His US men’s national team had just survived an arduous test to book their place in the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup final, outlasting a spirited Guatemala side roared on by legions of vibrant Chapines supporters on a muggy summer night at St. Louis CITY SC's Energizer Park.
Yet in the aftermath of Wednesday’s sweaty 2-1 win, Mauricio Pochettino’s mind drifted back to winter and the annual January camp, where predominantly MLS-based USMNTers gather in a warm-weather locale to get a head start on the new year. The camp is not universally loved – Clint Dempsey has admitted he dreaded that call late in his career; Jurgen Klinsmann said he recommended U.S. Soccer mothball it altogether – but ‘Poch’ is thanking his lucky stars for its existence.
Because that’s where he discovered Diego Luna, the man who now wears the US No. 10 shirt and scored the two goals that powered them into Sunday’s final vs. Mexico at NRG Stadium in Houston (7 pm ET | FOX, TUDN, Univision).
“How important was January?” mused Pochettino after the close-run victory.
“To discover a player like him, and to give him confidence … Sometimes people say it’s useless, but it's not useless. I think it's important, important for the national team, important for the team, very important for the country.”
The Luna factor
Three days after scoring his first US goal to help the Yanks reach the semifinals, Luna was clutch again, snatching two well-taken goals in the opening 15 minutes to push Guatemala into a hole they could not climb out of, even with a ferocious second-half rally that fell just short.
As slick as his stepovers and sweetly-hit finish were on his second strike, the Real Salt Lake attacker’s urgency was palpable in all phases of the game, the sort of fire that’s often been in short supply as the program lost some momentum over the past year or so.
“I think it's the grit, it’s determination that we've been lacking, to be honest. It's fighting to the end, every ball, every moment,” Luna told FOX’s Jenny Taft after his latest star turn. “The game's about moments, and I think this is where we showcase it. It's 90 minutes of hundreds of moments, and you got to execute on each one.
“It's just finding the rhythm,” he added of his surging form. “And I think being able to get the freedom from the coaching staff and from the team, knowing that they're going to have my back, and the trust of the defensive responsibilities allows me to just do what I do on the ball.”
Leader by example
Barely six months after he caught Poch’s eye by playing through a broken nose to notch the game-winning assist in a 3-0 friendly win over Costa Rica, Luna is now the team’s spiritual center, a talisman who looks increasingly vital to any version of the USMNT, even one with its full complement of European-based stars available.
An unabashed romantic, in keeping with his roots at Newell’s Old Boys, one of Argentine soccer’s most cherished institutions, Pochettino offered warm praise for the passion and desire of both Guatemala’s players and supporters – and pointed to Luna as cut from the same cloth.
“An example is Diego, that is all that we expect from a player,” said the coach. “Of course, I’m happy he scored goals. But is that attitude, that hunger, desire, everything – and then for sure, the talent will appear.
“If you go to play the sport only for fun, the rest of the opponents and the different countries, you play for survive, you play for food, you play for pride; you play for many things. Is not to go and enjoy and go home and laugh, and that's it, you know? And if the moment that we, now, this roster, we start to live in this way, I think we have big room to improve. But I think Diego was a good example, that from January, how he is desperate to play for this shirt, for the national team, and that is why now he is in the level that he is showing.”
Trophy on the line
Luna and many of his current teammates were relative outsiders just a short while ago, simply hoping for a chance to show they could contribute.
Now they’ll have the opportunity to hoist a major trophy in US colors, and continue to stake their claim for a FIFA 2026 World Cup roster spot.
“I'm extremely grateful, and I think every single one of these players think about it the same way I do,” ‘Moon Man,’ who was previously eligible to represent Mexico, told Taft.
“This is the number-one dream that we've had as a kid, and we're going to fight for this to have as many chances to wear it as we can.”
