The Return of Christian Pulisic 🦅

Hail GFOP! 

I type with patriotic fingers set to Druski levels of American pride. Mauricio Pochettino’s USMNT enter the first of the last four international windows before the World Cup warm ups. Twenty-three in the world South Korea and number 17 Japan loom. They may be friendlies, but make no mistake: this is not a drill. We are charging in with a deeply experimental squad. This is the week in which we will find out if there is a method to the Pochettino madness or… just good, old-fashioned madness. My big preview with Herculez Gomez runs through every facet of the stakes, focusing on 10 issues facing Pochettino in this massive window. Watch it and let us know what you think in the comments. And, if you have a burning question for Herc, be sure to join his AMA on MiB Discord today, Sept. 5, at 4 p.m. ET in the #ama-questions channel. The link to join is below. 🇺🇸 🦅

ii. We will break down the U.S. below, as well as touch upon the incredible news out of Tottenham, and pick up the pieces from that gargantuan transfer window. I want to go on record and acknowledge how shockingly sad I feel that I am not going to be able to watch Jack Grealish’s Everton this weekend. A feeling which is amazing. I normally secretly love the international break as it gives me a chance to avoid a Saturday in which the Blues make me feel like crap. The Holy Shinnity of Jack, Ndiaye, and KDH has changed everything. 💙

iii. The focus is now on the USMNT. I spent some time with the singular Sergiño Dest this week. I love his competitive spirit and the joy he derives from his own play. He might have the most American mindset on the team, and that mindset was born in the central Netherlands. You can find that conversation on our YouTube or watch it below. 🇺🇸 🇳🇱

iv. I also filmed with my friend Tyler Adams, who was candid about what it feels like to be at camp without so many of the regulars. I asked him who the glue guys are now—his answer, Sebastian Berhalter—spoke volumes. That interview drops tomorrow. I learned so much about his mindset in this moment, leading this raw corps, as well as about what the ferocious Bournemouth press feels like from the inside, and how it works tactically. 🇺🇸 🍒

v. I will be live with Clint Dempsey after the game on Saturday night (and Tuesday too!), taking your questions and reactions on a live taping of The Deuce. Join us on YouTube immediately after the whistle. ♠️

Then Clint and I travel to the magical kingdom of Columbus, Ohio on Monday (Sept. 8) for a LIVE NIGHT OF NIGHTS at KEMBA Live to break down the USMNT vs. Japan matchup, salute Columbus as the Fortress of American Soccer, and raise a glass in your honor. TICKETS AVAILABLE RIGHT NOW. 💛

PS - This was the highlight of my week. God Bless this Birmingham City fan whose dying wish was to have his friends sing "Sh*t on the Villa" at his funeral. Shine on you legend. 🥲

The MIB HQ Bulletin Board 📣

To the Football 🍻

USA v. South Korea (Saturday, 5 p.m. ET, TNT/Peacock) 🇺🇸🇰🇷
USA v. Japan (Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. ET, TNT/Peacock) 🇺🇸🇯🇵

If the U.S. men's national team World Cup squad was one of those reality cooking challenge shows, we are at the stage where the clock is running down but the raw ingredients are still spread out all over the prep table, and it remains to be seen if we can combine them into any kind of competitive recipe. South Korea and Japan will be testing mid-tier opponents. Win one game, get Pulisic firing, and we can all feel so much better. Lose both and it is going to feel very, very dark. Two very different paths lie ahead. Here are the headlines to prepare you for all that is to come:

Christian Pulisic, Our Lord and Savior, Is Back 🦅

When the roster for the upcoming friendlies was announced last week, Pochettino said he hadn't spoken with Pulisic since the Gold Cup, adding, "I think everything is behind us, all that happened in summer, and I think now we need to look forward." We will find out the truth of that the moment Christian takes the field for his first appearance since that Nations League disaster back in March. He has looked spritely for Milan with a goal in his first two games, but must now play for the U.S. with the same dominance as he did in the commercials which were omnipresent this summer. Knowing Christian, he will be highly motivated to score. He knows one electric moment of football can change everything in the blink of an eye. I would settle for another goal testicled over the line. When I spoke to Tyler Adams, he told me the difference between the U.S. with and without Pulisic is that Christian is the one American player who can make something out of nothing. I both pray and expect that to happen tomorrow. 

Also incredible to see Sergiño Dest back with the squad. The U.S. without him and Antonee Robinson on the wings are like Khaleesi without the dragons. 

The Focus is Going to Shift Immediately from the Big Names Who Are Not There, to the Glut of New Ones Who Are ⭐️

So much focus over the past weeks has been spent on the vast number of big-name players who were not called up. Make no mistake: this is an MLS-heavy, raw squad with some mighty omissions—not just reputationally in terms of the more familiar names like Weston McKennie and Gio Reyna, but also from a footballing perspective. Aidan Morris, who has been balling out for top-of-the-Championship Middlesborough, is outside looking in. 

There are honestly so many questions all over the field. Who is the No. 1 striker? Who is our goalkeeper, out of a very raw group? Who are our leaders? The midfield group looks very green aside from Tyler Adams. There is always a sense with our squad, that the big names—McKennie, Reyna, Brendan Aaronson, Yunus Musah—will come back and save us. We often tell ourselves this team is just a placeholder and that the cavalry is coming. What if it is not coming? And this is it?

Here Is the Worry 😅

The U.S. are playing South Korea and Japan. Two teams who are well-drilled, intelligent collectives, primed to punish any mistake we make at high pace. They will be stern tests. The kind of quality we could expect to face if we make the knockout phase of the World Cup. This is a moment for the USMNT to prove themselves to themselves against teams at the level of Türkiye and Switzerland, the two sides who outclassed them in friendlies ahead of the Gold Cup. 

Brace yourself for a shock though, Son-Heung min is gonna play for Korea?!? I thought he rode with us now? 😉

One Thing Not to Worry About 🗣️

Finally, don’t stress the noise from outside pundits. Their voices and opinions and insights are actually what you want. I laughed with Tyler Adams that the volume of noise we currently have in the United States is a tiny squeak compared to the booming torrent of punditry in England or Italy. Think about how many former NFL or NBA stars have platforms to make their opinions known. 

A vast layer of pundits is ultimately a sign of a healthy football-sphere. Indeed, it will hopefully grow and grow as the profile of the game grows, and the U.S. men, please god, begin to capture the interest of the nation. That is the real story of the moment. This team needs to start winning. The empty seats at Gold Cup stadia spoke volumes about where this team is right now. Charlie Davies wrote this week: “There is already a worrying lack of enthusiasm bordering on apathy in the USMNT’s fan base at a time when positivity and optimism should be growing in anticipation of this huge moment in American soccer. I don’t even want to think about what the impact would be of another heavy loss at home.” It is hard to live out this team playing in the shadows like this. The truth is, we are in danger of becoming a club football country now. Liverpool-Arsenal felt like a massive rumble that captured the interest of American sports fans. The lack of casual chatter going into this U.S. game is deafening. This is the moment to change everything.

A New Era at Tottenham: Out of Nowhere, Farewell Daniel Levy 🤍

In blindsiding news, Tottenham yesterday announced they had eased aside controversial chairman Daniel Levy after a quarter of a century tenure. Levy, who ran the club with control of every detail, has long been a lightning rod for fans. He leaves the club with the state-of-the-art stadium and training ground as his legacy. The lack of silverware won under his watch, ultimately serves as a symbol of supporters’ anger that he prioritized bottom line profit over glory. The 2025 Europa League victory, a strange coda to a barren period in which 13 managers were sacked, and countless fan protests rumbled on. 

Spurs fans will be relieved and also concerned as the club enters a period of transition with rumblings of how footballing success on the field will now be the priority. Spurs fans know their finances are the gold standard of health—and are aware of the club’s most recent wages-to-revenue ratio of just 42% in February. This tweet from analyst @KieranMaguire is the counter point: When Daniel Levy joined Spurs it was a $65 million a year business, he leaves when it is making more than ten times as much revenue and has consistently paid out the lowest wage/revenue ratio in the PL as the business side of the club was run very efficiently.

More: What will Daniel Levy’s legacy be as he leaves Tottenham?

More Football, Did Ya Say? ⚽️

• Smart analysis of the trends of this summer’s bombastic transfer window.

• Cannot wait to watch this big man play Premier League Football. Intrigued.

• The evolution of goalkeeping strategy under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City as Ederson leaves and Donnarumma arrives.

The Correspondent w/ Rory Smith, Issue #4: The Triumph of Transfer Culture 📊 

Rory writes: It’s been nearly three days as I write this, and yet I still feel a little bit like I have not come to terms with the transfer window. Those last couple of days were such a blizzard of rumors and whispers and dramatic threats to resign that I’m almost certain a couple of deals, deals probably worth tens of millions of dollars, passed me by. There’ll be at least one player, next week, wearing a jersey I don’t expect.

Taken as a whole, though, it felt like an unusually significant transfer window. Not because Liverpool broke the British transfer record – twice, sort of – or even because the Premier League seemed to go into a sort of drunken “Brewster’s Millions” frenzy in those final few hours. There is nothing new about England’s top flight spending money. England’s top flight loves spending money.

No, its importance lay in what it told us about where football stands in 2025. It demonstrated the Premier League is an increasingly self-sustaining ecosystem. It proved even the other major leagues of western Europe are just parts in a supply chain. And it offered us all a clear glimpse of the extent to which football is now split into two constituent parts: the game, and the industry, and which matters more…

Read the full newsletter here 📧

More Great Football Around the World 🌎

England vs. Andorra (Saturday, 12 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 2) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇦🇩

Thomas Tuchel’s appointment as England manager was the opposite of future-proofing. It was the English Football Association putting everything they have into some mad new crypto currency following years of steady progress in real estate investment under Gareth Southgate, and so far the results have been as expected, but the performances have underwhelmed. The reverse of this fixture against Andorra, a team of semi-professionals ranked 174th in the world, was a stodgy and ugly 1-0 victory for an England team that seemed to be paying homage to Steve McClaren’s sad side rather than building bricks to win a World Cup. The return of tournament-tested Marcus Rashford will be welcomed by Three Lions fans, while AC Milan’s Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who claims he “forgot” about playing for England after seven years away, has a golden chance to impress his former Chelsea manager. 

More: A backstory of flags and politics is engulfing the English qualifying campaign. Tuchel is sucked in whether he likes it or not.

Ukraine vs. France (TODAY, 2:45 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 2) 🇺🇦 🇫🇷

Didier Deschamps calling time on what will be his 14th year as France manager after next year’s World Cup is a bit like Marc Maron finishing WTF: it’s scary and strange because so many of us grew up knowing no different. He’ll expect a winning start to his qualification campaign in Group D against a Ukraine team ranked 26th in the world; they’ll be hosting this game in Poland’s Estádio Municipal de Breslávia due to the war in their home country. Although France have lost William Saliba to injury, Deschamps will be encouraged by the sight of Ibrahima Konaté training following doubts about his fitness after Sunday’s war of attrition. Due to Rayan Cherki’s quadricep tear, Konate’s clubmate, Hugo Ekitike, has crept back into the squad after initially being omitted, and based on his season so far at Liverpool, a goalscoring cameo to boost his World Cup chances has to be in the cards. 

Türkiye vs. Spain (Sunday, 2:45 p.m. ET, Fubo) 🇹🇷 🇪🇸

As USMNT fans know, this Türkiye side is no joke. Led by Inter Milan’s engine, Hakan Çalhanoğlu, and luxuriously embellished by Real Madrid’s heir apparent to Modrić, Arda Güler, they’re a team of both relentless midfield runners and pacey attacking weaponry set up to punish on the counter attack. They are, however, facing European champions Spain, toned chests puffed out and angular chins raised after a 3-0 win against Bulgaria last night and buoyed by the returns of habitual winners, Rodri and Dani Carvajal. Throw a sizzling Lamine Yamal into the paella and Türkiye can be forgiven if they prioritize caution over abandon in Konya’s Büyükşehir Arena on Sunday. 

Germany vs. Northern Ireland (Sunday, 2:45 p.m. ET, FS1)󠁧󠁢󠁮󠁩󠁲󠁿

Top of Group A meets bottom in Cologne’s RheinEnergieSTADION on Sunday, but it’s a role-reversal from what you might expect. Julian Nagelsmann’s star-scattered Germany began their USA World Cup qualification campaign with a shock 2-0 loss to Slovakia last night, while Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland team of predominantly English lower-division journeymen convincingly conquered Luxembourg 3-1. It was only the fourth World Cup qualifier the four-time champions have lost in their history, and Liverpool’s Florian Wirtz, who might have seen this international break as a chance to pull his head out of tumultuous Premier League waters to take a breath, was ultimately disappointing in the defeat. If Germany don’t win this convincingly, Nagelsmann’s job could be in jeopardy and they might miss out on a wet hot American summer next year.

The Latest in the Women’s Game ☀️

England’s WSL Returns with Marquee Matchups 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

The Women’s Super League returns TODAY after a blockbuster summer of international football and record-breaking (and record-record breaking) transfer fees. Sam Kerr is set to return as perennial winners Chelsea open their title defense today against challengers Man City (2:30 p.m. ET, ESPN+). Saturday’s only matchup sees newbies London City Lionesses take on Champions League winners Arsenal at the Emirates (8:30 a.m. ET, ESPN+). The Michele Kang-backed Lionesses boast a roster of newly-acquired international stars, and will make their debut in England’s top league kitted out in “Everybody Watches Women’s Sports” jerseys.

NWSL - Washington Spirit vs. Seattle Reign (Sunday, 4 p.m. ET, CBS) 🇺🇸

It’s second against fifth in the battle of the Washingtons (district and state) as the Spirit host Seattle Reign at Audi Field. Trinity Rodman was amongst the four goals in the Spirit’s midweek rout of the Vancouver Whitecaps, meanwhile Seattle is winless in their last four outings. 

Introducing Pet FC’s Newest Member: Rooney 🐶

We have partnered with the two-legged people at Purina to create Pet FC, a new initiative where we will be featuring YOUR four-legged friends that show a true love of football on par with their human counterparts.

Introducing Rooney, the newest member of Pet FC! Named after none other than Wayne Rooney, the Bernedoodle from Pittsburgh has spent PL mornings on her human's lap for seven years. She's a proper Red too, dancing around the living room after the FA Cup win in 2024. ❤️

Do you have a great football story involving the dog or cat in your life? Click the link below to submit your pets and pet stories, and we will be regularly featuring the best of the best here in the Raven and on our social channels. What's more, we have Purina prize packs for every pet featured.

Submit your Pet FC stories here 🐾

MiB Mad Libs 📝

This week’s phrase is:

“Alexander Isak will be to Liverpool what ___ is to ___”

Email us your submissions to be in contention to win a coveted MiB patch.

There were TONS of incredible submissions this week, but there can only be one winner:

Taylor Hanson: The only thing stopping Jack Grealish from making this year’s EPL team of the season is a mirror that’s calf-high.

Taylor – There will be a thousand Liverpool fans inventing calf-high mirrors now… Email us your postal address and we will zip off that patch. 💙

Not Football and All the Better for It 📖

• "Erika German often gets a weird feeling before she finds a body in the wilderness." She Vanished on a Colorado Mountain. Nineteen Years Later, a Mysterious Dream Helped Rescuers Find Her.

• Artificial light has essentially lengthened birds' day. Bird Unions NOW!

• Sharks, I'm looking for many millions of dollars for a 50% stake and the chance to meet Johnny Marr: "Dear music lovers, shall we just buy The Smiths?"

• The Yale Review asking a very Yale Review question: Is Mary Oliver Embarrassing?

• Is Today’s Self-Help Teaching Everyone to Be a Jerk? Based on who I see carrying these books around the airport, YES.

• This song helped me through the week: “Get Out of My Head” by Sofia Bolt. 

• I read this book and LOVED it: “In My Time of Dying” by Sebastian Junger. A book I was gifted and read on Labor Day. A near-death experience triggers a search for meaning and meditation on mortality. A stunning reminder, we are all going to die. All that matters is what we do with the time we have here.

A GFOP Writes… ✍️

This incredible letter started as a conversation in our our Discord where there is a dedicated Pets channel I love. It came from Tyler Van Horn, who is mourning the loss of his football companion, his dog Digg.  

Tyler writes: In my early years, the beautiful game was introduced to me as soccer. The 1994 World Cup made me fall in love with the sport. I watched the ’94 Final at an extended family member's birthday party. The primary viewers of the match were my Dad and the house dog. Others would spend a few moments glancing at the TV, but it was us three. That core memory was certainly on my mind whenever I thought of getting my own dog one day. 

Life went on and my excitement for the game continued to grow. Graduation came and then two days later on May 4, 2009, Digger Rascal Phelps Van Horn came into my life after a four-hour drive through Eastern Washington State. From that point on Digg and I did it all. Before he was corrupted by instincts via squeaky toys, he latched on to a size three football. When I would officiate matches, Digg came with me. When I tried to keep the dream alive and strap on the boots, Digg was there. Our urban walks tended to be at parks that had pitches. When the Premier League became easier to watch in the States, that ’94 Final moment occurred all the time. Digg would be on the couch in some sort of a blanket fort as we watched. He would listen to my managing from the couch in the highs and lows. It was perfect.

The memories are vast, but tops for me are weekend viewing of football matches. Crazy to some, but especially the 4:30 a.m. PT matches in recent years. It was just me and him and football.

Rog writes: Tyler, I cannot imagine the enormity of the loss you are feeling. My dog Tony Hibbert died three years ago and I still miss her every single day, but never more than when the football is on and she is not on the couch. To all you pet partners, I send you huge love. One of my favorite parts of our Discord is the Pets section where people post their football loving friends. I flick through it whenever I need a boost of energy. To better days ahead, and to Digg’s memory.

Keep sending your stories and questions to [email protected].

To Better Days Ahead for All.

Let’s not take a moment watching football together for granted and make great memories.

Big Love.

Courage,
Rog

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