The USMNT's World Cup roster announcements have sparked a firestorm, and it's not just about who made the cut. Former national team star Herculez Gomez is livid over how the news was delivered to the players who didn't make it: via email.
On Tuesday, the U.S. men's national team unveiled its 26-man roster live from Pier 17 in New York City. But behind the scenes, manager Mauricio Pochettino and his staff reportedly sent emails to inform players like Diego Luna, Tanner Tessmann, and Aidan Morris that they wouldn't be heading to the World Cup. Gomez, now an analyst for ESPN+, didn't hold back during a segment on Futbol Americas.
“It’s inexcusable,” Gomez said. “For Diego Luna to be one of the top three most capped players under Mauricio Pochettino and to find out via email — that’s just wrong. You use him in World Cup commercials where he’s playing in a World Cup final. You use him in sporting-brand commercials; you use him to highlight your league and the national teams tied to it. That is wrong.”
Gomez drew a stark contrast with his own experience in 2014, when then-manager Jurgen Klinsmann left him a 2.5-minute voicemail thanking him for his commitment before breaking the bad news. “You have the accountability, and you have the professionalism to tell a player to his face,” Gomez continued. “So when I read that they were informed that they weren’t going via email, this just may be a stop for Mauricio Pochettino, and that’s maybe the way he’s treating it. But to these players, you’re ending a dream. You’re ending something they’ve been working for their whole life with an email, and they deserve more.”
Pochettino, for his part, dismissed the criticism as “bulls--t” in a tweet that Gomez himself highlighted. The manager’s approach marks a sharp departure from the eras of Bob Bradley or Klinsmann, where personal calls were standard. The uproar has only intensified the debate over Diego Luna's World Cup snub, a player who seemed to embody everything Pochettino wanted in a squad member.
For U.S. soccer fans, there’s still plenty to look forward to as the group stage approaches, but the manner of these cuts has left a bitter taste. As Gomez put it, the players deserved more than a cold email to end a lifelong dream. The question now is whether this controversy will linger or be forgotten once the action starts on the pitch.
