Tyler Adams’ Return To Action Highlights Busy Week For USA’s World Cup Hopefuls

The games are coming thick and fast across the European leagues and the ones closer to home as we hurtle toward the 2026 FIFA World Cup. One date to circle on the calendar is May 26, which is the day U.S. men’s national team coach Mauricio Pochettino reveals at a gala event in New York the 26 players who will represent the co-hosts at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. And when that roster is set, the curtain will be raised for the long awaited tournament. Heading into another busy weekend of club games for the 40 or so Americans hoping to snare a spot on the World Cup roster, here’s who’s trending up and down. Stock Up 📈 Adams returned from the hamstring injury that forced him to miss the USA’s March losses to Belgium and Portugal, making his first Premier League appearance in more than a month. And it was a memorable 20 minutes for the 27-year-old destroyer, who came off the bench to help the Cherries close out one of the biggest wins in their 127-year history: a 2-1 upset of Premier League leaders Arsenal in London. Adams could be back in manager Andoni Iraola's starting lineup when Bournemouth travel to Newcastle on Saturday. Balo can’t stop scoring. The 24-year-old striker found the net for the seventh time in as many games, making him the first Ligue 1 player to pull off that feat since Neymar, Brazil’s all-time top scorer, did it for PSG in 2022. Balogun will go for eight in a row on Sunday, when Monaco hosts Auxerre. The 24-year-old is having an even better season than he did in 2025, when his play for the ‘Caps — particularly in the Concacaf Champions Cup — earned the son of former U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter his first shot with the national team. The younger Berhalter continues to run with the opportunity: he has three goals and three assists in Vancouver’s first seven MLS regular season games. After missing the first leg of Atléti’s UEFA Champions League quarterfinal against La Liga rivals Barcelona, Johnny was healthy for the second, playing the final minute of the contest, plus stoppage time, as Los Rojiblancos advanced to the final four of Europe’s top club competition 3-2 on aggregate. He now has the chance to become just the fourth American ever to appear in the Champions League semis, joining Adams (RB Leipzig, 2020), Christian Pulisic (Chelsea, 2021), and DaMarcus Beasley (PSV Eindhoven, 2004). Cardoso will play for a trophy first, when he takes on Real Sociedad and its American coach Pellegrino Matarazzo in Saturday’s Copa del Rey decider. Although the Pigeons lost 2-0 to Berhalter & Co. north of the border last weekend, Freese was spectacular. The rangy backstop was credited with eight saves, preventing what could’ve been an uglier scoreline in his 100th appearance for NYCFC. It was good enough to earn Harvard-educated "Matty Ice," 27, a spot on the MLS team of the week. Freese’s form is more important than most; for the U.S. to have a successful World Cup this summer, they’ll need Mauricio Pochettino’s presumed No. 1 to be sharp. The El Paso, Texas native scored his 14th goal of the season last weekend, the eventual game-winner for PSV as the already-crowned Dutch champs beat Sparta in Rotterdam. In just under 2,000 combined Eredivisie and UEFA Champions League minutes in 2025-26, Pepi has hit the target about once every 86 on average. With a 4-2 aggregate win over Italian Serie A side Fiorentina on Thursday, Richards — who logged all 180 minutes over the home-and-home series — helped Palace advance to the semifinals of the UEFA Conference League. The current FA Cup holders will face Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk in the opener on April 30. In the Premier League, the Alabama-born center-back will look to go the distance for the 11th straight match when Palace hosts West Ham on Monday in a London derby. When Pochettino left him off the Stars and Stripes’ March roster, many assumed the diminutive left-footed Zendejas’s World Cup dreams were over. But Zendejas remains among the most consistent attackers in the national team player pool, starting every game and running the show — sometimes as captain — for Mexico’s richest and most important club. Last October, Zendejas also scored the goal that beat Japan to kick off a five-game unbeaten run to end 2025. Don’t count Zendejas out yet. Stock Down 📉 The USA’s undisputed headliner’s lack of production remains the biggest worry for the home team’s fans ahead of the World Cup. The Rossoneri’s shocking 3-0 home loss to Udinese last Saturday marked Pulisic’s 16th game without a goal for club and country. He has just one assist this calendar year. Pulisic’s next chance to get on the scoresheet comes on Sunday, when third-place Milan heads east to take on Verona in league play. There’s no way to sugarcoat it: Ream has not played well so far this MLS season. For a U.S. team that doesn’t have a deep bench in central defense, that would be concerning even if Ream wasn’t about to turn 39 years old three months after the World Cup. Rest assured, Poch and his staff will be watching their go-to captain’s every move in the weeks leading up to May 26. When Reyna came on for the final five minutes of Borussia Mochengladbach’s 2-2 tie with Heidenheim on April 4, the hope was that it would lead to more playing time for the 2022 World Cup veteran. Instead, the 23-year-old stayed stapled to manager Eugen Polanski’s bench for last week’s 1-0 defeat in Leipzig — the fourth time in five Bundesliga games he’d been an unused sub. Can Pochettino really take Reyna to the World Cup if he’s not playing at club level at all? Like Tessmann, Tillman found himself on the subs bench last week, in his case for the second consecutive match. Bayer Leverkusen won both of those games. That means Tillman — who has eight goals and one assist in 36 games all told — might have to wait to get back onto the field; he’s played just three Bundesliga minutes since March 21. As the Sky Blues cruise toward Premier League promotion, Wright has hit a minor slump. The towering Los Angeles native is scoreless in his last four outings in England’s second-tier. He still has 16 goals in 36 games this season, trailing only Swansea’s Zan Vipotnik (21) atop the Championship. Coventry visits Blackburn on Friday.Original Article