Diego Luna’s unlikely path to USMNT stardom and a possible World Cup spot

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“Big balls,” Pochettino told the broadcast post-game with a chuckle. “He showed great character.”

Luna’s effort was rewarded when Pochettino called him up for the Nations League Finals in March. His inclusion raised some eyebrows, especially since Pochettino chose him over more familiar faces like Brenden Aaronson and Alex Zendejas. Luna hadn’t even made the mostly U-23 roster for the 2024 Paris Olympics last summer, but used that as motivation, and clearly Pochettino has liked what he’s seen.

Luna was a bright spot for another otherwise disappointing performance by the USMNT at the Nations League, the first time in four editions they had failed to win it. He started and played the full 90 minutes against Canada in the third-match place and set up the Americans’ only goal with a nifty assist to Patrick Agyemang. Afterward, Pochettino singled Luna out while discussing upcoming roster decisions he’ll have to make.

“The desire and the hunger that he showed is what we want,” Pochettino said. “And that is not to say anything against the rest of the [team], it’s only one example. When I told him he was going to play, he was ready. And after playing well or not playing well, scoring or assisting or not, that is what we want to see and that is the example for me that we need to take.”

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Now, it’s the eve of the next U.S. roster drop – this one for the summer’s Gold Cup – and Luna is expected to be on it. This is also the last major tournament the squad will play in before the 2026 World Cup.  How much he’ll play, how he’ll fit in the attack, and where he stands amongst the competition in his position is a question. Minutes-wise, Luna may benefit from the fact that Gio Reyna will not be part of the USMNT’s Gold Cup roster due to the fact that his club, Borussia Dortmund, will be participating in the FIFA Club World Cup at the same time. Tim Weah and Weston McKennie, who play for Juventus, face the same conflict.

Luna is in top form. His star is rising. And he’s a confident and creative playmaker who has endeared himself to Pochettino. Now, he has a chance to become the kind of star the USMNT desperately needs to make a deep run this summer – and possibly earn a roster spot for the 2026 World Cup.

“He will run through a wall to play soccer,” Real Salt Lake coach Pablo Mastroeni, who has coached Luna since 2022, told FOX Sports. “I think that toughness, and that grit, and ability to overcome and persevere, I think it’s a void that the national team is looking to fill and I think with Diego Luna, you’re always going to get a dog.”

Coffee and therapy: Luna’s path to the USMNT

Pochettino values toughness in players. He’s from Argentina and spent his managerial career in Europe before joining the USMNT. He expects players to battle, get back on defense and do whatever it takes to win.

Those qualities may seem obvious at this level, but not everyone has them. After an underwhelming showing at Nations League in March – which included flat performances in losses to Panama and Canada – U.S. players were heavily criticized for being complacent and lacking pride.

Luna was an exception, likely due in part to the unconventional path he’s taken to get to this point. Luna left his family and his home in Sunnyvale, Calif. (where he played for the San Jose Earthquakes academy) at age 15 to join the Barcelona Residency Academy in Arizona. Three years later, he signed with El Paso Locomotive in the USL Championship before joining RSL in 2022. 

Luna had to earn his spot there. Then 18 years old, he moved to a city he’d never been to without any friends or family. He felt lost. He wasn’t playing. He didn’t feel part of the group. In conversations with Mastroeni those early days, the coach told Luna that he was technical and talented, but needed to commit to defending and work both sides of the ball. “He’d say, ‘You can’t just be an attacking player. You’re not Messi,” Luna recalled. 

Luna took all those frustrating matters into his own hands. For one, he worked on his defensive presence. It took some time, but now three years later, Mastroeni said Luna has “more than surpassed my expectations. He’s engaged defensively, but he’s also scanning defensively and he’s playing cat and mouse. He’s made that his own craft and he’s really, really good at that.”

Second, Luna sought therapy to address mental health struggles that had been bubbling since he first moved away from home at a young age. The weight of expectations – to score goals every game, to get called up to the national team – created internal pressure.

“Imagine being a young kid and you gotta live on your own, make money and make sure you’re performing because if not, you don’t know where you’re going to end up or what’s going to happen next,” Luna said. “That is tough not having guidance from your family there with you every step.”

Luna said he wished he’d started therapy sooner, but “as soon as I committed, you could see an automatic [difference]. Within a week, there was a change in mentality with [my] emotions and feelings and how I felt internally, which allowed me to be free and mentally clear when performing on the field. Therapy is a great tool and I think that’s something a lot of people shouldn’t be afraid to do.

Third, Luna found a way to overcome loneliness. Because he wasn’t playing much at the beginning, he had more free time on his hands. Rather than go home to an empty house after training, he decided to get a second job at a local Dutch Bros coffee shop where he thought he might be able to make some friends and work on his social skills.

Not only did he master whipping up an iced Golden Eagle – Dutch Bros’ most popular drink that’s similar to a caramel vanilla latte – but for the nine months he worked there, Luna got better at making eye contact with people and communicating.

Mastroeni can’t recall ever having a player with a part-time job, especially given the salaries current MLS players make, but it wasn’t about the money for Luna. “It was just about getting to know people in town and feeling a part of the community,” Mastroeni said.

Ahead of the 2023 season, Luna had stopped making coffee but continued his therapy (and still goes to this day). He scored five goals that season and worked his way into the starting lineup. In 2024, by then a regular RSL starter, Luna scored eight goals, added 12 assists and was named an All-Star and MLS’ Young Player of the Year. He’s been on a hot streak in 2025, scoring seven goals so far, including six in the last eight games. On April 5, USMNT assistant coach Miki D’Agostino was in the crowd and saw Luna bag a brace within five minutes in a 2-0 win over the LA Galaxy.

“He’s not only a great student of football, but he’s a great student of life and I think he’s mature beyond his years,” Mastroeni said. “He’s so driven and he’s willing to change in order to achieve. His adaptability is through the roof.

“And I think this is all really manifesting to be a part of the 2026 [World Cup] team because he is reliable and he is passionate about his football. He defends, but not because the coach asks him to. He defends because now he really enjoys defending and understands that if he does his job higher up the field when we win the ball, he’s going to be in positions to do his thing in transition.”

‘A special type of player’ 

Luna is still largely unknown to the casual U.S. Soccer fan, but his playing style has not gone unnoticed by some of the other more known stars on the squad. 

“He’s an awesome kid, man. He brings a little something different,” Christian Pulisic said of Luna after playing with him during the Nations League matches. “He’s got heart. I love the way he plays and he’s got a big future ahead.”

Tyler Adams observed something similar.

“He’s a special type of player,” Adams said this spring. “I think in today’s game, those creative players, you’re finding less and less of them. A No. 10 guy that can play on the wing as well. He just gives something different to the team.”

Maybe it’s his body type – Luna is barrel-chested and listed at 5’8″, 187 lbs. Maybe it’s his eccentric appearance – he’s got a lot of tattoos from the neck down and always has a cool hair-do.

Maybe it’s his technical ability and how he can beat guys one-v-one and combine out of tight spaces. Or maybe it’s his fearlessness and dogged mentality.

“Thats just in my DNA and how I grew up,” Luna said. “I was always playing up ages, always playing with bigger, stronger, faster kids, always being pushed by my family, always having the ball at my feet. Soccer is in my blood. It’s what I live for.”
 

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For Mastroeni, it’s more of this: “When I was watching [the last USMNT match vs. Canada], as the game began to kind of wane and the guys began to fatigue a little bit, there was still one guy out there pressing the goalkeeper and getting after it. For me, ‘different’ is being labeled an attacking player but having the grit and the desire to want to work defensively for a team.”

This summer, Luna will have another prove-it opportunity to showcase his talent and further cement himself into Pochettino’s 2026 World Cup plans. He’s not overthinking anything, but instead reminding himself to work “my butt off.”

“I’m just having fun,” Luna said. “I’m working hard, making sure I’m doing what I need to do on both sides of the ball, and then let my creativity [flow] and express myself and that’s it. From there, things can happen and that’s out of my control.”
 

Laken Litman covers college football, college basketball and soccer for FOX Sports. She previously wrote for Sports Illustrated, USA Today and The Indianapolis Star. She is the author of “Strong Like a Woman,” published in spring 2022 to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Follow her at @LakenLitman.

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