Fans of the US men’s national team are riding high this week in the wake of Yunus Musah’s commitment to the program on Monday, and the Valencia midfielder duly headlines the roster released for next week’s European friendlies against Jamaica and Northern Ireland.
“Regarding Yunus, I think it's a huge win whenever you can get a guy [who’s] that good of a person, and [with] that much quality. He's such a fantastic kid,” coach Gregg Berhalter said in a Wednesday conference call after the roster drop, his first media availability since Musah’s announcement.
“He endeared himself to the entire group when we were with him in November — [his] openness to learning, really competitive, technically very good. I think it's a huge addition to our program and we're looking forward to working with him.”
So will the USMNT ring up further victories on the dual-national recruiting front in the coming months? It’s been area of focus for Berhalter’s staff, and with Musah in the fold, Efrain Alvarez now becomes perhaps the most closely-watched such case.
Mexico manager Tata Martino named the LA Galaxy homegrown to the roster released Tuesday night ahead of El Tri’s Europe-based friendlies against Wales and Costa Rica this month. Some Mexican media coverage has framed this as a sign that Martino plans to cinch his allegiance in this camp and that Alvarez is prepared to follow suit.
Berhalter cast the circumstances in a somewhat different light.
“I have spoken to him about it and I advocated for him to go in with the Mexican team [in this window],” he said of Alvarez. “And the reason being is that he's been in our environment, and I think the only way for him to make an informed decision was to go into their environment. And we've always said that all we want to do is put the players in position to make the best possible decision they can make.
“Some players are going to choose for us and some players aren't going to choose for us. But when you talk about the emotion of the decision, we want to take some of that emotion out of it by letting them have objective data of what the environments are like, to be able to compare them. So we wish him all the best in this camp and I'm sure I'll follow up with him after the camp.”
Even if Alvarez takes the field for his family’s ancestral home this month, his options will remain open. The 18-year-old has played for both the United States and Mexico at youth national team level, the latter in official FIFA competition (specifically, the 2019 U-17 World Cup), which in administrative terms links him to El Tri until and unless he makes a one-time switch to the nation of his birth -- a decision that is binding.
Both countries included him in their preliminary rosters for this month’s Concacaf Olympic qualifying tournament, an under-23 event, with US coach Jason Kreis making clear the program’s high regard for Alvarez. In the end, the creative attacker wasn’t on either side’s final squad.
“He communicated back with us that he just wasn't ready to make a decision. That's why I know he's not on our roster, and that's why I believe he's also not on Mexico's,” said Kreis. “So that's where that stands at the moment. He's just not ready to make his decision.”
Asked more generally about his personal pitch to dual-national recruits on Wednesday, Berhalter emphasized a “holistic” approach.
“That is certainly part of the process. But the other part of the process is the program speaking for itself, and the guys being the best advocates for the program, and them coming into our environment and experiencing what the environment’s like and guys making them feel welcome and them seeing a long-term view of what U.S. Soccer can be,” he said.
“There's details that we do that I think are nice for the player, there's some little details that are important,” he added, “but I think the big picture is the players, the quality that we have, people wanting to be part of that, and then the environment that they feel welcomed in and that they enjoy being part of. And I think that speaks for itself.”
