'I really want that feeling again' - Inside the USMNT’s 2022 World Cup memories, from Christian Pulisic’s defining goal to Gio Reyna’s complicated role

"Smelling that World Cup grass, there's nothing like it." Tim Weah smiles when he says it. So do the others who were there. Nearly four years later, the USMNT’s 2022 World Cup still comes back in flashes: goals, brotherhood, ping-pong, meditation, family, laughs, tears, losses and nights where nothing else seemed to matter. That winter in Qatar was the tournament that reintroduced the U.S. men to the world stage after the program’s devastating failure to qualify in 2018. For most of the 26 players on that roster, it was their first World Cup. For some, it may be their only one. Either way, it became something that could never be taken away from them. In the years since, though, another truth has become clear: that team will never be together again. The coach has changed. Some players have drifted out of the picture. Others have forced their way in. And when the World Cup comes to North America this summer, the USMNT will be chasing something bigger, louder and more demanding — but not something that can replicate what happened in Qatar. These tournaments are moments in time. They change players. They bind groups together. And then, almost as quickly as they arrive, they are gone. "Who knows how many guys are the same guys on this roster," Tyler Adams says, "but to anybody that makes that roster, I would say the same thing: value that time, man. It goes by in the blink of an eye and, before you know it, you're going back on a plane and getting back to where you've got to go." In the years since the 2022 World Cup, GOAL has sat down with the players who made up that roster. This is their story of that tournament: the goals they scored, the moments they lost, the memories that stayed with them, and the feeling they are still chasing as 2026 arrives.