Landon Donovan: Pochettino Should Rest All 11 USMNT Starters vs Turkey

Landon Donovan has watched the US men's national team do something it has never done before, and his message for the next match is blunt: sit everybody.

Through two games, the US has clinched a spot in the round of 32 and clinched first place in the group. "These are two teams that they should beat," Donovan said. He expected wins in both, maybe a tie in one. What surprised him was the margin. "Did I expect them to beat them this comfortably and this emphatically? No."

The first-place finish carries weight. "Now after two games, they have clinched a spot in the round of 32 and clinched first place in the group, which is never heard of on the US men's side," Donovan said. The women, he noted, do it all the time, in their sleep. For the men, it is new territory, and Donovan called the run phenomenal.

That sets up the awkward part: a game Thursday against Turkey that, by Donovan's own description, "is now meaningless." Turkey is already eliminated. The US is already through as group winner. The only stakes are keeping form, rhythm, excitement and intensity, while protecting against injuries and suspensions.

Kirk Morrison, who hosted the conversation, framed it through his own sport. He compared it to qualifying for the playoffs and then having to play a Week 18 game that doesn't matter, and asked how a team avoids going rusty before a knockout round where there is no time to recover.

Donovan's answer is rooted in the calendar. The team played Friday. The Turkey game is Thursday. The following match, he believes, would be the next Wednesday, roughly 11 or 12 days from that opening Friday. "You're not going to lose in soccer. You're not going to lose rhythm or fitness in 12 days," Donovan said. "They would be fine."

So his plan is aggressive rotation. "If I am Mauricio Pochettino for this game Thursday, I'm playing a completely different 11 players," Donovan said. "I'm resting all of my guys who have played these two games because there's no need to play them." The logic is risk avoidance: no injuries, no second yellow cards or red cards that carry suspensions into the knockout round.

There is a team-building upside, too. Rotating in fresh players "brings all those other 11 into the fold and feel like they are participating and a part of it," Donovan said. He pointed out that in the first game Pochettino played his exact same lineup, minus an injured Christian Pulisic, and most of those players logged heavy minutes. The starters now have continuity. The rest of the squad can earn theirs.

Pulisic is the name that hangs over the rotation. He didn't play the last game and probably won't play this one, which Donovan sees as a positive. The injury, he explained, is a calf, and calf problems are especially tricky in a running sport. Donovan said when Pulisic injured it about two days before the first game, he would have been shocked to see him ready a week or nine days later, since such injuries typically take seven to 10 days at a minimum, often a couple of weeks or more.

The staff had been pushing to ramp Pulisic up, harder than ideal. Now, Donovan said, they can back off completely for three days and simply let the muscle heal. Pulisic doesn't have to play Thursday. Then comes training, rhythm and fitness. "He will be more than fine by July 1st," Donovan said, the date he believes the round of 32 match will be played in Santa Clara.