Road to the World Cup: USA’s Last Match of 2025 is a Key Test and Familiar Foe

TAMPA — When it comes to the lowest moments in U.S. men’s national team history, nothing comes close to the epic failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. 

But the USMNT’s loss to Uruguay at the 2024 Copa América isn’t that far behind. 

Christian Pulisic and the U.S. struggled against Uruguay in 2024 (Photo by Robin Alam/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Let’s recount that steamy night at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. The Americans needed a win to avoid becoming the first host nation in the history of soccer’s oldest continental soccer tournament not to qualify for the second round. Not only did they lose their third and final group stage match to La Celeste, but the U.S. team failed to muster a single goal and managed just three measly shots on target.

And in truth, the scoreline flattered the Americans. The gulf in class between the USMNT and the two-time World Cup champs was striking. The U.S. never for a moment looked as though they’d get the win needed and advance to the knockout phase. Ten days later, then-coach Gregg Berhalter paid the price, fired in a decision that should’ve surprised nobody.

Gregg Berhalter’s second stint as the USMNT coach ended with a loss to Uruguay. (Photo by John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)

Fast-forward to now, when new boss Mauricio Pochettino will lead a revamped USMNT squad against Uruguay in both countries’ final match of 2025 at Raymond James Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. With just four more preparation games (two in March, two in June) left before the U.S. co-hosts Soccer’s Greatest Show on Earth next summer, the Americans have a golden opportunity to prove that they have improved significantly from that dispiriting night in Missouri last year. 

Tuesday’s contest will tell us plenty about how capable the Americans are of making a deep run on home soil next June and July, when the largest and most sprawling World Cup ever takes center stage across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. 

“They’re a strong team,” U.S. defender Mark McKenzie, an unused sub in that Copa América loss, told me before the U.S. trained on Monday at the facility of the famed USL club Tampa Bay Rowdies.  “They have quality all over the pitch, and we know that they can hurt you in different ways, whether it’s individually, on set pieces, or in transition moments.”

USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino gets his own Tampa Bay Rowdies jersey. (Photo by Howard Smith/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty Images)

With 2022 U.S. World Cup captain Tyler Adams, star forwards Christian Pulisic and Tim Weah and other projected 2026 starters like midfielder Weston McKennie and center-back Chris Richards among the laundry list of Americans missing this month, McKenzie is just one of nine holdovers from Berhalter’s 26-player Copa roster.

Pochettino has played a number of newcomers since being hired in September 2024. The former Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur manager has brought in 71 players since his first match on the sidelines last October – an astounding number considering he can only take 26 men to the World Cup.

Several have taken huge leaps forward this year, including right back Alex Freeman and central midfielder Tanner Tessmann. While neither was on the Copa squad — Freeman appeared in just two MLS games as an Orlando City rookie last year — both watched that last meeting between the U.S.  and Uruguay from afar.

“I just remember that it was very scrappy,” Freeman told reporters on Monday ahead of practice. “I remember that, in these games, it’s going be aggressive. They’re going to press. They’re going to come at you.

“Sometimes you’re not going to keep your head,” added Freeman. “You have to be able to just make the best out of it, know that it’s going to be scrappy. But you’ve got to be even more scrappy if needed.”

Freeman was that and then some on Saturday. 

Near the end of the USMNT’s 2-1 win over Paraguay in Chester, Pennsylvania, the 6-foot-3 son of Super Bowl-winner and Green Bay Packers Hall of Famer Antonio Freeman was involved in a scuffle that caused both benches to clear.

“He’s so strong,” Pochettino told reporters on Monday when discussing Freeman. “He was against three [Paraguayans], and they couldn’t stop him. It’s difficult to upset him, but be careful.”

U.S. men’s team defender Alex Freeman got into a scrap with the Paraguayan players in Saturday’s win. (Photo by Drew Hallowell/Getty Images)

Tessmann said that he and his teammates had discussed the frustrating, disappointing Copa loss to La Celeste but declined to get specific. 

“We’ve played a lot of matches since, and I think the team has learned from it. We’re looking forward to Tuesday,” Tessman explained. 

Tuesday’s game will be the third time in four outings that the U.S. will face a South American foe. That experience — they tied Ecuador 1-1 last month in Austin, Texas — should also help prepare them for a Uruguayan squad that boasts players at top tier European clubs like Tottenham, Barcelona and Manchester United.

Led by famed manager Marcelo Bielsa, who coached a teenage Pochettino in their native Argentina at historic club Newell’s Old Boys, Uruguay will no doubt be the toughest test yet. 

Even if the shorthanded U.S. extends its unbeaten run to five games against World Cup-bound foes, the Americans remain a work in progress. Tessmann said that the performance is more important than the result. As much as Pochettino has continued to insist that there’s no such thing as a friendly game for a team preparing to welcome the world to the biggest sporting event ever staged, there are no points at stake until they kick off their World Cup campaign on June 12 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.

“We need to improve a lot,” Pochettino said. “It’s not that we are now so good, and we are so happy.

“I think that we are settled and changing the mindset,” he continued. “I think that it is working. For sure, we are going to have time to arrive to the World Cup in our best condition.”

Tuesday promises to provide another key data point, one that will reveal exactly how far the Americans have come since mid-2024 — and how far they still have left to go.

Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports who has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ByDougMcIntyre.

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