Rokas Pukštas

In March 2022 Rokas Pukštas was invited into the senior Lithuania squad, and he said no. Born in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Lithuanian by descent, he chose to keep going with the United States youth set-up, where he had already played five times at under-15 level.

That same year he won the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship with the United States, and he went on to make 14 appearances for the under-20 side, scoring twice and travelling to the 2023 World Cup. A single under-23 cap has since been added.

His route through club football moved early and often. He came through the academy at Sporting Kansas City between 2018 and 2020, then joined the Barça Residency Academy in January 2020. By September of that year he was in the youth system at Hajduk Split, and on 10 November 2020 he signed his first professional contract there.

The step up came in 2022, when he was moved into the Hajduk first team. He spent 2022 and 2023 on loan at NK Solin. Back in Split, he was part of the squad that won the Croatian Cup in the 2022/23 season.

He had extended his contract with Hajduk until June 2027, but left before it ran down. In August 2026 he joined Middlesbrough in England for a fee reported at around €5 million by TransferFeed and Nogomania — below the €6–7 million the Croatian club had previously put on him. He wears the number 21 shirt and plays on his right foot.