Brenden Aaronson left USMNT training camp, got married in New Jersey, woke up at 2:30 a.m., and was back on the training pitch before most people finished their wedding hangover. That's the week he just had.
The Leeds United midfielder is one of 26 players named to Mauricio Pochettino's squad for FIFA World Cup 2026, and his route to the squad announcement ran through one of the more chaotic personal timelines you'll see from a professional athlete. Roster reveal in New York. Training in Fayetteville. A 3-2 win over Senegal in Charlotte. A wedding in Manahawkin, New Jersey — booked two and a half years ago, long before the USMNT schedule dropped and turned everything upside down.
"Her face flushed, my face flushed, we were kind of freaking out," Aaronson said, recalling the moment his wife Milana realized the wedding week had filled up with national team obligations. He'd met her at a Sweet Sixteen when both were 16. They've been together ever since. His younger brother Paxten, the Colorado Rapids forward, was best man.
Pochettino gave him the room to do it
Aaronson went to Pochettino in March — months before the squad was announced — told him about the wedding, and offered to change the date if necessary. He didn't have to. Pochettino let him slip away from camp, attend the ceremony, arrive an hour and a half late to his own dress rehearsal, and return when it was done.
"He's humane," Aaronson said of his coach. "He knows that it's not easy being a footballer." That kind of trust from a manager matters, and it says something about the environment Pochettino is building ahead of a home World Cup.
Still, none of that softened the anxiety around the roster itself. Aaronson has 57 caps — one of the more experienced players in this squad — and had already been through a World Cup cycle in 2022. It didn't make May 22, the day Pochettino called players with the news, any easier.
"It was the most nervous I'd ever been in my life," he admitted.
Now he wants minutes against Germany
He dressed for the Senegal match but didn't play. Coming off what he calls his best club season — leading Leeds in assists as they finished 14th in the Premier League, comfortably clear of relegation — Aaronson is angling for game time when the USMNT faces Germany next.
At 25, with 57 caps and a settled club situation, he's exactly the kind of player whose World Cup odds are tied directly to whether Pochettino trusts him enough to use him in the meaningful warm-ups. A strong showing against Germany keeps him in the conversation for a starting role or key substitute spot when the tournament actually starts. A continued absence from the pitch doesn't.
"I'm really looking forward to being able to, hopefully, show myself against Germany," he said. "And if not, going into the trainings and showing what I can."
He left his wedding night three hours in to catch a flight back to Georgia. His wife, he said, has been with him since the beginning and "knows how many days we've been through doing all the football stuff." Whatever happens in this World Cup cycle, that part he's got sorted.
