It was a productive weekend for several USMNT players abroad, with a number of them strengthening their cases ahead of international duty and leaving a clear impression for their clubs.<\/p>\n
Jack McGlynn was the standout of the group. The 23-year-old forward had already produced a goal and an assist against Preston North End on Halloween, then followed that with the opener at Blackburn Rovers on Tuesday. He carried that form into the weekend by scoring the equaliser at Portsmouth, helping Stoke City secure a third straight victory. That result also moved Stoke level on 29 points at the top of the EFL Championship table alongside Birmingham City and Middlesbrough.<\/p>\n
McGlynn is now on five goals for the season and will return to the U.S. for the upcoming fixtures against Haiti as a late replacement for the injured Giovanni Reyna. It is his first call-up since September 2025 and his first since leaving MLS for the EFL Championship, a selection that looks fully earned.<\/p>\n
Alex Freeman also had a notable outing. Villarreal manager I\u00f1igo P\u00e9rez has rotated between Freeman and Santiago Mouri\u00f1o at right back this season, so after the midweek 6-0 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain, Freeman dropped to the bench against Getafe. Even so, his impact was obvious. Villarreal were scoreless for the first hour, then scored twice in the 30 minutes he was on the pitch and kept a clean sheet. Freeman gave the side a different threat, driving forward repeatedly and helping to build the opening goal. Whether he starts or comes on, he remains an important figure as Villarreal have climbed to eighth in La Liga.<\/p>\n
In defence, McKenzie also delivered. He made five defensive contributions, won three of his five duels and scored Toulouse\u2019s second goal in a 3-1 win over Strasbourg. He has since been called up at the last minute to replace the injured George Campbell in the USMNT defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
McGlynn, Freeman and McKenzie all impressed across Europe, boosting their USMNT chances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1249],"tags":[1458,242,180],"class_list":["post-22326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-championship","tag-championship","tag-injury","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}