Has the USMNT's World Cup roster improved since Qatar 2022?

(Story time: the Austrian people, not that long ago, lobbied to have their own team banned from the European Championships on the grounds of it being a national embarrassment. Whatever shape the USMNT is in, it is nowhere near approaching Austria-level lows. No team on earth is.)

This attitude—that the USMNT is, to put it bluntly, really bad—has run rampant since the team's roster leaked. Shelton's Austrian reporter is but one of many sharing the sentiment. But is it true? Is the USMNT really in a bad place as it enters its first home World Cup in three decades?

Let's find out by comparing it against the USMNT lineup that made it to the Round of 16 in 2022. Position by position, here's how the 2022 and 2026 vintages stack up against once another.

Goalkeepers: Matt Turner, Ethan Horvath, Sean Johnson vs. Matt Freese, Matt Turner, Chris Brady

The USMNT has a history of punching above its weight with goalkeepers, and that sets expectations high for fresh faces in the program. 2022 was a fascinating inflection point in that regard. Turner, Horvath and Johnson were perfectly adequate selections—Turner in particular had just secured an exciting move to Arsenal on the strength of his performance in Major League Soccer—but they didn't inspire the same confidence that their predecessors did. The last time the general public had seen a USMNT goalkeeper in the World Cup was when Tim Howard was setting an all-time saves record in 2014...and Turner, Horvath and Johnson were not Howard.

It's tempting to treat the 2026 goalkeepers as a step down from their 2022 peers. Turner, the one remaining candidate, is older and coming off a frustrating stint in Europe. Freese and Brady are relatively untested compared to Horvath and Johnson. But that would be an unfair interpretation of where these keepers stand. Turner is putting in some of the best performances of his career in New England, Freese has established himself as a cool-headed penalty specialist and Brady is third in MLS on clean sheets after a chaotic season with the Chicago Fire.

With all three 2026 goalkeepers playing in MLS, we can compare them not just against one another, but against 2022's MLS representative Sean Johnson, too. All three of the 2026 keepers rank higher in MLS than 2022 Johnson did on key metrics like save percentage and saves per 90 minutes. They may not be Tim Howard, but no one is. Verdict: Improvement

Right Backs: Sergino Dest, Shaq Moore, DeAndre Yedlin, Joe Scally vs. Sergino Dest, Alex Freeman, Joe Scally

If we're all being honest with ourselves here, this position has been "Dest or bust" for a good while and these rosters prove it. Dest is a wildly different right back than any of his peers from either cycle. No one can do what he does.

His backups, though, look quite a bit stronger now than they did in 2022. Scally is no longer a teenager and has four years of European soccer under his belt; he is no one's favorite USMNT player, but he is useful. Freeman is one of the most exciting prospects the USMNT has found in ages and his defensive versatility makes him more than just an understudy: he's capable of doing completely different jobs than Dest, including slotting into the center of the defense as needed.

In 2022, the USMNT had Dest and three acceptable depth pieces at right back. In 2026, it has Dest, a fascinating prospect in Freeman and an acceptable depth piece in Scally. It's a smaller player pool but a much more functional one. Verdict: Improvement

Center Backs: Walker Zimmerman, Tim Ream, Aaron Long, Cameron Carter-Vickers vs. Chris Richards, Tim Ream, Mark McKenzie, Miles Robinson, Auston Trusty

The USMNT isn't thought of as a particularly strong defensive side, but breakdowns like this prove that it's come an awfully long way in four years. Crystal Palace stalwart Richards (who missed the 2022 World Cup at the last second due to injury) is a marked improvement on every single center back the team sent to Qatar four years ago. McKenzie, too, is an upgrade; he doesn't tend to get his flowers from the fandom but he's a nailed-on starter in one of Europe's top five leagues and he plays like it.

Ream has regressed since 2022; he's 38 now and largely here for his leadership skills. Robinson appears to be a bit of a downgrade on 2022 Zimmerman and Long after his rough start to the season with FC Cincinnati. And Trusty? It's hard to say. Sometimes he struggles to prove his worth in a USMNT shirt and sometimes—like last November against Uruguay—he runs games from start to finish.

The progress isn't consistent across all players here, but Richards and McKenzie's growth alone makes this 2026 roster a marked improvement on 2022. Factor in the idea that right backs Freeman and Scally can easily sink back into central roles and there really is no contest. Verdict: Improvement

Left Backs: Antonee Robinson versus Antonee Robinson, Max Arfsten

This one's easy enough: what exactly was the USMNT thinking here in 2022, bringing no coverage for poor Robinson? Yes, Robinson is a star, but stars need understudies—and thankfully, Robinson finally has one in 2026.

Arfsten has his detractors in the USMNT sphere, but he's a hardworking, hard-running depth piece whose relentless forward movement often makes up for his defensive naivete. The team is lucky to have him...and Robinson is too. Verdict: Improvement

Midfielders: Tyler Adams, Yunus Musah, Luca de la Torre, Cristian Roldan, Kellyn Acosta vs. Tyler Adams, Sebastian Berhalter, Cristian Roldan

The USMNT midfield was onto something great in 2022. Adams was the tournament's youngest captain by far at age 23, Musah looked like the next big thing and de la Torre, Roldan and Acosta were perfectly acceptable backups with plenty of upside.

Flash forward four years and...things look pretty grim. Adams is still spectacular, but he's coming off a choppy season marred by injury and may not be completely fit. Roldan may actually be better than he was in 2022, but he's achieved that by focusing in on a much more defensive midfield role and sacrificing his versatility. Berhalter is a worthy and valid addition to the team—his set pieces and never-say-die mentality are irreplaceable—but he can't lift this midfield up on his own. Adams, Roldan and Berhalter are wonderful players, but they need more help than they're going to get. Bringing just three central midfielders to the World Cup is crazy work.

(On a related note, no USMNT player has fallen further in four years than poor Musah. He went from the top of the roster to the bottom of the reject pile in four years flat. Blame it on effort, age, playing time, coaching styles or whatever else you want, but his drop in national team form has been sad to witness.) Verdict: Regression

Attacking Midfielders: Weston McKennie, Gio Reyna, Christian Pulisic, Brenden Aaronson, Tim Weah vs. Weston McKennie, Gio Reyna, Christian Pulisic, Brenden Aaronson, Tim Weah, Malik Tillman, Alejandro Zendejas

This should be a straight improvement: the 2026 USMNT has the exact same players it leveraged in 2022 plus two phenomenal additions in Tillman and Zendejas. But we cannot pretend that Christian Pulisic and Gio Reyna are entering this World Cup on anything resembling the high that the entered the 2022 edition. Pulisic is in the middle of the driest spell of his career and hasn't scored for the USMNT since 2024; Reyna has played just 510 minutes of professional soccer this season and can't find the consistency he so desperately needs. 

Tillman is a good addition. He's a useful number 10 who could really change the game if he worked on his holding play. Zendejas is a great one. He's the only left-footed attacker in this lineup and he's in the form of his life with Club America. They balance out the regression of Pulisic and Reyna, but only just. Verdict: Stasis

Forwards: Jesus Ferreira, Jordan Morris, Josh Sargent, Haji Wright vs. Folarin Balogun, Ricardo Pepi, Haji Wright

Monaco striker Balogun is, pound for pound, probably the biggest and most valuable addition to the USMNT during this four-year cycle. He wasn't a sure thing—he was eligible to play for England and Nigeria too and required a bit of selling to opt for the USMNT instead—but now that he's here, he's cruising. He's a striker with winger instincts, and that means he's exceptionally dangerous in tight spaces and on the break.

PSV striker Pepi was the final player cut from the USMNT's 2022 lineup; no one is "owed" a World Cup, but if anyone is, it's him. He's the most lethal striker of this lineup with one goal every 88 minutes for PSV this season (for comparison, Balogun's at one every 172 and Wright's at one every 152.)

And Wright? He was something of a perplexing addition to the 2022 squad but he's a sure thing four years later in 2026. He's coming off the season of his life with Coventry City—get ready to watch him in the Premier League next fall—and he brings a lung-busting physicality to the side that can get games over the line. 

This is a smaller striker pool than the one the USMNT leveraged in 2022, but it's fiercer, more competitive and far more balanced. Verdict: Improvement