The exclusion of Diego Luna and Zavier Gozo from the latest USMNT roster is not a routine selection decision—it is a damning indictment of how US Soccer continues to treat MLS form as a second-class currency. Both players were notified via a Friday email, a cold, bureaucratic dismissal that betrays a systemic lack of respect for domestic league production. Luna, a creative linchpin for Real Salt Lake under Pablo Mastroeni, has been weaving through defenses all season, leading his team in chances created and drawing comparisons to a young Sebastian Giovinco for his low center of gravity and final-third vision. Gozo, the dynamic forward for FC Dallas, has torn up the Western Conference with a relentless pressing game and five goals in his last nine appearances—numbers that scream “international ready.” Yet neither will board the plane for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers. Instead, USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter has summoned players whose club minutes are sporadic or whose form in Europe has been pedestrian. The message is unmistakable: performing week in, week out in MLS is not enough to earn a look.
This isn’t about a talent gap—it’s about a trust deficit. Berhalter has long favored players in top-five European leagues, a bias that made sense when the MLS was a retirement league, but that logic crumbles when Luna and Gozo are outperforming their European-based counterparts in the same