Thanks to Columbus' MLS coach, USMNT could look different soon

The United States hosted the Copa America this summer, but for a domestic competition, it didn't feature many players who played domestically.

U.S. Men's National Team coach Gregg Berhalter, fired in July, selected just two American athletes who plied their trade in Major League Soccer: Nashville's Walker Zimmerman and FC Cincinnati's Miles Robinson.

The other 24 members of the USMNT played abroad. It was a big shift from the teams that made it to the Round of 16 at the World Cup in 2022. That USMNT featured nine active MLS players and several more who had made their debuts in the league earlier in their careers.

As the USMNT prepares to kick off a new era Saturday under interim coach Mikey Varas, the trend of ignoring MLS players in favor of U.S. players who play overseas may be ending. Varas selected just one MLS player in his 26-man roster. But that one player — and the MLS environment he hails from — hints at a big change for the fortunes of MLS-based athletes in the future.

That player is Patrick Schulte, the 23-year-old starting goalkeeper for MLS champion Columbus. Schulte's big international break came this summer at the Olympics, where he started every game for the U.S. and looked impressive in each appearance. He could be USMNT starting goalkeeper Matt Turner's first legitimate challenger in years.

Schulte has been on the fringes of the USMNT for years, but his development in Columbus under coach Wilfried Nancy has skyrocketed him to the top of the American goalkeeper pipeline.

Nancy is known for this. He is a phenomenal leader of young players and revels in helping them progress. While Schulte is the only current Nancy prospect on the USMNT, another former Nancy player on the team is midfielder Aidan Morris of Middlesbrough of the English Football League.

Morris was an essential part of Nancy's 2023 MLS Cup-winning squad and scored a crucial goal in the CONCACAF Champions League this season to push Columbus into the final. He recently left the team to continue his development abroad, but he's a Nancy prospect through and through.

"It's opened my eyes to a side of soccer I didn't think I knew," Morris said of playing under Nancy. "It gave me a new love for the game."

"This is a good example of what the club [Columbus] wants to do," Nancy said of Morris' transfer abroad. "We develop young players and help them to get better.

"This is exactly the mentality that we want."

Nancy's approach has already won Columbus an MLS Cup and a Leagues Cup trophy, and it's starting to pay dividends for the USMNT. Schulte and Morris are two of the brighter prospects in the lineup, but neither would have likely made the squad without developmental assistance from Nancy and Columbus.

It's a bold new approach for MLS and couldn't have come at a better time. Just two years remain before the United States co-hosts the World Cup in 2026.

With Nancy's young players showing up for the national team in a big way, it looks like that team could have far more MLS representation than the Copa America squad from this summer.

The USMNT will play Canada on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET in Kansas City.