GOAL caught up with the USMNT defender to discuss his ambitions, and what it will take to get there
Mark McKenzie knows the label. "Fringe player," he says.
Those are his own words and, while harsh, they are true. There's generally a core group within the U.S. men's national team and, for the majority of his career, McKenzie has been on the outside looking in.
In some ways, he embraces that fringe role. He works hard within it. He plays his part, challenging those in front of him. He fights for whatever small victories he can get. He pushes for more whenever and however he can.
That doesn't mean he likes it, though, and it certainly doesn't mean he's willing to settle for it. After four years with the national team and with a new era about to begin, McKenzie is poised to pounce on the opportunity. He's ready to shed that label. He's lived the life of a fringe player, and wonders, could now be the time to become something more?
"That's been kind of my story with the national team for some time: being there, but not being a 'player' or being one of the 'players' .. just kind of being a fringe player, I guess you can say," McKenzie tells GOAL. "I don't like to put that label on myself, but within the national team, that's always just been my spot. "I've been there with the group and almost breaking through, but not there yet – or haven't been given a chance yet to showcase that consistently. That's been what's kind of held me back from being able to break through on the national team.
"You have to accept that every coach is going to make a decision, and he's not in best position either, so you have to have a sense of grace and empathy for him as well. He's trying to put together the best team he sees and win a game, win a tournament, or at least be successful over over a period of time. It's a difficult position to be in, but nonetheless, there's new opportunity here. It's exciting. The World Cup is on just the other side of the horizon. That's my goal. That's my ambition."
Ahead of September camp and a coaching change that will reportedly put Mauricio Pochettino in charge of the USMNT, GOAL caught up with McKenzie to talk about his rollercoaster career, the toughest moments, his professional goals and his strategy to move from the fringe to center stage.
- Getty
Awaiting opportunity
This past summer was, in some ways, a milestone for McKenzie. He was selected as one of the 23 players to represent the USMNT at the Copa America. He's one of the best players in the country, one of the elite. His spot in the squad justified that.
That's not the full story, though. McKenzie didn't play during the Copa. Not a minute. Tim Ream, Chris Richards and Cameron Carter-Vickers all got time, but not McKenzie. He watched on as the USMNT fell apart, inexplicably failing to make it out of the group stage. There was a feeling of helplessness to it all.
"It's been tough," McKenzie said. "It's been a grind, especially most recently with the Copa America, and not getting any minutes there. I was feeling like I deserved at least an opportunity. But again, I don't have that control."
McKenzie has no ill will towards Gregg Berhalter, who was the coach that introduced him to the national team, and was ultimately fired in the wake of the Copa America failure.
"We spent the last five years with Gregg," he says. "We'd gotten to know him well and what he wants in the team, and I can only show appreciation for him bringing the opportunities that I was shown."
McKenzie has never expected to be handed anything. He does, however, find himself hoping that the next USMNT coach – presumably Pochettino – gives him something he wants so desperately: a fresh start.
"After experiencing several games with the national team, you want to continue to play at that level," he says. "You want to continue to put yourself in that sphere and be one of the few to represent your country. It's a real honor, it's a privilege, it's a blessing to say you're one of the few who can do that. Every opportunity, every window, every call-up, comes with the idea that I need to step up. I want to play. I want to rise up to the occasion."
And it's not just about having an opportunity, but seizing it.
"Sometimes when you get to camp, you do everything you can to put yourself in that position, and like I said before, sometimes it's just not necessarily you," he said. "It's maybe just the coach has certain preferences and the team can be doing well, too. Those are just his people or the players that he prefers. It's hard to be on the outside looking in, naturally.
"All I can do is control what I can and every time I get a call-up, make sure that that opportunity is something that I put my best towards, that I put my all into. … I need to make sure I'm prepared for that and I showcase what I can do. I need to make sure there are no doubts."
For some, though, there remain lingering doubts about McKenzie, stemming from one night in 2021.
Advertisement
- Getty
The worst night, and an important lesson
It was the biggest game of McKenzie's life to that point, and it all unraveled within 60 seconds.
Heading into the 2021 CONCACAF Nations League final, McKenzie seemed like a rising star. He'd finally broken out of the January camp bubble, emerging as a legitimate centerback with the main group. Prior to the Nations League, he'd started a big friendly against Switzerland and, given his performance at the club level with Genk, he was feeling himself a bit.
"We were in the Swiss Alps, away from everything, and just really focused on the game," he recalls. "We played Switzerland. It was my first big test against an international foe right before we had the two Nations League matches, and was able to showcase what I could do at that level."
But?
"But then you hit a point," he says, "where you let a mistake happen."
That mistake came less than a minute into the match against rival Mexico. After a backpass from DeAndre Yedlin, McKenzie felt the pressure coming in around him. He tried to play the ball out wide, but didn't get enough of it. Instead, he passed it directly to … an opponent, Tecatito Corona, who made no mistake: 1-0 to Mexico.
And McKenzie knew it was his fault.
In his first big international match, McKenzie had made the worst possible first impression. That's hard to recover from.
"As my dad always says, 'Rise up'. There's no reason why you can't rise up," McKenzie said. "The only thing holding you down is yourself … As a defender, the mistakes can be more costly. I just had to recognize like, 'Look, it happened, but I can't let it kill me now'. We had 89 more minutes, even more because it was a long game, left to play."
Summoning the confidence to not just continue, but try to excel, in such circumstances is no easy task. And for McKenzie, it was a lesson in not just how to avoid the mistakes, but how to respond to them.
"That was my first taste of the international level," he said. "Those mistakes can punish you – or sometimes they don't. Those are the mistakes that hurt your team. Recognizing that, taking that in stride, staying cool… it happened, that's the experience, but that's not me. That doesn't define me. It won't define my career. However people want to pin it, that's on them."
Making matters worse, in the aftermath of that moment, McKenzie was the victim of racist abuse on social media. It changed his perspective on how, as a professional athlete, he can be perceived, and how to deal with what can be an ugly reality.
"We lack empathy," he says, "because people are getting worked up over a game. It's literally a game of 11 guys playing against 11 guys, chasing after the ball to try and outscore each other. If we really put it into that context, this game isn't changing anything. We have other issues in the world."
The game is more than just a profession to McKenzie. It's his career, of course, but he also says it's his passion. And that night marked one of the biggest teaching moments of his ride so far.
"It's like being in a fish bowl," he says. "These are our careers, our livelihood, but this will come and this will go, and there are going to be others that come into it as well. We're humans. We're not FIFA players. FIFA is one thing. I can understand when you make a mistake in FIFA or 2K or whatever the game is, you get mad at the video game. Us, we're just humans as well.
"When you just talk about the national team and the ups and downs that I've been through, another thing has just been recognizing that every career is different and they're just about accepting the challenges head-on and being able to adapt and adjust on the day."
-
The move to Toulouse
McKenzie can obviously talk about wanting more, but that's not how you actually get it. He knows he needs to prove himself further, and that's why he made his big move this summer.
After three-and-a-half seasons at Belgian side Genk, McKenzie realized that he'd accomplished all he could with that particular club. He was linked to several other teams this summer but ultimately moved to Toulouse, making the big leap up to Ligue 1. He started his first match against Nice on Aug. 25 and he's hoping that the new challenge in the top flight in France could offer him the springboard he needs with the USMNT.
"It's making that extra and doing the little things that I felt personally, that was a difference," he says. "That's the step and, ultimately, that's what I wanted to do in my career, right? I wanted to be an environment where it's about winning, but ultimately where you're being challenged because guys are technically that much faster, or guys think that much faster, or guys are tactically that much more sound… I think for me, it's all about the intensity and the quality of players and how fast players are able to think with or without the ball."
The transfer window quite literally provided an opening, and McKenzie went through.
"It's about building on the foundation that I've already put in place and doing all the things that have gotten me to where I am," he said. "That was my mindset going into the whole transfer window."
ENJOYED THIS STORY?
Add GOAL.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting
- Getty Images
The domino effect
One of the things that makes this version of the USMNT so unique is that many of these players have grown up together. Weston McKennie spent his teen years playing alongside Auston Trusty and Brenden Aaronson. He remembers battles with Tyler Adams before the two ever made it. There are bonds on this team that were formed long before these players ever put on a national team shirt.
Those bonds, though, are constantly being put to the test. It's a competition, after all. McKenzie grew up with Trusty, but now they're fighting for the same spot. They're among the four centerbacks in camp for September friendlies – the USMNT play Canada Saturday, and then New Zealand on Sept. 10 – and each of those four has a point to prove in a tight race. Ream needs to prove Father Time hasn't arrived just yet. Richards needs to show he's THE guy. Trusty is looking to show he belongs in the picture. And McKenzie wants to move to the front from the fringe.
"As a player, you have to be able to compartmentalize the individual aspect of the sport," he says, "because when you allow certain individual thoughts and selfish thoughts to intersect or overshadow or deviate into the collective goals and ambitions, then that's when you become detrimental to the team. That's when you become maybe a thorn within the team's side that could push a team in the wrong direction."
How do you both be a piece of the puzzle, but also help all of the other pieces fit together?
"If I'm not pushing myself to get the best out of my game and trying to maximize the opportunity, then the next guy, he's not going to do that," McKenzie says. "He's going to feel like he doesn't have to worry it and ultimately, that natural competition that you have will then push him to push himself even harder – and then that pushes the next guy to go even harder. It's a domino effect."
Everyone on the USMNT knows that the slate is now clean – one coach is out, another is on the way, and spots are back up for grabs. Aside from maybe two or three players, no one is really safe. Players such as McKenzie find hope in that. Others, the locked-in starters, get the motivation to prove themselves again.
It all leads to fierce battles, especially now. The 2026 World Cup – to be hosted in the U.S., Canada and Mexico – is less than two years away, so players will now be battling with their dreams on the line. Just doing the math, someone will have to miss out. McKenzie has been on both sides of it. He missed a World Cup, but made it to a Copa America. He knows the sting and the joy.
And In the end, the players you compete with are your friends.
"We're challenging each other to be better," McKenzie says, "but then again, off the pitch, you have to be able to say, 'Alright, business is business'. We handle our business. We can shake hands and be like, 'Alright, cool, what do you want to get for lunch, bro? Let's go grab some Chipotle. Oh, we've got an off day tomorrow? Let's go get some Chick-Fil-A and chop it up. How's your girl? Oh you're married now?'
"It creates this dynamic where we can have this healthy competition on the pitch and still be boys off the pitch and not carry it, because when you start carrying that stuff off, then it becomes a problem, and then it becomes a thing where we're not going to be able to be successful."