ST. LOUIS — It’s no secret that several key members of the U.S. men’s national team aren’t playing as much as they would like with their European club teams this season.

It’s probably no surprise, then, that a few of those players are wondering how their chances of sticking with the USMNT in the lead-up to the U.S. co-hosted 2026 World Cup might be impacted were they to return to MLS, where the competition level is lower but where minutes would be easier to get, as the biggest event in sports approaches.

“Some players asked me about if the MLS is a good platform for them to compete,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said on Sunday, a day before the Americans take on Jamaica in the back half of their Concacaf Nations League quarterfinal home-and-home. “I said, and I want to translate in a public way, that for me it’s not if they play in U.K. in the Premier League, or in La Liga in Spain, or they’re playing in Argentina or Mexico.

“Lionel Messi is the best player in the world, and he’s playing here. After [getting] to know the MLS, is not easy to play here.”

Still, most players on the U.S. squad preparing for Monday’s decisive rematch with the Reggae Boyz earn their paychecks on the other side of the Atlantic. While 13 of the 25 players Pochettino called up this month were developed by MLS academies, just four are currently employed in the U.S.’s domestic league.

In some ways, that speaks to the American player pool’s improvement in recent years.

“You can see the progress in the national team,” said forward Tim Weah, who plays alongside U.S. teammate Weston McKennie at Italian Serie A powerhouse Juventus. “Pretty much everyone’s playing in Europe. And I think that’s the only way the sport’s going to get bigger here.”

Still, MLS will surely try to lure some of the USMNT’s biggest stars back home ahead of the World Cup. According to multiple reports, FC Cincinnati was willing to pay a $15 million transfer fee to land McKennie over the summer. He ended up signing a new contract with Juve instead, but the offer alone was a statement of MLS’s ambition.

Others players could be tempted as time passes. Asked last week if he would consider coming home in search of playing time, starting goalkeeper Matt Turner — who has appeared in just one game for England’s Crystal Palace this season — said he’s “not quite there yet.”

“I know I can play at the level that I’m currently at,” said Turner, who won MLS’s goalkeeper of the year award in 2021 before hopping the pond with mixed results in the Premier League. “It’s just about finding that consistency, that opportunity.” 

If that doesn’t happen over the next six months or so, though, perhaps Turner will reconsider.

According to Pochettino, competing every week in MLS beats riding the pine in one of the world’s best circuits. It’s a point the coach went out of his way to make on Monday. He recounted a recent conversation he had about MLS with LAFC’s Hugo Lloris, France’s former World Cup winning keeper who served as Pochettino’s No. 1 backstop when both were with London club Tottenham Hotspur.

“He said it’s a very competitive league, they have very good discipline, they train very well,” Pochettino said of Lloris.

“[So] why not?,” the USMNT coach continued. “For me, they are going to have the same possibility [of representing the USMNT] playing in MLS than playing in the Premier League, or in La Liga or in Belgium, in France. It’s important for them to know in private, but also they need to know in public.”

Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports. A staff writer with ESPN and Yahoo Sports before joining FOX Sports in 2021, he has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams at FIFA World Cups on five continents. Follow him @ByDougMcIntyre.

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