USMNT Star Weston McKennie Opens Up About World Cup Prep, Mauricio Pochettino’s Coaching Style

In just over a month’s time, members of the U.S. men’s national team will convene in Los Angeles from all over the world with star midfielder Weston McKennie leading the charge.

The Stars and Stripes open 2026 FIFA World Cup play against Paraguay on June 12 at SoFi Stadium and McKennie, although returning to his homeland, will be one of the players traveling the farthest.

The 27-year-old out of Little Elm, Texas, is currently in Italy, dominating Serie A with club side Juventus and playing the best soccer of his career, a source of great pride for himself and the nation in the weeks leading up to the sport’s grandest tournament.

“Obviously right now, I am in club mind and club mode, having goals we are trying to accomplish here,” McKennie tells Sports Illustrated as part of a Purina campaign. “I am focused here right now, but ultimately, I think whenever the tournament gets closer, it’ll settle in, and it will hit me and be like, ‘Oh, it’s almost that time.’

“I’m feeling good, I’m feeling confident. I’m having my best season that I’ve had, and there’s no better time to do that than when heading into a World Cup.”

It’s not just McKennie’s recent performance—in which he’s notched a career-best 15 goal contributions across all competitions as a key starter for the Italian giants—that brings hope to a national team looking for a Cinderella run on home soil this summer, but also McKennie’s faith in his now-seasoned teammates and manager Mauricio Pochettino.

A USMNT Squad Full of Seasoned Veterans

usmnt 2022 — Several 2022 World Cup players are returning to the grand stage. | RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP via Getty Images

When the USMNT took the stage at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, it was the squad’s first appearance in the tournament since 2014, after failing to qualify for the 2018 edition. As a result, only one member of the 2022 roster had previous World Cup experience—DeAndre Yedlin.

This go-around, Pochettino should have at least 12 players on his roster that competed in Qatar, where USMNT’s run ended in the round of 16. That includes McKennie, who said he believes experience is critically important for their success.

“It definitely helps,” says McKennie, who started all four matches in 2022.“It’s like taking an exam once and then having to take the exam again a year later. It’s something that definitely helps you mentally, and it’s something that helps you prepare in a different way.

“This time, with a lot of guys on the team that have been to a World Cup already and know what each game means and what it takes to win one, it goes a long way.”

The No. 8-ranked Netherlands knocked the young Americans out of the round of 16 with a 3–1 win at Khalifa International Stadium, as the U.S. fielded four of the five youngest lineups across the World Cup. That being said, McKennie wouldn’t prepare for this World Cup any differently than the last, confident in the mentality that has kept him a successful professional athlete over the past decade.

“Just because for me personally going into each game, whether that’s a friendly, a World Cup game, club game or a five-to-a-side street game, I am so competitive,” he says. “I want to win everything, and so it’s not as if I went to the last World Cup and in my head was like, ‘O.K., if we win, it’s O.K., and if we don’t, it’s O.K.’ I want to win, so preparing mentally for it, I don’t think there’ll be any type of change.

“I think it’s just knowing what type of experience I had in the last one and maybe taking that feeling of when we got knocked out and using it as fuel for this one.”

Mauricio Pochettino’s Tactical Style

McKennie, who began his career with the national team back in 2017, has played under the tutelage of many USMNT managers since then, including Gregg Berhalter and B.J. Callaghan, with the latest being Pochettino, who took over the role in September 2024 specifically to prime the team for a successful World Cup run.

The midfielder says he has taken well to the former Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur manager.

“As a player and as an athlete, you go through coaching changes, and you have to throughout your career,” McKennie says. “You learn to adapt to new ways, new styles, new techniques and new tactics, everything.

“The most important thing we have in common at the national team, including Pochettino, is that we’re there on a mission to win games, and we want to put our best foot forward and win as many as we can. Ultimately our relationship is focused around that, and that’s what’s good about it because we have a common goal. Normally whenever you have at least a common goal, you do everything you can and bounce ideas off of each other to accomplish that.”

McKennie has specifically enjoyed Pochettino’s high press tactics, which will surely be on display next month.

“I am an energetic person, and I can run, and I like to go after the ball,” he says.
“I don’t like sitting back, waiting for it. His high press mentality is something that resonates well with me.”

Ahead of World Cup kickoff, McKennie and the squad will have two tune-up friendlies against Senegal and Germany beginning later this month in Charlotte and Chicago, respectively.

As he makes plans to travel back to the states, McKennie will unfortunately have to leave his three dogs back in Italy—Lola, an American akita; Sky, a Siberian husky; and Roxy, a miniature dapple dachshund—but he is excited that they will still be able to support the Stars and Stripes, sitting in front of the television in Purina’s custom USMNT pet jerseys.

“At the end of the day, me as a football player, always on the road and what not, having my dogs to come home to as emotional support and just the energy they have for me—they’re a part of my family,” he says. “My dogs are definitely going to be repping for sure. I used to put them in jerseys of mine way back when, so now to actually have one that fits them is great.”

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