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Breaking bad news is never simple, especially when it involves shattering someone's dream of competing at the World Cup. After U.S. national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino chose to notify players via email that they had missed the final 26-man tournament roster, former USMNT veterans were swift to voice their displeasure, labeling the approach "disappointing" and "inexcusable."
ESPN FC analyst Herculez Gomez, who featured at the 2010 World Cup under then-manager Bob Bradley and assistant coach Jesse Marsch, shared his experience of being cut from the 2014 World Cup squad.
Having been absent from the national team for a year due to injury, he stepped off a plane for a summer holiday in Italy only to find a lengthy voicemail from then-manager Jürgen Klinsmann, expressing gratitude for his service to the USMNT while informing him he would not be heading to Brazil.
"He felt the need, the professionalism, to let me know that I'm not going," Gomez said. "It meant the world to me."
That gesture provided a meaningful personal connection. USMNT icon Landon Donovan was similarly left off the 2014 roster in what was considered a controversial decision, and in his case, Klinsmann brought him into a private room to personally deliver the news that he would not be participating in his fourth World Cup.
Klinsmann's hands-on approach of personally engaging with committed players stood in stark contrast to Pochettino's blanket email dispatched to players who had made the 55-man preliminary squad but fell short of the final 26-man selection.
Mauricio Pochettino says criticism over emailing snubbed players is "bullshit" .. #usmnt pic.twitter.com/mteXI4ZhTY
The Argentine coach rejected the criticism and stood by his decision, stating that he personally would not have wanted a phone call from his national team manager after being left out of the World Cup squads in 1994 and 1998.
"It doesn't mean that we don't care, because we care a lot, but we don't want to say anything to confuse the player," Pochettino said Tuesday. "If I understand the player that didn't make the roster, they don't want to hear me apologize... If I call, then it's about myself...Come on, that is bulls--t."
For Gomez, the absence of a personal connection is simply unacceptable, particularly in the case of a player like Diego Luna, who was a key figure for the USMNT throughout the 18-game 2025 schedule and was regularly praised by Pochettino for his relentless work rate.
"It's inexcusable," Gomez added. "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."
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While former USMNT player Charlie Davies never got the chance to play in a World Cup, the current CBS Sports commentator slammed Pochettino's impersonal approach and the justification that it was the correct way to handle the situation simply based on Pochettino's own past experiences.
"Just because Tottenham sacked you and didn't give you a call, that doesn't mean that's how you're supposed to do it," he said. "That's the issue I have. Don't use how you've been treated in your past as a way, as a justification to treat people the same way as you go, because at the end of the day, this is a national team, this isn't a club team either."
Regardless, the decisions for all players have now been finalized. Pochettino has his 26-man group ready to take on the World Cup, though he could face an uncomfortable scenario if an injury replacement is required, which remains possible up until 24 hours before the USMNT's World Cup opener on June 12 against Paraguay.