Everything Is Going Great: Mauricio Pochettino Appears To Call Out Christian Pulisic For Skipping The Gold Cup, USMNT 'Golden Generation' Seems Over

Awesome. This is exactly what the US should be doing a year out from the World Cup and right before the last competition leading into the World Cup. This all stems from guys like Pulisic missing the Gold Cup: 

I still love this team and probably care far too much about US Soccer than I should. I still have hope because I've seen these guys play at their peak. But it's not happening. There's a lack of toughness with this group or at least having someone like a Brian McBride or Clint Dempsey or someone like that from back in the day. Hell, I'll take a Steve Cherundolo or Carlos Bocanegra at this point too. Just a reminder this is where we currently stand: 

- A bunch of embarrassing results in Copa America or Nations League. Remember we didn't make it out of group stage in Copa America and went 1-2 with losses to Uruguay and Panama. Then in Nations League we lost to Panama again in the semifinals and then followed that up with a loss to Canada in the 3rd place game.  

- Big names missing the Gold Cup because of clubs or personal reasons. Some of the guys are not allowed to play because their clubs are in the Club World Cup and not releasing them. Whatever, it's stupid, it's a money grab and it happens. But then you have guys sitting out the Gold Cup because it 'doesn't matter' or for rest. 

- Poch seemingly calling out Pulisic for the decision.

It's bad all the way around. It's dumb on both sides, especially when Pochettino hasn't lived up to the hype yet in competitions. It's also dumb for him to list these guys when Messi did retire briefly and Mbappe has been pretty open about only wanting to play major matches for France. I get they still show up and are the biggest names, but not all truthful here. 

I know it all leads and ends with the World Cup, but there's absolutely no momentum for this team going into it. There should have been plenty of momentum. If they showed up at Copa America and made a run, won Nations League, we'd be fine and none of this would matter. 

But the fact is this team desperately needs any sort of win. But the thought of this being a golden generation is basically dead to me. This is the most talent we've had, but they just don't have it. We'll see what happens next summer, but I don't know how anyone has any good hope right now.