Christian Pulisic under pressure, reprieve for Matt Turner and Gio Reyna's last chance: Top 10 USMNT storylines for the rest of 2025

We’re more than halfway through 2025 but, for soccer purposes, it feels like we just surpassed a milestone. The Gold Cup is over, the Club World Cup wraps this weekend, so it’s time to turn the page for the U.S. men’s national team.

The Gold Cup, of course, ended in a disappointing 2-1 loss to Mexico in the final. It was an eventful summer, but with a World Cup on the horizon and a massive European season just weeks away, it’s all starting to come into focus. Players have already started reporting to their clubs for preseason, transfers are in the balance and Mauricio Pochettino is planning for the next international window in September.

BALLGM looks at 10 key storylines for the USMNT for the second half of the year.

Christian Pulisic skipped out on this summer’s slate to make sure his health was right for the road to 2026. Once the Serie A season gets going, he’ll have to show it was all worth it. If he doesn’t get off to a hot start, there will be no shortage of critics ready to hold this summer’s decision against him.

The AC Milan winger has put himself into a position where he simply has to play well, not that that’s a bad thing. He was fantastic last season for AC Milan and will likely be a huge part of the club’s plans once again this season, so game time won’t be a problem. The faster he gets scoring, though, the faster he can put this summer’s PR disaster behind him with evidence that proves he might just have been right.

This Gold Cup made it clear that Tim Ream remains the preferred option for the USMNT alongside Chris Richards, but can anyone change that?

Mark McKenzie, Auston Trusty and Cameron Carter-Vickers are all playing at a high level in Europe, and all three will have ambitions of starting at the World Cup. What can they do to seize a chance? Could young dual-national Noahkai Banks leap into Pochettino’s plans? Is there a surprise option to enter the race?

At the moment, center-back is one of few positions that could shift, and there are plenty of contenders.

Who would have thought that the USMNT goalkeeper position would have been so dependent on a decision from a governing body known as the Direction Nationale du Controle de Gestion?

Having won it’s appeal to the body which oversees the finances of French football teams, Lyon’s relegation was overturned and they will remain in Ligue 1. For Matt Turner, that means his reported move to the club could go through, if all parties are still interested

It’s an interesting one for Turner, who clearly needs to play, and play well, if he wants to start for the USMNT next summer. If not, Matt Freese – who started all six matches in the Gold Cup – will headline the MLS candidates that will continue to put pressure on Turner to make the most of things at the club level.

Make no mistake about it: Gio Reyna’s career needs saving. He spent the last four years stagnating on Borussia Dortmund‘s bench and trainer’s room. Now 22, Reyna has run out of time to waste.

How many players have missed as much time as he has in these crucial years and come out the other side? For Reyna to become the player everyone expected him to become, he needs to right the ship – and do it right now.

His transfer saga is most certainly the most interesting one of the summer, largely as it is totally make or break for a player that may or may not be a key member of the USMNT going forward.

There are plenty of transfer sagas to go around, and some have already been settled. Damion Downs has already parlayed his Koln breakout into a Southampton switch, but who else might be on the move this summer?

Malik Tillman has been linked with a big-money transfer to Bayer Leverkusen, while fellow Gold Cup standout Patrick Agyemang looks bound for Derby County. Johnny Cardoso, despite his Gold Cup injury issues, looks bound for Atletico Madrid.

Yunus Musah and Tim Weah, meanwhile, are reportedly candidates to leave Serie A after being unable to lock down consistent starting roles with their respective Italian giants – Milan and Juventus – last season.

The Gold Cup was a breakout moment for several young USMNT stars. Can they now build on it?

Agyemang, Diego Luna, Alex Freeman, Sebastian Berhalter and Max Arfsten were among the younger MLS players to regularly start down the stretch this summer. Jack McGlynn, too, played a role.

All entered the tournament with minimal experience, and all are back at it in MLS looking to keep their spots ahead of the September window. The competition will be stiff, but Pochettino has shown he won’t write off MLS, as long as players keep performing.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the last 12 months or so, it’s that there is a steep, steep drop-off at the USMNT fullback positions. Antonee Robinson and Sergino Dest are irreplaceable. There are guys that can play the position, sure, but none who can play it the way to the level of the starting duo.

Robinson has featured sparingly since Pochettino’s arrival due to injury issues. Dest hasn’t featured at all after dealing with an ACL tear that kept him out for the spring. Both are legitimate game-changers, players that will drastically impact how the U.S. can player under their head coach.

The first order of business, then, is getting them and keeping them healthy. Both will be relied upon heavily with their clubs, and both will have to cross their fingers and look to avoid injuries.

Ricardo Pepi got a few games in the fall. Folarin Balogun, due to injury, has yet to play under Pochettino. Their status will have a dramatic impact on this team’s success.

Strikers, of course, are a unique bunch. They are judged almost solely on goals, which means that starting spots largely come down to form. Considering the timing of the World Cup, their form this campaign will be particularly important.

Can Pepi bang in the goals for PSV like he did before his big injury last year? Can Balogun stay fit enough for Monaco to replicate his Reims form? Can anyone score enough to challenge them? That’s the striker position, one that will go down to the wire.

In most World Cup cycles, there’s a player who comes out of nowhere to make a run at the final squad. That seems likely, again, with Pochettino at the helm. Just a year into this, there are few existing attachments to players and, furthermore, the coach has said multiple times that his choices will be based on merit, not name power or experience.

So, who can make that late run? There are positions of need, such as winger or center-back, and there are young players who could break through and make a difference. Few would have expected much from Freeman or Damion Downs, but now both could be legitimate candidates for the World Cup squad.

Others could join them. Young players such as Kevin Paredes, Caleb Wiley, Cole Campbell or Diego Kochen could earn a spot. There’s likely a dual-national that isn’t even on the radar yet. All of that is to say that the player pool isn’t complete and that there’s room for another surprise or two.

Under Pochettino, the USMNT – now ranked 15th in the world – have played five games against teams in the FIFA’s top 30. They’ve lost all five. Up next are South Korea and Japan, teams ranked 23 and 17 on that list. They may be friendlies but, now more than ever, there’s pressure for the USMNT to perform.

The September friendlies represent important tests, as will those in October. There are no more competitive games on the schedule until the U.S. kicks off at the World Cup, making these big-time friendlies all the more important for a team that still has work to do.

These won’t just be crucial friendlies on the field, though, but also off the field. After several notable losses over the last year, fans will want to see some sign of progress against legitimate World Cup teams. Time is running out and the pressure is on for this group on the road to 2026.