With three objectives in three video games for Norwich Metropolis this season, American striker Josh Sargent is enjoying exceptionally nicely. It isn’t stunning. Final season, he earned Participant of the Season for Norwich Metropolis in a vote by the staff’s followers.
However regardless of his stellar play, the versatile Sargent is a U.S. Men’s National Team reject. He hasn’t performed for the nationwide staff since 2024.
“It’s a soccer choice,” USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino said calmly when requested within the spring about Sargent’s absence from his staff (h/t SBI Soccer).
A “soccer choice” means Sargent’s absence is not due to damage, fatigue, logistics or any one of many different myriad causes a USMNT participant would possibly miss out on a world call-up. Pochettino merely is not inquisitive about what Sargent provides.
A fast take a look at Sargent’s USMNT stats makes it simple to see why. He hasn’t scored for the USMNT since 2019 regardless of making 16 appearances for the staff throughout that point interval. He has zero assists, too.
Sargent has skilled highs with the USMNT — he was part of head coach Gregg Berhalter’s World Cup staff that misplaced within the Spherical of 16 in 2022 — however his legacy with the staff is essentially one in all wasted promise.
Many American strikers have suffered via dry spells, however the curious factor about Sargent is that his dry spell appears restricted to his nationwide staff performances. He has starred elsewhere, scoring 51 objectives in all competitions since he signed with Norwich Metropolis in 2021.
Sargent tallied both a objective or an help each 125 minutes for the Canaries within the Championship final season. That is the most effective — and essentially the most environment friendly — scoring document of any American striker anyplace on this planet throughout that point interval. High American goalscorers Folarin Balogun (Monaco), Haji Wright (Coventry) and Patrick Agyemang (Derby County) cannot examine. Sargent’s stats blow theirs out of the water.
