FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. – World Cup scorer Folarin Balogun has just returned to active duty in the French league. Haji Wright has yet to play for England this season.
Ricardo Pepi was a last minute scratch. Patrick Agyemang continues to recover from a serious injury that kept him out of the North American summer carnival.
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USA coach Mauricio Pochettino has a mix of raw and refined players in his first camp of the new World Cup era, which features four friendlies in 11 days across three time zones.
But what is missing is a proven striker.
Injuries and a desire to assess young players have prompted Pochettino to study the depth chart for five forwards who have never scored at senior international level. Only one made the full team, and he wasn’t even on the initial roster.
Damion Downs, you’re on the clock.
As players began arriving in greater Atlanta ahead of Saturday’s test with Peru in Orlando (4:30 ET, TNT), Downs was an emergency call after Pepi was injured in Sunday’s match against PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
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“Everything is an opportunity,” said Downs, who this month joined second-flight Premier League side St Louis City on loan from Southampton. “I’m here for a reason and for me, play as well as I can and hopefully learn as much as I can.”
With 13 of the 28 players looking to make their first appearance and two others with one cap, Downes’ six international caps make him quite the veteran.
Emergency call-up Damion Downs (9) is the most experienced forward in a young and largely untested USMNT attack.
(Jurij Codrun/USSF via Getty Images)
The 6-foot-4, 22-year-old was part of the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup squad, making four singles appearances and converting the winning penalty kick in the quarterfinal match against Costa Rica. He was called up for the next camp before being ruled out of contention for the World Cup last September.
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With three World Cup strikers – Balogun, Pepi and Wright – out this window, and teenage strikers Julian Hall, Justin Ellis and Javan Sullivan looking to make their debuts, Downs comes to the fore.
He reunited with both the senior players and his U.S. Under-21 teammates for matches in Peru, then Tuesday in St. Louis, Mexico, Greater Phoenix and Canada on Oct. 6 in St. Paul.
“It’s good to see the boys again,” he said.
However, it’s not like Downs is in great goalscoring form: he hasn’t scored in 30 league games in 17 months with 4 clubs: Köln, Southampton, Hamburg and St Louis. His only competitive goal during that time came with the U.S. Under-21s in a friendly against Ukraine in June.
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In St. Louis, he went scoreless in four short games, plus a U.S. Open.
Pochettino did not include him in the preliminary list last Thursday, but the call was turned off after Pepi’s injury.
“I had to buy all my things there [St. Louis] It was a practice facility, but other than that, I’m glad to be called up again,” Downs said. He arrived on time for Monday morning’s practice.
Pochettino selected Downs from Toronto, 26-year-old Josh Sargent, a 2022 World Cup member who hasn’t scored for the United States in almost seven years, and Vancouver’s Brian White, 30, a prolific MLS scorer and 2025 Gold Cup player.
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Apart from the 32 international goalless forwards, forwards Christian Pulisic (33 goals), Weston McKenney (12), Brenden Aaronson (nine) and Tim Weah (seven) were not called up for a myriad of reasons.
Among those invited to the camp, midfielder Gio Reyna is the leader with 10 international goals. No one else has more than five.
Forwards are needed not only to score goals, but also to catch centre-backs, release passes and create presence on the pitch. Of course, non-strikers are also capable of scoring goals. Five World Cup scorers are in camp: midfielders Malik Tillman (twice with free kicks), Reyna and Sebastian Berhalter and defenders Alex Freeman and Auston Trusty.
Downs — born in Germany and raised in Texas before returning to Germany at age 9 — has a knack for scoring. In 2024–25, aged 20, he scored 10 times as Cologne won the second division title and promotion to the Bundesliga. He added a goal and an assist in the quarterfinals of the German Cup against Bayer Leverkusen.
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His next move was a $9.5 million move to Southampton in England’s second tier, where things didn’t go well. He failed to score in 14 matches in all competitions before going on loan to Hamburg in the Bundesliga for 12 clean sheets.
Then came the loan to St. Louis, where he found his way.
“I’m getting there,” he said. “I felt like I had some good moves, so I’m looking forward to getting more minutes and showing myself more.”
At the US camp, Downs joined a trio of young internationals looking to stand out in their first senior camp: 18-year-old Hall had 10 goals and 5 assists for Red Bull New York; Ellis, 19, has 1 goal and 10 assists for Orlando City; and Sullivan, 16, made noise with seven goals and 12 assists for the resurgent Philadelphia Union.
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Pochettino also called up three European wingers for the first time – Borussia Dortmund’s Mathis Albert, 17, Elversberg’s Cole Campbell, 20, and Crystal Palace’s Zavier Gozo, 19 – as well as central attacking midfielders Adri Mehmet, 17, and New York, New England, 2, and Brooklyn Ray. Revolution, respectively.
“It’s a camp full of possibilities, isn’t it?” Two-time World Cup midfielder Tyler Adams said. “And they’re the ones who realize that and show they’re at a level where they can play against good teams. It’ll be interesting to see how far the lads can go.”