Daniel Sperry

We did see them a tiny bit in it when they played against Portugal and Belgium back in March, but those were results that went very much against them.

Not terrible performances, but the scoreline against Belgium kind of got way more out of hand than that game actually was.

In reality, I think there's some questions there.

And I think then there's the question of like Christian Pulisic hasn't scored a goal since the calendar year switched to 2026 for club or country.

And like that's something that is Christian kind of operating at that higher level that they found the ways to make him productive and successful in the final third.

Because in reality, like he's the one guy on that team that can

When he's at a high ascending level, he can help pull a lot of weight for that team in the attack, in the danger zones.

And so I would love to see him firing in all cylinders going into the World Cup.

in some way, shape, or form, and whether that's just getting a goal to where that confidence is there or just by kind of still seeing that that aggressive mindset from him is there on the attack.

I think those are the big things that I want to see from the national team and these friendlies, but, you know, ultimately,

You know, you look at friendlies and you say, is this team going to treat them like friendlies or are they going to treat them like good opportunities for World Cup tune-ups and to kind of get themselves into the mindset of what it's going to be like when every single kick of the ball counts in a group stage game.

I'm looking for cohesion.

I'm looking for an aggressive mindset, I think, from some of their top players, kind of building into the World Cup, showing that they're going to have that edge that is going to be needed throughout the entire tournament if they're going to make any kind of run.

Yeah, outside of Christian at striker, I'm not sure exactly who is going to go up top yet.

I think that's probably a question mark that'll get answered, hopefully, with these games.

But the two other striker options next to Pulisic are a guy named Fuller and Balogun, who plays for Monaco.

He came up through Arsenal's academy, was a very high-rated youth product, and is quite a player.

When he gets hot, he is red hot, and everything goes in.

But when he's cold, he doesn't.

Pepi, Ricardo Pepi, is a guy who actually missed out on the 2022 World Cup and hung up on Greg Berhalter mid-call, telling him that he wasn't going to be on the roster.