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Hello! What did Tanner Tessmann do wrong? And how bad is Lionel Messi’s injury?
On the way:
Poch’s Tessmann snub sets tongues wagging
(Johnnie Izquierdo/USSF/Getty Images)
Traditional World Cup squad announcements are becoming obsolete. The USMNT will formally announce the 26-man roster for the upcoming finals tomorrow. However, the details of it had leaked to us by the close of play on Friday night.
You’ll find the full roll-call here and there’s only one major surprise in it: the omission of Tanner Tessmann. The midfielder’s place had been taken as read. He has featured in camp after camp under Mauricio Pochettino, just had a strong season with Lyon in France and is a natural in a deep-lying role (a feature of this U.S. side). But in a roster featuring four other centre-mids, Poch found no space for him.
Tessmann has been carrying a muscular injury, although the prognosis indicated he would be fit in time for the start of the World Cup. It might be the damage is worse than anybody was willing to admit publicly but an explanation for his absence is what we’ll be looking out for when the squad is officially confirmed tomorrow.
In anticipation of that, I asked The Athletic’s Henry Bushnell why he thought Poch had overlooked Tessmann. This is what he had to say:
- 🗣 “My best guess is that multiple factors led to this decision. Perhaps Tessmann’s muscle injury is more worrisome than we realise. Perhaps the U.S. staff saw his form dipping at Lyon before the injury. If so, and if they weren’t happy with him in March, and if they trust Weston McKennie in a deeper role, and if they primarily want midfielders who are going to run around like madmen uninhibited by injury concerns (i.e. Cristian Roldan and Sebastian Berhalter), and if they felt they needed to include an extra defender due to Chris Richards’ injury… then I suppose you can justify excluding Tessmann. But to be clear, I wouldn’t have.”
I’m with Henry on this one. It’s not an easy call to rationalise given Tessmann’s attributes, but I guess in a squad which largely picked itself, there was bound to be at least one curveball.
This USMNT roster has options in attack
The big winner in Poch’s picks is Club America winger Alejandro Zendejas. He made the cut and he did so on merit, pushed forward by strong form in Liga MX. Nonetheless, his international appearances on Pochettino’s watch have been intermittent, to say the least.
Here are a few other thoughts on the pool of 26:
- There are goals in the USMNT’s clutch of forwards. Haji Wright scored 17 in the Championship as Coventry City won the title. Folarin Balogun weighed in with 13 for Monaco in Ligue 1, plus another five in the Champions League. Ricardo Pepi finished joint-third in the Dutch Eredivisie charts with 16. All in all, it represents decent firepower.
- A large number of players who can operate as either full-backs or wing-backs (Sergino Dest, for instance) gives Pochettino tactical flexibility. He’s been switching between a back three and a back four, so will be able to mix it up at the World Cup.
- Faith in Gio Reyna will have to be repaid. Reyna was clearly going to the finals because Pochettino has championed him religiously, but it’s one goal and four league starts for him at Borussia Monchengladbach this season. He’s a curious selection.
Suddenly, it all feels very real for the USMNT. Group game one against Paraguay is two weeks on Friday, and this is Pochettino placing his bets. Tessmann aside, he’s basically called it right.
News Round-Up
(Photo by Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)
- A huge scare for Argentina on the eve of the World Cup: Lionel Messi limped out of a crazy MLS game between Inter Miami and Philadelphia Union last night (Miami won it 6-4, helped by two Messi assists). He asked to be replaced in the 73rd minute and was holding the back of his left leg. At the time of writing, Miami have said nothing about it. We’ll keep you posted.
- Iran are moving their World Cup base from the United States to Mexico, according to the president of their football federation. The initial plan was to situate themselves in Arizona but they now intend to bed down in Tijuana. This comes amid the ongoing military conflict between Iran and the U.S., and follows talks with FIFA general secretary Mattias Grafstrom.
- In other Iran news, Adam Crafton reports that FIFA is being threatened with legal action by a non-profit group over its plan to ban the pre-revolutionary Iranian flag from World Cup matches
- It’s all happening at Napoli. An American consortium has made an offer of £1.7bn ($2.3n) to buy the Serie A club. But if the purchase goes through, they’ll need a new head coach — because Antonio Conte quit yesterday after the final game of their season. Might he fancy another go at the Italy job?
- Police in Brazil seized around 200,000 counterfeit Panini stickers during a raid on Thursday. Brooks Peck put together a guide to the art of spotting a fake.
- Senegal supporters who were detained in Morocco in the wake of the chaotic Africa Cup of Nations final in January have been released after receiving royal pardons.
West Ham are relegated, sorry Spurs survive
(Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
The odds were stacked against West Ham United beating relegation yesterday and even in a year when Tottenham Hotspur plumbed appallingly abject depths, few clubs deserved it more. “Absurd and abysmal” is the headline on Tim Spiers’ West Ham post-mortem this morning. There’s no better way of summing them up.
Spurs merit the same description, and they used all of their nine lives by crawling into 17th place in the final Premier League table. I give credit to Roberto De Zerbi for keeping them up (his late-March appointment was the only savvy decision Tottenham made). Kudos to Antonin Kinsky for a streak of big performances in goal, too. But across the board, some harsh home truths are called for.
To put that another way, the exit door should be active at Spurs this summer. It’s swinging elsewhere, too. Pep Guardiola said cheerio to Manchester City (his farewell video message on Friday was quite something), as did Bernardo Silva and John Stones. Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson have reached the end of the line at Liverpool. They leave behind a head coach in Arne Slot who is very much hanging on, though the Anfield crowd parked its frustration with Slot to focus instead on two departing stalwarts.
And Arsenal got their hands on the Premier League trophy, a title they more than earned in the end. Two of their supporters were so desperate to be at the game away to Crystal Palace yesterday that they were arrested on suspicion of impersonating stewards (nice try).
The eventual gap to City was seven points and while a finishing tally of 85 would have fallen short of top spot in certain seasons, it’s been more than enough this time. Mikel Arteta’s ascent to the Holy Grail was long and gruelling. The question for him and Arsenal next season: can they repeat
- Bruno Fernandes was not to be denied. One final assist at Brighton gave the Manchester United midfielder the outright Premier League record of 21 in a single campaign, moving him clear of Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne. It’s equally remarkable to see Michael Carrick finish with a points per game average of 2.29. Appointing him saved United’s season.
I spy promotion: Hull reign in £200m game
Middlesbrough have endured the oddest play-off experience on record. They came up short in the Championship semi-finals but made the final anyway, the beneficiaries of Southampton’s expulsion in the wake of the Spygate fiasco. They lost that final on Saturday to a 95th-minute tap-in from Hull City striker Oli McBurnie (above). Middlesbrough scored once from 54 shots across the three play-off matches. As the dust settles, they’ll be asking what the point of it was.
Hull’s victory over them at Wembley completes the Premier League line-up for 2026-27. Hull go up with Coventry and Ipswich Town. Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley and West Ham come down. Leeds United and Sunderland proved this season that it is possible to bridge the gulf between England’s second and top tiers, but Hull, Coventry and Ipswich all have a job on their hands.
Mind you, Premier League football was a pipedream for Hull this time last year. They were goal difference away from being relegated to League One and they muddled their way through a transfer embargo imposed on them by the EFL — part of the reason why McBurnie joined them as a free agent just days before this season started.
Somehow, 12 months on, they’re cashing in to the tune of £200m ($270m), the estimated value of reaching the Premier League. They’re off to Las Vegas en masse and they’d be well advised to hit the casino floor while their luck is in. Theirs is a promotion which came from nowhere.
Around The Athletic
(Getty Images; design: Kelsea Petersen)
- To circle back to Guardiola for a second, Sam Lee has written at length about the dynasty created by the Spaniard at the Etihad. One line that jumped out: his original intention was to stay at City until he collected 10 Premier League titles. The great man fell four short.
- There’s loads to enjoy in Mark Carey’s Alternative Premier League Awards write-up. Among other things, it will show you how exceptionally two-footed Rayan Cherki is. And also make you ask if England coach Thomas Tuchel has made a mistake by not taking Adam Wharton to the World Cup.
- Chris Weatherspoon grabbed his calculator and worked out how much each Premier League side earned in 2025-26. Arsenal’s domestic prize money stands at £198.7m ($268m). Talk about reaping a rich harvest.
- Florentino Perez won’t simply be re-elected to the role of Real Madrid president unopposed this time. A challenger has emerged: renewable-energy entrepreneur Enrique Riquelme. Dermot Corrigan has the lowdown on who Riquelme is (which is handy, because, frankly, I’ve never heard of him).
- TAFC will bring you wall-to-wall coverage of the World Cup, but The Athletic is launching a separate pop-up newsletter for the extra thrills and spills during the tournament. The first edition is out on Wednesday, and it’s written by the brilliant Hannah Vanbiber and Chris Sprow. Sign up for free here.
- Most clicked in Friday’s TAFC: Our England squad live blog.
Catch A Match
Selected games (times ET/UK)
German Bundesliga relegation play-off, second leg: Paderborn (0) vs Wolfsburg (0), 2.30pm/7.30pm – ESPN/Amazon Prime.
League Two play-off final: Notts County vs Salford City, 10am/3pm – CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/Sky Sports.
And Finally…
Saudi Arabia’s first division — the tier below the uber-rich Pro League — has given us a contender for the unluckiest own goal of all time.
Al Ula were leading 1-0 in a promotion play-off final against Al Diriyah on Saturday when their opponents won a second-half penalty. Goalkeeper Mohammed Al Owais pulled off a top save with his foot but the resulting clearance was smashed into the face of midfielder Ali Al Hussain, who could not avoid turning it into his own net (above).
As if that wasn’t enough of a kick in the teeth, Al Ula went on to lose to 10 men after extra time. Write it off as a bad job, boys.
