hopefully getting called into future national team camps. And then just to continue to put our head down, grind even harder, and just make the most of the opportunity that we have here right now.”

Big picture

All that, combined with so many new faces and so much of the camp’s first week spent building up fitness levels after the players’ offseason, makes the opponent’s identity less essential than in a fully competitive match.

But Venezuela figure to pose a hearty test considering they, too, have called in a hungry group – one that includes Atlanta United defender Ronald Hernández, Austin FC midfielder Dani Pereira and Orlando City goalkeeper Javier Otero – keen to state their credentials for bigger roles as the rising Vinotinto look to reach their first-ever World Cup next year.

For both sides, the hunt for 2026 roster spots is well and truly on.

“I have the opportunity now to say thank you to all the clubs that allowed the players to come. I think it means a lot for me personally, and for the national team, for the federation,” said Pochettino. “It’s amazing that the clubs collaborate with us, sending their players, and that is an important thing.

“The level is very good,” he added. “Today, when we finish the training session, I say, look, after a few months here I think today the session on set pieces was the most quality [he’s seen]. The players that were working showed the most quality, and that talks about how competitive is MLS, and the qualities that we have, young players that need to feel that they can compete and they can reach the level that the national team requires.”