USMNT depth chart: Top 15 players in each position, ranked

Remember the 2023-24 soccer season, when Bayer Leverkusen went undefeated in the Bundesliga, Manchester City won their fourth Premier League trophy in a row, Harry Kane scored approximately 300 goals and still didn’t win a trophy and Borussia Dortmund made the Champions League final despite finishing fifth in their domestic league?

Me neither. Memorial Day is over, and that means the time has arrived for a summer of international soccer. For the U.S. men’s national team, in particular, it means it’s time for their last few truly competitive matches before they co-host the 2026 World Cup. Yes, they’ll still have the Nations League, but they’ve already won it multiple times and the pressure in those matches can’t equate to what they’d normally face in World Cup qualifying, or what they will face in June when the Copa America starts.

So, ahead of a summer that will also include the Olympics, we’re taking stock of the depth of the American soccer program as a whole. We’re going to sketch out the 15-deep depth charts for the eight major position groups: goalkeeper, right-back, left-back, center-back, defensive midfield, center midfield, winger and center forward.

The purpose of the exercise isn’t necessarily to identify who exactly is the 14th-best American left-back, but to see what the USMNT’s positions of strength and weakness are.

The USMNT’s latest roster — the last before the Copa America squad is announced — is the guideline for the top players of each position. Beyond that, the methodology is a combination of past call-ups, comments from USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter and current form to sketch out the rest of each position group. As such, consider the top of each group to be a much more confident projection, while at some positions there might be very little to separate, say, the ninth player and the 25th player.

OK, we’ve got a list of 120 Americans to get through, so let’s sort the top 15 players in every position on the USMNT depth chart.

Goalkeeper

1. Matt Turner, Nottingham Forest
2. Ethan Horvath, Cardiff City
3. Sean Johnson, Toronto FC
4. Drake Callender, Inter Miami
5. Patrick Schulte, Columbus Crew
6. Gaga Slonina, Chelsea
7. Chris Brady, Chicago Fire
8. Roman Celentano, FC Cincinnati
9. Zack Steffen, Colorado Rapids
10. Alex Bono, DC United
11. Brad Stuver, Austin FC
12. Matt Freese, NYCFC
13. John McCarthy, Los Angeles Galaxy
14. Steve Clark, Houston Dynamo
15. Tim Melia, Sporting KC

This used to be a position of strength for the USMNT, and now it’s probably the weakest spot in the entire player pool. But I’m not sure that’s as bad as it seems.

Obviously, a team at the USMNT’s level — somewhere in the 15th-30th best-in-the-world range — specifically benefits from having a great goalkeeper. These teams are not going to dominate their way to trophies. If one of these sides is to make a deep run in a major tournament — like Morocco at the previous World Cup — they are going to need to win a couple matches in which the opposition creates the majority of the chances. In those matches, you need your ‘keeper to come up big.

In the past, the USMNT had multiple ‘keepers who could come up big. Kasey Keller and Brad Friedel, both very good in Europe, were on the roster at the 2002 World Cup. In 2006, Keller, Tim Howard and Marcus Hahnemann were there — all playing over in Europe. In 2010, it was Howard, Hahnemann and Aston Villa’s Brad Guzan. And in 2014, Howard and Guzan were there again.

Now, the starter, Turner, hasn’t played a Premier League match since January, while the backup, Ethan Horvath, had to go to the Championship midseason in order to find game time. Perhaps more worrying is that they were both quite poor when they played this season.

Horvath, per the site FBref, allowed 4.1 goals more than expected in his half-season with Cardiff, while Turner conceded 5.9 more than expected across his starts for Nottingham Forest. Orange are goals, purple are shots and the larger the circle, the greater the post-shot expected-goal value of the attempt:

Of course, the downside of having multiple great goalkeepers is that one of them will never play. Two great midfielders can both get on the field, two great center forwards can sub in and out with each other. And so if you had to pick one area on the field to not have any real depth, goalkeeper would be the choice. Plus, Turner was totally fine at the World Cup despite not playing a single league match for Arsenal during the 2022-23 season.

This position doesn’t feel as strong as it did a couple seasons ago when Turner was breaking statistical models for goalkeeper performance in MLS, but I’m not sure it’s because he’s gotten worse. Rather, the past two seasons have provided more information about what his actual level is: probably somewhere between elite MLS ‘keeper and starter in a “Big Five” top European league.

Right-back

1. Sergiño Dest, FC Barcelona
2. Joe Scally, Borussia Monchengladbach
3. Bryan Reynolds, KVC Westerlo
4. Shaq Moore, Nashville FC
5. DeAndre Yedlin, FC Cincinnati
6. Nathan Harriel, Philadelphia Union
7. Reggie Cannon, Queens Park Rangers
8. Marlon Fossey, Standard Liege
9. Brooks Lennon, Atlanta United
10. Nick Lima, New England Revolution
11. Kyle Duncan, New York Red Bulls
12. Henry Wingo, Ferencvaros
13. Dylan Nealis, New York Red Bulls
14. Keegan Rosenberry, Colorado Rapids
15. Justin Che, ADO Den Haag

I’m sure some people who saw Moore struggle in limited minutes in Qatar were filled with dread when they saw his name on the USMNT’s latest roster, the one from which Berhalter is presumably using to select his Copa America squad. But Moore seems to be a “break-in-case-of-emergency” option.

Weston McKennie, Yunus Musah and Tim Weah are all capable of playing that position, and it seems like Reynolds might’ve earned the spot had there not been an Olympics this summer as well. An uninjured Yedlin might’ve gotten the nod over Moore, too. But the pattern with these position rankings is similar to the pattern at almost every other position: a couple starters for top-50 teams in the world, then a bunch of guys either playing in MLS or somewhere like Belgium or the Netherlands.

Dest will miss the Copa America after tearing his ACL, but such is the state of the player pool that Berhalter will likely plug in Scally, a 21-year-old who’s been starting in the Bundesliga for three seasons now. Such is the state of the player pool, too, that there is a significant drop off in quality between Dest and Scally.

Dest is one of the team’s ball-progression engines whenever he plays: driving the ball upfield with his feet or combining with the same-side midfielder and right winger. Dest’s tight-space skill and creativity are unmatched in the player pool. Scally, meanwhile, is more of that modern full-back hybrid, somewhere between a center-back and full-back, rather than a pedal-to-the-medal attacker like Dest typically is.

How will that manifest itself this summer? The U.S. might be a little more solid defensively, but they also might struggle at times to work the ball into the attacking third.

Center-back

1. Chris Richards, Crystal Palace
2. Tim Ream, Fulham
3. Miles Robinson, FC Cincinnati
4. Cameron Carter-Vickers, Celtic
5. Mark McKenzie, Genk
6. Walker Zimmerman, Nashville FC
7. Auston Trusty, Sheffield United
8. Maximilian Dietz, Greuther Furth
9. Jackson Ragen, Seattle Sounders
10. James Sands, NYCFC
11. Aaron Long, Los Angeles FC
12. John Brooks, Hoffenheim
13. Jonathan Tomkinson, Bradford City
14. Justen Glad, Real Salt Lake
15. Sean Nealis, New York Red Bulls

It’s funny how quickly things can change. Richards didn’t make the World Cup roster, and now he’s the team’s first-choice center-back.

His development this past season shows, well, how development tends to work. It’s actually quite rare for a player to get touted as a top prospect and then just immediately play a ton of minutes from his teens through his 30s. This is what makes Pulisic and McKennie special — both currently and in the history of the USMNT.

Instead, most players break out, stagnate or regress slightly and then establish themselves as trusted starters. Richards was a top prospect at Bayern Munich. He had two successful loan spells at Hoffenheim, and he even started a match for Bayern in the 2020-21 season at age 20. Given his early success at a position where players peak much later, it wasn’t impossible to envision a world where he integrated into the Bayern first team eventually.

Instead, he transferred to Crystal Palace, missed a chunk of the 2022-23 season through injury and missed out on Qatar in the process. Did he ruin his career by moving to England? Not quite.

This season, Richards frequently played as midfielder under Roy Hodgson at Palace before getting pushed into the backline once Oliver Glasner took over and the club immediately went on its late-season tear. At 24, Richards now looks like a viable starter for a mid-tier team in the most competitive soccer league on the planet.

The question for this summer, then, is who starts next to Richards? Given the lineup in the Nations League final, it’s likely Ream, but the 36-year-old has started just one game for Fulham since February. There is some depth behind Ream, though.

Robinson was a key starter for the USMNT in World Cup qualifying and he might be playing in Europe already had he not torn his Achilles. McKenzie starts for a Europa League team. Carter-Vickers does the same for Celtic, a Champions League team.

Left-back

1. Antonee Robinson, Fulham
2. Kristoffer Lund, Palermo
3. John Tolkin, New York Red Bulls
4. Caleb Wiley, Atlanta United
5. George Bello, LASK
6. DeJuan Jones, New England Revolution
7. Jonathan Gomez, Real Sociedad
8. Marco Farfan, FC Dallas
9. Sam Vines, Colorado Rapids
10. Ryan Hollingshead, LAFC
11. Lynden Gooch, Stoke City
12. Andrew Brody, Real Salt Lake
13. Daniel Lovitz, Nashville FC
14. Kevin O’Toole, NYCFC
15. Andrew Gutman, Chicago Fire

While he’s not the best outfield player for the USMNT, Robinson might be the hardest to replace.

Counting stats don’t paint the whole picture of defensive impact, but there’s at least some signal when you’re at the top of the leaderboard. The USMNT’s starting left-back led the Premier League in interceptions this past season and ranked seventh in tackles:

Much like he is with the U.S., he was also a vital outlet for Fulham in leading the team in progressive passes received. Robinson is just a really good player — and as of now, he’s the only left-footed American full-back you can confidently say that about.

Lund is still unproven with the USMNT and in a major European league. He hasn’t necessarily been lighting up Serie B or anything like that. After him, in the pool, there are a handful of youngsters — one of whom seems likely to pop, whether it’s Tolkin or Wiley, who have played a ton of minutes at a young age in MLS, or Bello, who starts for one of the best teams in Austria, or Gomez, who has plenty of youth national team experience and played nearly 3,000 minutes on loan in Spain’s second division this season.

There’s a lot of projection there still, and then not much else beyond them.

Defensive midfield

1. Tyler Adams, Bournemouth
2. Johnny Cardoso, Real Betis
3. Lennard Maloney, Heidenheim
4. Aidan Morris, Columbus Crew
5. Tanner Tessmann, Venezia
6. Kellyn Acosta, Chicago Fire
7. Joshua Atencio, Seattle Sounders
8. Cole Bassett, Colorado Rapids
9. Jackson Yueill, San Jose Earthquakes
10. Keaton Parks, NYCFC
11. Frankie Amaya, New York Red Bulls
12. Obed Vargas, Seattle Sounders
13. Daniel Edelman, New York Red Bulls
14. Dante Polvara, Aberdeen
15. Wil Trapp, Minnesota United

Everything I just said about Robinson used to be true about Adams.

It seemed, in part, like much of the USMNT’s success at the 2022 World Cup came down to the team lucking into the healthiest season of Adams’ professional career. No one else on the team had his defensive range, and then he also combined it with solid ball-progressing passing. Adams allowed Berhalter to play two more freelancing midfielders ahead of him in Musah and McKennie and two very aggressive full-backs in Dest and Robinson outside of him.

Without Adams, it seemed like it might all fall apart. And then — the USMNT annihilated Mexico and Canada at the Nations League last summer without Adams. And Cardoso became a full-time starter for the seventh-place team in LaLiga this season.

While a healthy Adams raises the team’s ceiling, it’s a massive boon for the team to not be so reliant on a player who is always injured. They were fine with Musah playing as the deepest midfielder a year ago, and Cardoso came in for Adams at halftime of the Nations League final against Mexico a few months ago.

Beyond them, Maloney starts in the Bundesliga, but offers very little on the ball. Both Morris and Tessmann seem likely to develop into consistent USMNT call-ups soon, and then there are a ton of young central midfielders, who could be classified in either midfield category, getting consistent playing time in MLS.

Central midfield

1. Weston McKennie, Juventus
2. Giovanni Reyna, Borussia Dortmund
3. Yunus Musah, AC Milan
4. Malik Tillman, Bayern Munich
5. Luca de la Torre, Celta Vigo
6. Timmy Tillman, LAFC
7. Jack McGlynn, Philadelphia Union
8. Paxten Aaronson, Eintracht Frankfurt
9. Cristian Roldan, Seattle Sounders
10. Gianluca Busio, Venezia
11. Diego Luna, Real Salt Lake
12. Benjamin Cremaschi, Inter Miami
13. Rokas Pukstas, Hajduk Split
14. Julian Green, Greuter Furth
15. Djordje Mihailovic, Colorado Rapids

Just read the names of those first four clubs back to yourself. Things are very good in the advanced midfield role. McKennie is one of the most important players on Juventus. Reyna was great in the Nations League despite barely playing at all at the club level this season. Musah had a decent first season for the second-best team in Italy. And Tillman put up ridiculous numbers while on loan at PSV Eindhoven this past season.

Three of those guys are 21, and McKennie is 25. After that group, there’s a good deal of potential, too.

De la Torre started 22 games in LaLiga this season. The elder Tillman, Timmy, got one of the final roster spots at the Copa America. McGlynn has been getting significant minutes in MLS since he was 17. Aaronson found some playing time in the Netherlands after a second half of season loan from Frankfurt. At 21, Busio is on his third season of starter minutes in Italy, and his performance has improved in each one. Luna is one of the more promising creative prospects to come out of MLS in a while. Cremaschi, 19, already earned a senior-team call-up and Pukstas started 28 games and scored eight goals for the third-best team in Croatia.

Like I said: things are very good in the advanced midfield role.

Wingers

1. Christian Pulisic, AC Milan
2. Timothy Weah, Juventus
3. Haji Wright, Coventry City
4. Brenden Aaronson, Leeds United
5. Kevin Paredes, Wolfsburg
6. Alejandro Zendejas, Club America
7. Griffin Yow, Westerlo
8. Jordan Morris, Seattle Sounders
9. Paul Arriola, DC United
10. Taylor Booth, FC Utrecht
11. Cade Cowell, Chivas Guadalajara
12. Brian Gutierrez, Chicago Fire
13. Esmir Bajraktarevic, New England Revolution
14. Bernard Kamungo, FC Dallas
15. Emmanuel Sabbi, Le Havre

The scoring and creating winger is probably still the most important position in the current iteration of the professional game. Thankfully, the USMNT’s best player plays there, and he’s coming off the best season of his professional career.

In his first season in Serie A, Pulisic set career highs in minutes (2,602), goals (12) and assists (8). His underlying numbers weren’t quite as hot — 8.0 xG and 4.8 expected assists — but the most important thing for him this season was reestablishing himself as a legit starter on a Champions league team.

After Pulisic, though, it’s not great! Unlike the full-back positions, wingers tend to be more interchangeable on the left and right side, but there’s still a concerning lack of quality depth.

Weah spent most of the season at Juventus as a backup wingback. Although he started him at center forward in the Nations League final, Berhalter said he views Wright as more of a winger. And I think that’s probably because he’s worried about the wing depth beyond Pulisic and maybe he’s also considering dropping Weah back into a full-back role. Given the midfield depth, both Reyna and Malik Tillman could end up as wing options, too.

In Pulisic, you have a Champions League-level winger. In Wright, you have a dominant Championship-level winger. Outside of them, you have a few guys who struggled for consistent playing time in the Bundesliga, some MLS lifers, a guy doing well in Liga MX, a couple prospects from lower-tier European clubs and a handful of MLS prospects who haven’t quite kicked on yet.

Here is my groundbreaking analysis: The USMNT should really hope that Pulisic doesn’t get hurt.

Center forward

1. Folarin Balogun, Monaco
2. Josh Sargent, Norwich City
3. Ricardo Pepi, PSV Eindhoven
4. Jesús Ferreira, FC Dallas
5. Jordan Pefok, Borussia Monchengladbach
6. Brandon Vázquez, Monterrey
7. Brian White, Montreal
8. Duncan McGuire, Orlando City
9. Johan Gomez, Eintracht Braunschweig
10. Corey Baird, FC Cincinnati
11. Nicholas Gioacchini, Como
12. Andrija Novakovich, Calcio Lecco
13. Kahveh Zahiroleslam, Sint Truiden
14. Jeremy Ebobisse, San Jose Earthquakes
15. Matthew Hoppe, Middlesbrough

After cycling through every center-forward option on the roster at the World Cup and finding none of them to be satisfactory, the USMNT’s center-forward depth suddenly looks … OK?

Balogun only played about half of the available minutes for Monaco this season. And he only scored seven goals. But he added five assists, and his underlying numbers were significantly better than his goal-scoring output. The 22-year-old averaged 3.4 shots per 90 minutes for a total of 8.5 non-penalty xG:

Per FBref’s similar player algorithm, the three most similar players across Europe’s Big Five leagues to Balogun are: 1) Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins, 2) RB Leipzig’s Loïs Openda and 3) Liverpool’s Darwin Núñez. I’m buying low on Balogun, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a big summer for the USMNT. Especially if Wright is more of a winger right now, Balogun should be the starter in game one of the Copa America.