It's probably not a coincidence that the U.S. national team's miserable summer of 2024 took place with Sergiño Dest forced to watch from the other side of the world as his country struggled without him.
Dest — the mercurial 23-year-old USMNT right back, 2022 World Cup veteran and an automatic starter when he's healthy — missed this month's two friendly matches and the June/July Copa América while recovering from the ACL injury he suffered last spring.
And the Americans were rendered almost entirely toothless without one of their most potent attacking threats, becoming the first Copa host eliminated in the group stage (a failure that cost then-coach Gregg Berhalter his job) and then losing exhibitions to Canada and tying New Zealand on home soil in September in their next two games.
Dest saw the Copa debacle unfold from his home in the Netherlands and couldn't understand what was happening. "The energy level was low," Dest, who was born to a Dutch mother and American serviceman dad, told FOX Sports in an exclusive interview. "We're a good team, but we all know that we're not the best individually.