It is the annual cause of number-crunching and hand-wringing at clubs across the world. The mantra of ‘load management’ — or balancing a player’s minutes to optimize performance and reduce injury risk — is entrenched in the medical department of every top team.

But when it is weighed against elite football’s other imperative, the need to win, its red lines can fade.

Club versus country, manager versus player, player versus their own body: the potential for conflict is rife, and everything is heightened in the year building to a major tournament.

Ask Harry Kane, who played just under 4,000 minutes of club football for Bayern Munich (the equivalent of 44 full matches) in the season before the 2024 European Championship and pointed to “tired legs and tired mentality” as he struggled to fire and his England side came up just short by losing to Spain in the final.

It will likely be something weighing on Mauricio Pochettino’s mind as he plans for his first summer as USMNT coach — and if it isn’t, it should be.

Pochettino must decide on his priorities and whether he is willing to risk more short-term pain for the chance of longer-term gain.

He is undoubtedly in need of a good summer.

Following his team’s abject performances in the Concacaf Nations League finals in March — defeats to Panama and Canada which left question marks over his suitability to be the head coach less than 12 months after his expensive hiring — the prospect of another competition to try to atone may feel like good timing. It may also be a banana skin.

The Concacaf Gold Cup in June and July offers Pochettino a shot at redemption, but he must decide how many of his best players to select for that home-soil tournament, given a far more important one — the FIFA World Cup, which the U.S. co-hosts with Canada and Mexico — looms large in just over 12 months’ time.

Because while calling up the USMNT’s best players, such as Christian Pulisic and Antonee Robinson, will offer a better chance of silverware by reaching the Gold Cup’s final at NRG Stadium in Houston on July 6, what damaging toll might that take on energy levels going forward?

Pulisic chases Inter’s Nicolo Barella (Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)

Both the Milan talisman and Fulham’s rampaging left-back could be forgiven for feeling their tanks are empty at the end of the current season.

At this late stage of the current season, Pulisic has played a combined 3,895 minutes of football in it (taking in domestic and international games) while Robinson has played 3,370. They have also clocked up the air miles for club and country, especially the latter, where they have flown across the Atlantic for international camps back in the States.

If there is a time to de-load the minutes of two such influential performers it is probably this summer, ahead of another potentially draining season with their European clubs that runs straight into that World Cup. In Pulisic’s case, there was also the worrying spate of niggling injuries that plagued the midpoint of his campaign with Milan.

Yet the call for pragmatism reckons without how much Pochettino feels he needs an improved showing at the Gold Cup.

It is not unrealistic that a USMNT roster without Pulisic and other key men can still maneuver past Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia and Haiti, the nations they face in the group stage that begins against the former on June 15 in San Jose, California.

But if Pochettino feels his ‘project’ needs the PR boost of a trophy, he is likely to also want big-game players around for the more significant knockout-phase games (assuming his team get that far).

Robinson, in action against Chelsea, has impressed this season at Fulham (Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)

Should he resist that temptation?

It might be an imperfect compromise, but he could instead ask them to brace their weary legs for two extra games before allowing them the summer off.

Selecting his strongest squads for the two high-profile warm-up friendlies before the Gold Cup, against Turkey and Switzerland on June 7 and 11, could still give his tenure in charge the lift-off it has lacked to date. A win against either of those teams would rank higher than his previous friendly victories as coach over opponents such as Costa Rica, Venezuela or Panama.

For their part, Pulisic, Robinson et al could sign off on a high, underline their commitment to the cause and still enjoy the break they need to ensure their loads are suitably managed ahead of a 12-month run into the World Cup — the competition by which Pochettino will ultimately be judged (should he remain in office until then).

They would enjoy the added benefit of being able to report back for their club’s pre-season preparations on time, too, ensuring they are not playing catch-up in terms of form and fitness for the first few months of the 2025-26 campaign.

So far, it is uncertain whether the national coach is receptive to that logic.

In interviews after the Nations League debacle, Pochettino spoke of only selecting the “right characters” for the Gold Cup. “What we are trying to do as a staff is to optimize every single area of preparation, and the mentality of the players is really important,” said the Argentine.

“We need to be intelligent in the way we are going to select the players and not just choose based on talent alone. We need to have the right characters to be really competitive.”

His words are open to interpretation.

Either he could mean “intelligent” in terms of choosing a squad with deference to load management, or selecting “the right characters” such as players who have thrived in one of Europe’s top five domestic leagues rather than the hungry young members of his roster with only Major League Soccer on their resumé up to now.

Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams watch on from the bench at the Nations League (Robin Alam/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Some of those players, such as Real Salt Lake’s Diego Luna, showed the right level of desire and intensity in March’s Nations League games.

Allowing Luna and Patrick Agyemang of Charlotte FC the chance to show what they are about again this summer could offer Pochettino more learning opportunities than observing the tired performance levels of players he will have watched so often during his time as a Premier League manager at Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea.

But he will also be wary of sending out the wrong message to the wider roster if he affords rest to some and not others: senior players such as Weston McKennie, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Brenden Aaronson have also had busy seasons and put plenty of miles on the clock.

There are no easy answers then, for a coach on a two-year deal in need of a winning mid-term.

Just a load on his mind that revolves around whether he feels confident enough to think long-term over the here and now.

(Top photo: Simone Arveda/Getty Images)