With no Pulisic and good results, have the USMNT moved on from their savior complex? | Leander Schaerlaeckens

The US have been defined for so long by the next singular player. This past perfect window shows that era may be over In 1990, then-United States men’s national team manager Bob Gansler made a critical and somewhat controversial choice. He left three of the program’s laureled veterans at home and brought a young and little-tested team to the World Cup in Italy, the USA’s first in 40 years. As Gansler recalled later: “I was thinking not only for ’90, but I was thinking about the 90s.” In 1998, Steve Sampson was looking to the future as well.

He had lucked into the USMNT’s managerial gig and had barely clung on to it going into that year’s World Cup, but he nevertheless made a confident proclamation. “In 10 to 15 years, we’ll win the title, there’s no doubt about it,” he told the Washington Post. “When we Americans decide to do something, we’ll see it through.” A sense took hold sometime during that period, while never