Maybe the U.S. men’s soccer team’s so-called “Golden Generation” never stood a chance.

There’s been plenty of theories about why the USA, with a collection of in-their-prime players who star for some of the planet’s leading clubs and who thrilled fans en-route to the round of 16 at this summer’s World Cup, fell flat against Belgium and bowed out at the same stage as the last three American squads to participate in the tournament despite this one being played on home turf.

Maybe it was just a bad game. Maybe they just weren’t good enough. Maybe the “target” that defender Chris Richards recently admitted was plastered on their backs when FIFA rescinded Folarin Balogun’s suspension was just too big to shake. 

The USA finished the 2026 World Cup with a round of 16 exit. (Photo by Charlotte Wilson/Getty Images)

Or maybe it was the result of a combination of factors.

Here’s one more to consider.

When the USA shockingly failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, they were caught between two generations, the consequence of a problem FOX Sports contributor Brian Sciaretta identified even before that fateful loss in 2017 to Trinidad & Tobago: A “black hole of development” among players born between 1990 and 1996. 

During the 2018 cycle, the old guys were too old. Besides teenage star Christian Pulisic, youngsters like Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie were too young.

Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams are now mentoring the next generation. (Photo by Sarah Stier – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

The debacle marked the end of legendary international careers for 38-year-old Tim Howard, 35-year-old DaMarcus Beasley and 34-year-old Clint Dempsey. The newcomers were immediately “anointed” as the focus prematurely shifted to 2022, Howard said again on his podcast last week.

So when an 18-year-old Adams and a 19-year-old McKennie debuted for the U.S. in a friendly in Portugal a month later, Alejandro Bedoya and DeAndre Yedlin were the lone players with World Cup experience on the roster. The large core of experienced veterans who traditionally help pass on an established culture to the young talents who would replace them simply didn’t exist.

“When I came into the national team, there was a really big gap,” Adams told me on Wednesday during a videoconference with reporters.  “It was all us young guys, 17 and 18, and then it was like 33, 34, and guys that were obviously phasing out of the national team.”

By the time Richards made his debut as a 20-year-old in 2020, Jozy Altidore and Michael Bradley had also appeared in their last national team games. No wonder Richards hesitated for a moment on Thursday when he was asked who he leaned on when he first broke through. The Premier Leaguer eventually named fellow center backs Tim Ream and John Brooks, neither of whom had participated in a World Cup at the time, and noted that his early camps were populated largely by his former youth national team teammates.

With Saturday’s exhibition against Peru marking the beginning of the 2030 World Cup cycle, things are different. Coach Mauricio Pochettino has assembled a squad almost evenly mixed between uncapped prospects — eight of them teenagers — and members of his 2026 World Cup roster.

Cavan Sullivan is being heralded as the next U.S. soccer star. (Photo by Terence Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Still just 27, Adams has already played in two World Cups and made more than 250 club appearances in the Premier League, the UEFA Champions League, Germany’s Bundesliga and MLS. Even with AC Milan’s Pulisic and Juventus’ McKennie out for these upcoming four home friendlies (the U.S. will also take on Chile, Mexico and Canada) after having just returned from early season injuries in Italy, the current group is significantly more grizzled than the one Adams and Richards joined as international neophytes.

“Make sure that they know that they still have to earn a spot,” said Richards when asked what the integration process looks like internally. “Just because you’re here, it’s not the finish line. It’s the starting point.

“But when it comes to off the field stuff,” added Richards, who on Wednesday led the national team’s longtime initiation ritual that requires first-time callups to sing in the meal room, “it’s just making sure that they also feel welcome in this environment.”

Chris Richards and Sergiño Dest are on a roster that mixes youth and experience. (Jane Gershovich/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty Images)

That sort of tone-setting guidance could prove invaluable over the next four years. The senior team will jump right back into official competition in November, when their 2026-27 Concacaf Nations League schedule begins. There’s a Gold Cup next summer. A dozen current camp attendees are age-eligible for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles with the Steve Cherundolo-coached U.S. under-23s, and there could be another U.S.-hosted Copa América that summer, too. Qualifying matches for the 2030 World Cup begin after that. 

When Pulisic’s generation kicked off the Stars and Stripes qualifying campaign for Qatar 2022, only Yedlin had ever appeared in both the months-long regional qualifying slog and the grandiose main event itself. Even on this intentionally experimental roster, seven have: Adams, Richards, Sergiño Dest, Yunus Musah, Gio Reyna, Antonee Robinson and Miles Robinson. 

It’s possible that the lack of tough-fought qualifying matches over the last four years (the U.S. earned an automatic berth for 2026 as co-hosts) combined with the lack of cool heads in their early 30s hurt the Americans when the Belgium game began to slip away. Ream looked every bit of his almost 39 years in that contest, though there was plenty of blame to go around. Still, it’s worth noting that just one player between the age of 30 and 33 survived Pochettino’s final cut: backup keeper Matt Turner. World Cup champs Spain boasted nine. The U.S. should have closer to that amount in 2030. 

“We have a lot of big games under our belts, and also guys who’ve played at a really high level club-wise,” Richards told me. “These experiences, it’s what’s going to help the national team going into the future.

“When you get to the senior national team, it’s a different beast,” added Richards. “So it’s making sure that we keep everybody grounded in the tough moments, but also knowing that we have confidence from the back of what we’ve just done.”

That’s a luxury he, Adams and the rest of the USA mainstays simply didn’t have.

“When I came in, it was off the cusp of obviously not qualifying for a World Cup, and it was like you guys basically need to play right now and need to perform right now so that we can qualify for the next World Cup,” said Adams, who at 23 was the youngest captain in Qatar.

“There’s less pressure on these young kids to come in and perform immediately, and more time to be able to actually develop them,” he continued. “I look at this generation of players right now, and I think they’re in a great position to be able to go through the process properly.”