USMNT's striker shortage puts Damion Downs and a group of unproven forwards in the spotlight

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — Folarin Balogun, a World Cup three-goal scorer, just returned to active duty in the French league. Haji Wright has yet to play in England this season. Ricardo Pepi was a last-minute scratch. Patrick Agyemang continues recovering from a severe injury that ruled him out of the summer carnival across North America. U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino’s first camp of the new World Cup cycle, which features four friendlies over 11 days in three time zones, contains a mix of raw and refined players. What it lacks, however, is a proven striker. Injuries and a desire to assess young players led Pochettino to mining his depth chart for five rostered forwards who’ve never scored on the senior international level. Only one has ever played for the full squad, and he wasn’t even included on the initial roster. Damion Downs, you’re on the clock. As players began arriving in greater Atlanta ahead of Saturday’s test against Peru in Orlando (4:30 p.m. ET, TNT), Downs was an emergency call-up after Pepi went down with an injury early in PSV Eindhoven’s match Sunday in the Netherlands. “Everything's an opportunity,” said Downs, who this month joined Major League Soccer’s St. Louis City on loan from Southampton in the second-flight English Championship. “I'm here for a reason, and for me, just play as good as I can, and hopefully learn as much as I can.” With 13 of the 28 players seeking their first cap and two others with one appearance, Downs’ six international matches make him a downright veteran. Emergency call-up Damion Downs (9) is the most experienced striker in a young and largely untested USMNT attack. Jurij Kodrun/USSF via Getty Images The 6-foot-4, 22-year-old was part of the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup squad, appearing in four matches as a sub and converting the winning penalty kick in the quarterfinal shootout against Costa Rica. He was recalled for the subsequent camp last September before he fell out of World Cup contention. With the three World Cup strikers — Balogun, Pepi and Wright — absent for this window and teenage forwards Julian Hall, Justin Ellis and Cavan Sullivan seeking to make their debuts, Downs steps to the forefront. He has reunited with both senior players and U.S. under-21 teammates for the matches against Peru, then Chile on Tuesday in St. Louis, Mexico on Oct. 3 in greater Phoenix and Canada on Oct. 6 in St. Paul. “It's just nice seeing the boys again,” he said. It’s not as though Downs is in great scoring form, however: no goals in 30 league appearances over 17 months with four clubs: Köln, Southampton, Hamburg and St. Louis. In that span, his only goal in a competitive setting was with the U.S. under-21s in a friendly against Ukraine in June. In St. Louis, he has not scored in four brief appearances, plus a U.S. Open Cup game. Pochettino did not include him on the initial roster last Thursday, but after Pepi’s injury, the call went out. “Had to get all my stuff from the [St. Louis] training facility, but other than that, I was just happy to be called up again,” Downs said. He arrived in time for Monday morning’s training session. Pochettino chose Downs over Toronto’s Josh Sargent, 26, a 2022 World Cup member who hasn’t scored for the U.S. in almost seven years, and Vancouver’s Brian White, 30, a prolific MLS scorer and 2025 Gold Cup player. Aside from the absent strikers who account for 32 international goals, attackers Christian Pulisic (33 goals), Weston McKennie (12), Brenden Aaronson (nine) and Tim Weah (seven) were not called up for myriad reasons. Among the camp invitees, midfielder Gio Reyna is the leading scorer with 10 international goals. No one else has more than five. Strikers are needed not just to score but occupy center backs, lay off passes and create a box presence. Of course, non-strikers are capable of scoring, too. Five who notched World Cup goals are in camp: midfielders Malik Tillman (twice on free kicks), Reyna and Sebastian Berhalter, and defenders Alex Freeman and Auston Trusty. Downs — German-born and Texas-raised before returning to Germany at age 9 — does have goal-scoring capacity. In 2024-25, at age 20, he struck 10 times as Köln won the second-division title and earned promotion to the Bundesliga. He added a goal and assist in a German Cup quarterfinal against Bayer Leverkusen. His next move was a $9.5 million transfer to Southampton in second-tier England, where things did not go as well. He failed to score in 14 matches across all competitions before leaving on loan to Hamburg in the Bundesliga for 12 scoreless appearances. Next came the loan to St. Louis, where he is finding his way. “I'm getting there,” he said. “I felt like I had a few good actions, so I'm just looking forward to getting more minutes and trying to showcase myself even more.” At U.S. camp, Downs has joined a trio of youth internationals seeking to stand out in their first senior camp: Hall, 18, has 10 goals and five assists for Red Bull New York; Ellis, 19, has one goal and 10 assists for Orlando City; and Sullivan, 16, has caused a stir with seven goals and 12 assists for the resurgent Philadelphia Union. Pochettino also invited three European-based wingers for the first time — Borussia Dortmund’s Mathis Albert, 17, Elversberg’s Cole Campbell, 20, and Crystal Palace’s Zavier Gozo, 19 — as well as central attacking midfielders Adri Mehmeti, 17, and Brooklyn Raines, 21, from Red Bull New York and the New England Revolution, respectively. “It's a camp full of opportunities, right?” two-time World Cup midfielder Tyler Adams said. “And it's who grasps that and shows they're at the level of being able to play against good teams. It'll be interesting to see what guys can step up.”