{"id":242905,"date":"2026-05-11T19:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/world-cup-check-in-big-changes-in-the-usmnt-midfield\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T19:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:30:12","slug":"world-cup-check-in-big-changes-in-the-usmnt-midfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/world-cup-check-in-big-changes-in-the-usmnt-midfield\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup check-in: Big changes in the USMNT midfield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The 2026 <a data-mrf-link=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\/topics\/fifa_world_cup\/17265\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\/topics\/fifa_world_cup\/17265\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FIFA World Cup<\/a><span>\u00a0<\/span>is less than five weeks away.<\/p>\n<p>On June 11, Mexico and South Africa will open the tournament at Mexico City&#8217;s legendary Azteca Stadium. The next day, the <a data-mrf-link=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\/teams\/united_states_mens_soccer\/17537\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\/teams\/united_states_mens_soccer\/17537\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">U.S. Men&#8217;s National Team<\/a><span>\u00a0<\/span>will start its own World Cup journey against Paraguay at Los Angeles&#8217;s SoFi Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>The USMNT hasn&#8217;t named its official World Cup squad \u2014 that roster is expected to drop May 26 \u2014 and that means everyone, from top players to fringe candidates, is battling to be a part of the historic team.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the players who did the most to help \u2014 or hurt \u2014 their cases over the past week of club soccer:<\/p>\n<h2>Gio Reyna, Borussia Monchengladbach<\/h2>\n<p>Reyna is a divisive figure within the USMNT fan base. For some, he&#8217;s the most talented player of the bunch and a surefire lock for the World Cup roster regardless of how he&#8217;s performing elsewhere; for others, he&#8217;s a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2025\/oct\/28\/gio-reyna-usmnt-borussia-monchengladbach-world-cup-2022-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">known troublemaker<\/a> whose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fotmob.com\/players\/1071179\/giovanni-reyna\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">487 minutes<\/a> of professional play this season hardly warrant a call-up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Reyna <em>is\u00a0<\/em>breathtakingly talented, and he&#8217;s grown a lot since his meltdown at the last World Cup, but he isn&#8217;t getting the reps he needs to prove himself for this one.<\/p>\n<p>That might be changing at the last second. Reyna played nearly 40 minutes in Borussia Monchengladbach&#8217;s 3-1 loss to Augsburg on Saturday \u2014 a longer stint than he&#8217;s managed in ages \u2014 and scored his first Monchengladbach goal. For most players, a record like that wouldn&#8217;t be enough to get them on the World Cup squad. But for someone with as much ceiling-raising potential as Reyna, this just might do the trick.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>\n    !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n    {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n    n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n    if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n    n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n    t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n    fbq('init', '1324276914788316');\n    fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/soccer\/articles\/world_cup_check_in_big_changes_in_the_usmnt_midfield\/s1_13132_43830921\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2026 FIFA World Cup\u00a0is less than five weeks away. On June 11, Mexico and South Africa will open the tournament at Mexico City&#8217;s legendary Azteca Stadium. The next day, the U.S. Men&#8217;s National Team\u00a0will start its own World Cup journey against Paraguay at Los Angeles&#8217;s SoFi Stadium. The USMNT hasn&#8217;t named its official World [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":242906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6806],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-242905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gossip"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}