A Journey of Redemption for USMNT Players

NEW YORK — For Ricardo Pepi, the moment came in an unexpected place: in the car with his dad on the way to the grocery store on Friday afternoon. When his phone buzzed with an email from U.S. Soccer letting him know he was on the squad for the 2026 World Cup, the 23-year-old said he got the chills.

"I couldn't really believe it," he said. "This is something special. It's something that I can't really describe how it feels to be honest. It's just a lot of happiness."

It was before the 2022 World Cup that Pepi famously hung up on then-U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter when news hit that he hadn't made the team headed to Qatar. Widely thought to be one of the final cuts from the roster — and maybe that group's biggest snub, in hindsight — Pepi spent the next three and a half years hoping to achieve his childhood dream.

Proving the Doubters Wrong

Pepi's goalscoring form on loan at Dutch club Groningen in 2022 earned him a move to Eredivisie giant PSV, where he has scored 45 goals over the past three seasons. Not even a broken arm in January or a transfer saga with Fulham were going to derail him this time around. His consistency finding the back of the net — 19 goals in just over 1,700 minutes (a goal every 89 minutes) in all competitions this season — made him a clear choice for U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino this time around.

For each of the 26 players who got the email and the WhatsApp group chat message, Friday marked an incredibly special moment. For all of them, it was the fulfillment of a lifelong goal and a generational opportunity to play in a home World Cup.

But for a handful of the players in Pochettino's team, it also felt a bit like redemption.

The Five Who Overcame Adversity

Three of them — Mark McKenzie, Malik Tillman and Pepi — were thought to be three of the last cuts from the 2022 roster. Another two — Chris Richards and Miles Robinson — devastatingly had injuries rule them out. All five now will get the opportunity to be at a World Cup.

Tillman, a German-American who turns 24 on Thursday, endured a rough end of the season for Bayer Leverkusen, but had a breakout Gold Cup under Pochettino last summer and most certainly will factor into the attacking midfield.

McKenzie, 27, has toiled in Belgium and France to push his way not just into the roster, but in the conversation to start on the back line. The Philadelphia Union homegrown product had been with Genk in Belgium for a season and a half when he missed out on Qatar, but his playing time grew in the two seasons after the snub, and he moved to France with Toulouse, where he has been a regular starter.

"It shows me that these last four years were for a reason," McKenzie said. "It was heartbreaking, obviously not making it to '22, but I rolled up my sleeves and I said that next time around I would make sure that I controlled everything I can control. Wasn't anything left up to doubt."

Overcoming Injury setbacks

One of the players with whom McKenzie is competing for playing time this summer is Robinson, who looked set to be a starter in Qatar when he went down with a ruptured Achilles tendon on May 7, 2022, six months before the World Cup. Robinson pounded the turf in dismay as the reality of the injury hit home.

Three and a half years later, he was in his car when he got the message from U.S. Soccer. The 29-year-old Robinson, now with FC Cincinnati, thought back to that injury and that missed opportunity.

"It just made it even more surreal," Robinson said. "It was just a lot of hard work and dedication going into those last four years, just putting my head down and trying to get better every day. And definitely grateful to be in this group."

Chris Richards, who wasn't at Tuesday's announcement event as he remained with Crystal Palace and was on the bench for their UEFA Conference League final win on Wednesday, was also unlucky to miss out on Qatar due to a hamstring injury. Richards, 26, felt he was nearly back before a setback in rehabilitation knocked him out of the tournament. He missed getting healthy for Qatar by two weeks.

"It was heartbreaking," he told The Athletic two years ago. Richards' family flew to England to be with him and help him through the disappointment.

"It was good for them to be there because I don't think I could have done it without them," he said. "The biggest thing was just having people around me who were, you know, trying to love on me the whole time."

Richards is a locked-in starter for the U.S. and one of the most important players on the roster. A recent ankle injury put a scare into the team — and him — that history might repeat itself. But his making the bench for Palace on Wednesday shows how close he is to recovery, and he's now set to join the U.S. in Atlanta for camp.

Pochettino Understands Their Pain

The five will look to make an impression under a coach who knows exactly how they feel. Pochettino missed out on the 1994 and 1998 World Cups before finally making the team as a veteran in 2002. He spoke Tuesday about the pain of missing out on those first two squads, and also relayed how enormously important getting to the tournament was to his career.

It's undoubtedly informed how he felt in picking the roster as coach. Pochettino said he lost sleep over the decisions.

"Today I still cannot enjoy the 26 guys that are in front of me, because I am thinking of players that are out," Pochettino said. "That is (what it means) to care."

For those 26 that are there, though, and for the five who, like Pochettino, understand in a different way how valuable a World Cup call is, the next few weeks will be informed by a totally different level of motivation.

"Every day we work toward our dreams, and this is a dream come true," Pepi said Tuesday. "Now we have to compete and do our very best in the World Cup."