Josh Sargent is one of those players who always seems to be in the conversation but rarely in the room. For years he has been the striker who does everything well enough to stay relevant but nothing well enough to demand inclusion. That is not meant as a slight. In fact, it is a compliment to his baseline of competence. He has played in the Bundesliga, he has played in the Premier League, and he has settled into the Championship as the kind of reliable, plug-and-play forward every manager loves. Norwich City certainly values him. He scores, he holds the ball, he presses, he works. If you’re trying to win games in a 46-match league, there is nothing wrong with that. But when the discussion shifts to the national team, competence is often the floor, not the ceiling.

The real question, and the one that hovers over every single appearance he makes for Norwich, is whether anything he does there will matter to Mauricio Pochettino. The United States manager has already shown his hand, leaving Sargent out of the squad this summer despite a strong domestic season and a profile that would seem to fit the mold of what the team needs. Pochettino has leaned into Ricardo Pepi as the developmental project, into Folarin Balogun as the player of higher upside, and into a rotating cast of depth options who can fill the gaps. Sargent, fairly or unfairly, has been the odd man out.

So what gets him back in? That’s the uncomfortable part. If it is simply about production, then he has already made his case. Sargent has been consistently among Norwich’s most productive attackers for years. If it is about form, he has had long stretches of scoring that have coincided with call-ups, but nothing that has fundamentally changed his place in the pecking order. If it is about level, then we reach the tricky spot. The Championship is good, but it is not glamorous, and when it comes to international selections, perception matters. Scoring 15 goals in the Championship does not carry the same weight as scoring 7 in the Bundesliga or 5 in the Premier League. Sargent has had those chances and struggled, though anyone watching Werder Bremen or Norwich in the top flight at the time would admit he was rarely in a situation designed to maximize his skill set.

That leaves the possibility that nothing at Norwich will be enough. And if that’s the case, then the only move left is an actual move. Sargent may need to find his way back into a top league, whether in Germany, France, or even MLS, where visibility to the national team staff is higher. He does not necessarily need to become a 20-goal scorer in one of those leagues, but he does need to prove that he can be a first-choice option at a level above the Championship. That is the résumé line he is missing.

Of course, there’s a final possibility, and it’s the one no player wants to consider. It may simply be that Mauricio Pochettino does not rate him and that nothing he does, anywhere, will change that. Managers make choices like that all the time. They prefer one type of player, they commit to a youth project, they decide that a certain player has plateaued. Once that happens, the hill is steep. Sargent can work, he can score, he can keep doing what he does best, but if the manager’s mind is made up, there is no door back in. And that is where the conversation stops being about Sargent and starts being about the reality of international football. Sometimes it is about timing, sometimes it is about luck, and sometimes it is just about who happens to like you.

For Sargent, the path is narrow but not impossible. Keep producing, force a move, hope for an opportunity, and be ready if one comes. He has done the first part, he may soon need to do the second, and the rest is out of his control. That’s the part people don’t like to hear, but it is the truth.