Earnie Stewart has always been one of the leading lights for American soccer. He was one of the few European-based players on the squad that played on home soil at the 1994 FIFA World Cup USA™, and still blazes a trail today as the director of football at Dutch giants and UEFA Champions League regulars PSV Eindhoven.
Formerly the sporting director for US Soccer, Stewart will be watching Mauricio Pochettino’s team from afar later this year at the FIFA World Cup 2026™, as another group of players on home soil try to capture the hearts of a nation like the 1994 team did.
The former forward believes all the ingredients are there to make it happen, with a strong head coach in Pochettino, and a young, but experienced group of players that could include a pair on Stewart’s PSV payroll: Ricardo Pepi and Sergino Dest, the latter hoping to recover from a recent hamstring injury.
Stewart recently sat down with FIFA to talk about the massive opportunity ahead for his former national team at this year’s big bonanza.
Earnie Stewart: ‘94 was a kickstart, and then you had ‘99 when the women became world champions. These are important moments in soccer in the United States in terms of building the game and the brand of soccer. After all that’s been done in the women’s game and the men’s game, and especially with what MLS has become not only in the United States but now recognized all over the world, these guys now have the opportunity for this to be the extra element and help make an even bigger jump.
I’m certain that it’s going to be one of the best World Cups that has ever been played. There is a responsibility for the players that are going to be playing there, and I hope there are some who are young and ignorant – just as I was – that don’t feel that. But I’m pretty sure the guys like Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie and Christian Pulisic are going to feel those things. They’ll want to do really well for our country and grow the game even more.
The only thing that I’d say is ‘enjoy’. That’s the most important thing. In ‘94, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have. That’s not to say I didn’t have a smile on my face, but you should really think about what you’re doing and where you’re at. Being amongst the elite of world soccer is something special. A lot of them already have the experience from Qatar in 2022, and they can take that experience and enjoy this ride.
I hope so. You have a very experienced coach and you have good players, so those are good ingredients. I follow it from afar now, and saw all the criticism with Christian Pulisic [being left off the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup roster], and that he should have been there. I think Pochettino did a really good job. The burden on these players these days, I don’t think anybody understands what they go through and how many games they have to play. That’s what I call making decisions based on health instead of cramming in matches where people don’t have any rest. If somebody gets injured right before the World Cup, everybody’s going to say, ‘You should have rested them’. I thought [the criticism toward Pochettino] was really harsh at the time.
Pochettino has taken his time to assess his group of players. As you go more towards a World Cup, you’re going to get closer to what you want to see, and I think the way he went about it hopefully leads to an amazing squad, and with an amazing squad, a lot of good results.
It would be fantastic. We’re very fortunate here because we have more players that are going to be at the World Cup with Morocco. We have a couple of players still playing for positions with a Dutch national team. One, as a fellow American, I’m very proud that we have players here that are going to play for the US national team. We’re also have that pride for Malik Tillman, who was here for a longer period of time and took the steps to get to that stage as well.
It’s a painful thing though because we’ll probably start a season where we’re not going to have a lot of players here, but hopefully they all go, because it’s great to see PSV Eindhoven under the names on a world stage and at the elite level of world soccer.
Ricardo has done well. He’s progressed as a player. The one innate ability he has is anything around or in the 18-yard box, he’s lethal… he’s really lethal when he gets it on his right foot. Sometimes in our director’s box, we joke that we already know it’s a goal – like you can get up and start clapping – because that’s how lethal he can be. But he’s also developed himself into being there for the team at the right time in our way of playing. The combination of those things hopefully get him into the World Cup squad.
I’d say that I’ve had a really nice and good career in the sense of all the experiences that I’ve had. One, as a player playing professionally, then also playing in World Cups. But then after that, as a sporting director, or technical director, working for the US national team, going to the World Cup in Qatar. But the one thing that I always wanted to be part of was Champions League. Hearing the Champions League hymn was something special for me. And in the last three seasons it is something that I’ve experienced, which satisfies me a lot. It is a huge perk not just watching Champions League, but actually being part of Champions League at the same time.
