ALLIANZ FIELD (St. Paul, Minn.) <\/strong>\u2014 Mauricio Pochettino had a plan.<\/p>\n Ahead of FIFA\u2019s first international window of the 2030 World Cup cycle, the coach of the U.S. men\u2019s national team knew that the Americans\u2019 four exhibition games in late September and early October presented a unique opportunity to take a long look at the next generation of American talent before games that matter resume in November with the Concacaf Nations League quarterfinals.<\/p>\n He summoned the kids. He played them all, with 20-year-old Cole Campbell, who became the 13 and final previously uncapped invitee to debut for the USA when he entered as a substitute in the second half of Tuesday\u2019s 1-0 win over Canada in the Twin Cities.<\/p>\n Pochettino got goals from teenagers in all four matches. Mathis Albert became the youngest scorer in program history, then saw his record smashed just four days later by fellow 17-year-old Cavan Sullivan. Justin Ellis, 19, scored the winner Tuesday against the Reds, his second goal in as many starts, having also found the net in the 4-1 win over Peru on Sept. 26 that started the USA on its way to a clean four-game sweep. Julian Hall, 18, scored in his first three international appearances, including game-winners over Chile and Peru.<\/p>\n The plan could hardly have gone much better.<\/p>\n “The players, I think they deserve the credit,” Pochettino said after Tuesday\u2019s contest. “I\u2019m not talking only about the results. I\u2019m talking about the way that we competed.<\/p>\n “I think it was amazing,” the Argentine continued, “to play always with the same intensity, with the same commitment, with the same passion. That is something that we need to keep.”<\/p>\n Surely he needs to keep some of the kids around, too.<\/p>\n (Photo by Patrick Mulligan\/USSF\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n With the U.S. youth national teams idle this window, Pochettino didn\u2019t have to consider the needs of the U.S. under-23 squad. That will change in November, when Olympic coach Steve Cherundolo convenes a group of players that will compete for the majority of roster spots at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles \u2014 an event the U.S. Soccer Federation is desperate to have a strong showing in on home soil.<\/p>\n So Pochettino\u2019s strategy was always to give big minutes to youngsters like Hall and Ellis with the senior team early this autumn. The former Tottenham, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea boss revealed after Tuesday\u2019s victory that that would\u2019ve been the case even if World Cup striker Ricardo Pepi hadn\u2019t gotten hurt playing for Dutch champs PSV Eindhoven a day before he was scheduled to arrive at the USSF\u2019s training base outside of Atlanta.<\/p>\n In November, the original idea went, most of the youngsters would return to the U-23s or even the U.S. U-20s, which in August qualified for next year\u2019s FIFA U-20 World Cup in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. Their performances this month\u00a0 could alter that thinking, however. Following the 3-0 win over Mexico, Pochettino told me that it “was a fantastic problem” to have.<\/p>\n “Having a plan, you can adjust things and fix situations or change if you are seeing that you need to change,” he said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n (Photo by David Berding\/USSF\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n One camp into the new cycle, the competition for places should be fierce \u2014 especially if 2026 cycle mainstays such as Pepi, Folarin Balogun, Weston McKennie and Christian Pulisic are all healthy and available and performing well for their European clubs.<\/p>\n “Obviously, there are a lot of new faces, and they all had great energy and worked very hard while they were here,” two-time World Cup veteran Gio Reyna said.\u00a0 “It definitely brings competition, which is what we all need. And I think it’s great \u00a0for the upcoming cycle to push everybody.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY ALLIANZ FIELD (St. Paul, Minn.) \u2014 Mauricio Pochettino had a plan. Ahead of FIFA\u2019s first international window of the 2030 World Cup cycle, the coach of the U.S. men\u2019s national team knew that the Americans\u2019 four exhibition games in late September and early October presented a unique opportunity to take a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}