INGLEWOOD, Calif. – One day before the US men’s national team’s World Cup group-stage finale vs. Türkiye, Cristian Roldan’s availability status remains up in the air, as he and the team’s medical staff wait and hope for improvement in the quadriceps injury that’s limited his involvement in their training sessions this week.
What isn’t, however, is the Sounders icon’s stature within the group, and the coaching staff’s clear desire to give him his World Cup debut.
“We need to assess tomorrow if he can be available; a small issue in his quad, but I think he's evolving pretty well,” said Mauricio Pochettino in his matchday-1 press conference at the venue formerly known as SoFi Stadium on Wednesday afternoon. “If it is not for tomorrow, [we] hope for the next week.”
Normally it would be extremely rare for a player to even be considered for selection after missing so much of his team’s pre-match workouts in the leadup. This scenario is a bit different.
The Yanks’ impressive wins over Paraguay and Australia — combined with FIFA’s controversial move to change the tournament’s first standings tiebreaker from goal differential to head-to-head results — mean they’ve already clinched first place in Group D, while Türkiye (0W-2L-0D) have been eliminated.
That allows Poch & Co. to rotate freely on Thursday, and he looks likely to rest players who’ve logged heavy physical outputs, while also protecting the key quartet who’ve picked yellow cards (Tyler Adams, Folarin Balogun, Antonee ‘Jedi’ Robinson and Chris Richards) from the risk of caution-accumulation suspension.
Even with nothing on the line, technically, the USMNT brain trust want to fly into the knockout stages on their current high, and be sure that everyone on the pitch is at full throttle.
“The important thing is to know their brain, soccer brain,” said Pochettino. “If what you are asking me as a human being, if you are qualified first, and you play the last two games, and you feel that you are an important player, and you have a yellow card, and you know if you play tomorrow, and maybe you receive an unfair yellow card and you are out, not available for the next stage: Tell me, in the way that you will approach the game?
“My answer is, I need to be sure that the team that is going to be tomorrow want to eat the grass here in the SoFi, and play for [as if it’s] the final of the World Cup.”
If there’s anyone he can trust to be at full throttle regardless of circumstances, it’s Roldan. Which makes the timing of his injury – on Tuesday he told reporters he felt something on one of his final kicks of Saturday’s training session, which was only for those who didn’t start in the Australia game – so desperately unfortunate. A healthy Roldan would be the no-brainer replacement for Adams in deep midfield.
“Cristian Roldan is here because of his quality and talent,” said Pochettino, “because our assessment is on the field. But then, in the same way, he is important outside – is a great teammate, he is a player that always wants the best for the team, for the teammates, for the federation, for soccer, for everything, and I think is important like the guy that scored the other day in Seattle, or the guy that scored here or made a save, or made a tackle.
“To be successful in a World Cup, in a tournament like this, you need to have players, of course, with talent, but with the capacity to create good atmosphere, and be very good. I said yesterday soccer or football always rewards talent, but if you have talent and you are a great person, a good person, a good teammate, good people, I think it's much better for us.”
‘Roldy’ is obviously valued by those around him, and all want to see him get a runout sooner or later.
“On the field, Roldy’s a beast,” said goalkeeper Matt Freese on Tuesday. “I think I saw Mauricio say he was the perfect player at one point. Roldy has so many attributes, there's not really anything that he's lacking. He’s great in really all facets of the game, and so that’s on the field.
“Then off the field, he’s such an important part of this team and the culture, and the energy of this group, really bringing guys together. Obviously, he‘s been here before. This is his second one, and so it’s great to have a player and a person like him on the field and off the field.”
