NEW YORK — Players started getting texts from U.S. men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter on Sunday afternoon: “Are you available?”
Twenty-six young Americans received the call of their soccer dreams over the next three days: They were going to the World Cup.
And then just more than a dozen were dealt the devastation of missing the cut, Ricardo Pepi and Zack Steffen among them. FaceTime meant good news, audio calls bad.
“I think the best part of it the last couple of days was really seeing genuine smiles from the guys when I told them, and that’s priceless,” Berhalter said Wednesday night after the televised announcement of the United States’ 26-man roster for the 32-team tournament that starts in less than two weeks in Qatar.
Sean Johnson, Joe Scally, Tim Ream and Haji Wright made it; Paul Arriola and Jordan Pefok joined Pepi and Steffen in falling short.