PSV's Ricardo Pepi, left, celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during a Champions League opening phase soccer match between Olympiacos and PSV in Piraeus port, near Athens, Greece, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

CHESTER, Pa. (AP) — Back with the U.S. national team for the first time in a year, Ricardo Pepi is just returning to top form.

Surprisingly left off the 2022 World Cup roster, Pepi is part of a forward pool with Folarin Balogun and Haji Wright as the Americans prepare for friendlies against Paraguay on Saturday and Uruguay on Tuesday, the next-to-last training camp before coach Mauricio Pochettino calls in players ahead of the World Cup.

“It’s been a lot of inconsistency,” Pepi said Thursday. “I feel like I’m at a very good spot now. My main focus at the beginning of the season was staying healthy.”

A 22-year-old from El Paso, Texas, Pepi has 11 goals in 33 international appearances. He made his Major League Soccer debut for Dallas at age 16 and transferred to Germany's Augsburg in January 2022. After failing to score in 16 games with the German club, he was loaned to Groningen for most of the 2022-23 season and signed with PSV Eindhoven for 2023-24.

He had one start and 26 substitute appearances in the league that year, then gained more playing time in 2024-25 when he scored 17 goals in 28 matches before tearing the meniscus in his right knee against Liverpool on Jan. 29, ending his season.

“Had to sew it back together basically,” Pepi said. “So that’s why it took so long.”

Pepi has five goals in 12 matches this season for PSV: three in the Netherlands’ Eredivisie and two in the Champions League. He started four consecutive games before straining his left hamstring in a league match against Excelsior on Sept. 27. He was sidelined until Oct. 18 and has entered six straight matches as a second-half substitute, scoring against Napoli, Fortuna Sittard and Olympiakos.

“It’s been a difficult time, of course, the past couple of months. Of course a lot of inconsistency in the way I’ve been feeling and the way that I’ve being playing,” he said. “The last couple of weeks I noticed in training that I started to feel (like) myself, just the way I move, the way I hit the ball, the way I strike. I think it’s been recently where I’ve started to feel like I’m at a good place with my body and healthy again.”

“In training I see it, too,” said defender Joe Scally, seated next to Pepi.

Pochettino has said he wants players to earn national team selections by getting regular club time. He's had to make exceptions for Pepi and midfielder Gio Reyna, who had played just 150 minutes this season for Borussia Mönchengladbach.

“If they play every single game it should be amazing for us,” Pochettino said, “but I think we need to to understand that sometime some players struggle to play but can be important for us.”

“They need to have the motivation that we care about them,” he added. “They need to know that they are in the race for the competition and for the place to be in the roster in the World Cup. ... They need to give their best to try to arrive in the best shape to be like animals and feel really strong.”

Wright, who scored in the second-round 3-1 loss to the Netherlands at the 2022 World Cup, had two goals in last month's friendly against Australia and has eight goals in 14 league matches this season for Coventry in England's second-tier League Championship. Balogun scored against Japan in September and Ecuador in October, and he has four goals in 10 games for Monaco in France's Ligue 1.

“Minutes are going to start racking up at some point,” Pepi said. “So you know just it’s just about being patient.”

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