Scuffed

Joey Anthone (@USAProspects), Matt Hartman (@MattSHartman) join for a draft of uncapped U-21 Americans with assembling hypothetical teams for the 2026 World Cup in mind. The three of us each pick a 20-player roster, and briefly discuss who came out best. Here were the rules: Only U.S.-eligible players born in 1997 or later are allowed. Anyone already capped with the senior men’s national team is disqualified. That excludes, for instance, Pulisic, McKennie, Adams, Sargent, Weah, even though they are age-eligible. We’re picking specifically with the goal of assembling the best possible team in 2026. We each need to come up with a 20-man roster, including two goalkeepers. That's a total of 60 players. Dual nationals are allowed, so long as they’ve accepted a youth national team call-up at some point and are not cap-tied by another nation. We'll roll out info on Twitter (@zlebmada) and a poll to decide the winner over the next few days, but here are the major timestamps: 0:30 Rules 1:50 Rounds 1-10 38:10 Round