Once The Youngsters, USA’s World Cup Veterans Now Become The Mentors

Gio Reyna has been in their shoes. Like his new USA teammates Cavan Sullivan and Neil Pierre, Reyna was once a blue-chip teenager participating in his first national team camp, as Albert and Mehmeti are ahead of four home exhibition games against Peru, Chile, Mexico and Canada — the Stars and Stripes’ first set of matches since the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Now the former prodigy is 23. He’s played for four clubs across Germany, England and France. He’s a two-time World Cup veteran with a wife and a baby on the way. “I’m still very young, still have a lot to prove to myself and to other people,” Reyna told reporters this week from U.S. Soccer’s sprawling training facility outside of Atlanta. Reyna is also a proven international player at this stage of his career, one who, along with the 12 other World Cup veterans on this unusually inexperienced 28-player roster, is suddenly responsible for helping guide the next generation of American stars. It’s a big change for many of the U.S. mainstays. Take Sebastian Berhalter, who played just seven times for his country this time last year and was still far from being a lock on coach Mauricio Pochettino’s 26-man World Cup squad. Berhalter went on to secure his spot, appearing in all five U.S. matches during the tournament and scoring in a 3-2 group stage loss to Türkiye. In a locker room where the current average age is under 23 — more than four years younger than the World Cup group — Berhalter, 25, is a grizzled pro. “I’ve only been part of the team for a year now, which is crazy, but it’s good,” Berhalter said of the elders’ newly expanded off-field role. “I think it’s something that we take in stride. For us, it’s about our individual performances and making sure we’re keeping the standard [high], and then also showing everyone around us what it takes” at soccer’s highest level. That process will continue until camp wraps up following the Canada match in St. Paul, Minnesota on Oct. 6. Pochettino has overseen just two training sessions so far and doesn’t even have his full contingent of invitees yet; experienced center backs Chris Richards and Auston Trusty played overseas on Sunday, for Crystal Palace and Celtic respectively, and won’t work out with their fellow Americans until Wednesday. Still, the newcomers have made a good first impression on the old guard. “When I look at all these young players, they’re very professional,” Miles Robinson told me Tuesday during a videoconference. “They’re very mature for being 16, 18, 20 years old. They have an understanding of the game, and I think they want to learn and get better and grow and develop. “That’s the mindset that you have to have as a young player,” added the 29-year-old Robinson, who featured in one World Cup game over the summer. “You want to be like one of those sponges that takes in everything, that recognizes there’s so much to learn and there’s so much to kind of grow within your own game and the game collectively as a team. So I think as long as they keep an open mind, we’ve got a bright future.” With longtime national team starters Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie absent from this camp, the future is now. The 16-year-old Sullivan and 18-year-old Pierre, both of the Philadelphia Union in MLS, could log big minutes over the first two games. So could the six other teens called in, with the smart money on Pochettino going with his strongest lineups in the early October contests against Concacaf foes Canada and El Tri — teams he hasn’t beaten yet as the U.S. boss. “Obviously [I’m] a little nervous coming in here — these players I kind of watched growing up a little bit, and in the World Cup,” said Pierre, who credited his formative six-month loan to Danish club Lyngby earlier this year with helping him hit the ground running when he returned to the Union in July. “But at the end of the day, I think everyone’s here to compete. Off the field, the work of creating the togetherness that has been the hallmark of the best U.S. teams for generations is already underway. “Everyone’s kind of just like, Hey, welcome to the family,” Pierre said of the returnees, adding that they’ve already helped make him feel comfortable by imploring him not to worry about inevitably making mistakes. “My goal,” Pierre continued, “Is to continue to be with the men’s national team and do my best and put my best foot forward.”