'This guy gave us everything he had' - Weston McKennie is the USMNT's most unique star, and ready for his World Cup moment

As the World Cup looms large, life is good for McKennie. He's enjoying the best season of his career with Juventus, where he's scored a career-high nine goals and provided seven assists in all competitions. He was recently rewarded with a new contract and, ahead of the March international break, USMNT boss Mauricio Pochettino heaped praise on his midfielder, describing one of Italy's biggest clubs as "Weston McKennie plus 10 players".

True to form, McKennie quickly validated Pochettino's boast by scoring the opening goal in the USMNT's match against Belgium. Good form does, in fact, travel. So, too, does the good life.

"Everything's been good," he says. "I'm healthy. I woke up to see another day, and I've just been enjoying life. I'm taking it as it comes. My family's good, my friends are good, my dogs are good. I think the last six to eight months have been pretty good for me."

He's downplaying it. The last few months have been great. American soccer has noticed. So, too, has Italian soccer. After years of floating between valued and unnecessary at Juventus, McKennie is now one of Serie A's most dominant presences. On the field, he's defined every expectation, except for those placed on him by those who know him best.

"You can talk about what a season he's having. It doesn't surprise me," said longtime teammate Christian Pulisic. "It seems like people talk down on him and then he's right back there doing his thing. He's scoring goals, he's playing every minute. That's just what he does. He's obviously a big part of this team there. He's a big part of his team here. It doesn't surprise me, but it's awesome to follow and awesome to see him doing well."

For years, McKennie has had that sort of chip on his shoulder. He was able to push back against the non-believers and, ultimately, make them believe. Part of the reason he was able to do that was that he was familiar with it. He had to find a way to make himself believe long ago.

Ahead of the 2024 Copa America, McKennie told GOAL a story. During his time in U.S. Soccer’s residency program, he was always trying to break into the plans - only for Tyler Adams to swoop in, and McKennie would go home, left to think about how far away he was.

Adams, of course, would become one of McKennie’s closest friends and biggest supporters. They’ve played together for club and country, including at the 2022 World Cup. And while McKennie has long since established himself as Adams’ peer, that chip from those early years hasn’t gone anywhere.

"To be completely honest with you, the Weston in residency would have never thought that this could happen, in general," McKennie says. "As a kid, you're very impressionable, and you feel like everything's the end of the world when things don't go your way. Whenever I got cut from there, I was like, 'Well, there's no chance for me to ever make it'. I'd go back to Dallas, and I had my family, and my soccer family, which was FC Dallas at that time, and they really picked up the pieces and put them back together. They believed in me day in, day out.

"That pushed me to be better and pushed me to be greater than maybe I was thinking I was in that moment. That right there alone, I don't think I would have thought I would be in this position that I am today. I'm just thankful for the journey that I've had to get here."

The most crucial step on that journey comes this summer. Such is the magnitude of a home World Cup, and such is the opportunity for McKennie to be one of the main characters of it.

Due to the unique combination of personality and play he possesses, McKennie is often selected to be the face of things. This summer, that happens again with Truly. The hard seltzer company's new campaign, 'Believe, USA', will take over a town for this summer's tournament. McKennie, naturally, is part of it all.

That, of course, makes sense. He's one of the USMNT's most recognizable faces. That, by proxy, makes him a role model. Particularly in a World Cup year, kids all over the country will be watching him play in the biggest games on offer. Many of them will wonder what they can do to get there themselves. What does their pathway look like? How can they replicate what McKennie has done for club and country?

McKennie's short answer is simple: you can't. The long answer is a bit more complicated.

"It's an amazing feeling, but also a responsibility at the same time," he says of being a role model. "You see the people that you were looking up to, and social media wasn't as big at the time, but you'd see them on TV playing or maybe in a magazine or, maybe, if you were lucky, you could see them live. Nowadays, obviously, with social media, it's a lot of responsibility as well."

Still, McKennie is quick to ground that responsibility in something simpler.

"I feel like I just try to always be true to myself and true to my values and true to who I am. I think that's what I would want from the people who look up to me and see as inspiration."

"At the end of the day, I'm just a human being. I just happen to be a good soccer player. You have to stay humble and follow that dream and, hopefully, see a pathway out there for you. It may not ever look like mine or Christian [Pulisic's] or Chris Richards or the people they look up to, but the ultimate thing is to just bet on yourself always."

At 27 and in the prime of his career, he's reaping the rewards of his various bets. He is also, somewhat improbably, a veteran. Having broken through as a teenager, McKennie has been on the stage for longer than most. Right now, as he enters the years that are the primes of most players' careers, McKennie has 68 caps across nine years as a senior national team player. As a result, he's now playing alongside players who, at one point, saw him as their reference point.

"He was one of my role models, my idols growing up," said Sebastian Berhalter, who has gone from watching McKennie as the son of former U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter to now calling him a teammate. "I've been watching him for the last six years now. To see what he's doing over at Juventus is inspiring."

There's a chance to inspire more this summer and, in truth, that's no big secret. Nothing really is with McKennie. So much of his adult life has been public, and all of it has been authentic. There's no hidden pressure or secret goals. By and large, if it's going on in McKennie's life, he's spoken about it at some point.

"I'm an open book," he says. "There's so much about my life that's already out there. I don't think I've kept anything hidden about my life."

So what does he want people to take from that book? Ahead of this summer, how does he want the world to see him? If all goes well, if McKennie does what he wants to do under the brightest lights, what does he want people to see?

The answer is simple. In those moments, the one where he is under that spotlight, he wants the world to see one thing: him as he is.

"I want them to feel like, 'Hey, this guy gave us everything he had," McKennie says. "That's one thing I do pride myself on: giving 100 percent. That's the one thing I can control at the end of the day: my effort and attitude towards the game. That's what I want people to remember."

What's next for the USMNT's heart and soul? Only the biggest moment of his life, only, to him, it's like nothing's changed at all.