EF Education-EasyPost Confirm Roubaix Squad: Van den Berg Leads, Powless Returns to the Cobbles, and the Pink Argyle Plan a Daring Long-Range Move
EF Education-EasyPost confirmed their seven-rider Paris-Roubaix squad on Wednesday, with Dutch sprinter-classics specialist Marijn van den Berg installed as the headline rider and American all-rounder Neilson Powless returning to the Hell of the North in a deliberately freewheeling, attacking role. It is a line-up that perfectly embodies the pink-argyle squad's traditional Paris-Roubaix philosophy: don't bother trying to beat the favourites in a sprint into the velodrome — try to beat them by attacking from 70 kilometres out and forcing them to chase.
Joining Van den Berg and Powless are Spanish climber-turned-rouleur Jonathan Castroviejo, German cobbled veteran Alexander Krieger, Italian rouleur Andrea Piccolo, French puncheur Stefan Bissegger and 23-year-old Norwegian breakthrough rider Anders Foldager. It is a notably international squad, lighter and more balanced than the heavyweight selections of UAE Team Emirates-XRG or Visma-Lease a Bike, but with a built-in tactical flexibility that has paid off for the EF squad in previous editions.
"We are not going to win Paris-Roubaix by sitting in the wheels," sports director Andreas Klier — himself a former cobbled classics specialist — told the team's media channel. "When you have Tadej Pogacar, Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert in front of you, the only way to make a result is to make the race so hard, so early, that the favourites cannot bring it back. That is the only Roubaix plan we have ever known how to ride, and on Sunday it is the only plan that gives us a chance to spoil the headline."
Van den Berg, 26, is the team's designated sprint Plan B and arguably one of the most underrated cobbled finishers in the peloton. The Dutchman finished an outstanding ninth at last year's Roubaix and has been quietly building towards Sunday all spring, with a fifth place at Dwars door Vlaanderen and a typically gritty top-twenty in the Tour of Flanders on Sunday. He has openly described Paris-Roubaix as "the race I have circled in my calendar since November" and is widely considered the most likely EF rider to stand on the podium if the race comes back together for a small-group finish.
Powless, by contrast, is being deployed in a deliberately experimental role. The American — who has not raced Roubaix since 2023 due to a Tour de France-focused programme — has been openly excited about the return all spring and is being given full licence to follow long-distance attacks. "Neilson made it clear over the winter that he wanted to come back to Roubaix and just see what he could do," Klier added. "We are not asking him to wait for the sprint. We are not asking him to mark anybody. We are telling him to follow his instincts and have fun. If he is in a 30-rider front group at Carrefour de l'Arbre, that is already a victory for us."
The presence of Castroviejo is also significant. The Spanish veteran, signed from Ineos Grenadiers in late 2024, has emerged as one of the most reliable engines in the EF squad over the past 18 months and is expected to be the rider closing gaps and shepherding Van den Berg through the chaotic first half of the race. With his experience of riding for Geraint Thomas, Filippo Ganna and Egan Bernal in cobbled races, Castroviejo brings a calm, professional presence to a squad that has historically been more chaotic than tactical.
The wildcard, however, is Foldager — a 23-year-old Norwegian who finished a stunning fourth at the under-23 Paris-Roubaix in 2024 and whose senior breakthrough this spring has been one of the quiet stories of the cobbled campaign. The big, powerful Scandinavian rouleur signed for EF in October on a development deal and has been building towards Sunday all winter. Klier is on record describing him as "potentially the best Roubaix talent we have signed since Sep Vanmarcke" — a comparison loaded with implication for an EF squad that has been searching for a new Vanmarcke ever since the Belgian's retirement.
Tactically, the plan is straightforward: get into the early break with Foldager and Bissegger, force the front of the race to commit to a long, sustained chase, and then unleash Van den Berg from a small group between Mons-en-Pévèle and Carrefour de l'Arbre. It is a high-risk strategy that has historically backfired for EF more often than it has worked — but on a course as savagely random as Roubaix, and with a peloton that will be obsessively marking Pogacar's every move, the pink-argyle squad's willingness to gamble may be exactly what gives them an outside lane to the podium that nobody else in the peloton is brave enough to take.