U.S. Soccer has reportedly reeled in one of the biggest free agent head coaches on the market.
Mauricio Pochettino has agreed to become the next USMNT head coach, according to multiple reports. No official announcement has come yet from U.S. Soccer on the potential hiring.
The 52-year-old was previously linked with the USMNT job by Ole in July.
Pochettino left English Premier League side Chelsea by mutual consent last May despite helping the Blues qualify for European competition this season. He registered a 26-11-14 record as Blues manager, leading them to the EFL Cup Final last winter.
A long-time international player, Pochettino is well known for his time as Tottenham manager from May 2014-November 2019. He led Spurs to a UEFA Champions League Final (loss to Liverpool) before eventually moving to Paris Saint-Germain in 2021.
All three of his trophies won as a manager came at PSG before joining Chelsea ahead of the 2023-24 Premier League campaign. Pochettino has also served as manager of Spanish club Espanyol and English side Southampton.
U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker and Pochettino did overlap at Southampton while Crocker led the club’s academy. Pochettino led the Saints to an eighth-place league finish in 2013.
Former USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter parted ways with U.S. Soccer in July after the Americans exited the 2024 Copa America tournament in the group stage.
The USMNT return to action this September with a pair of home friendlies vs. Canada and New Zealand.
Today will be a day long remembered.
The SUM/MLS folks have lost their stranglehold on who and how the federation operates. We’re free now. Let’s play soccer.
Are you saying it wasn’t stupid for the USSF to rehire Gregg?
Vac, If USSF didn’t want Berhalter, Marsch, Henry, or Vierra as coach for the 2026 World Cup, which there is pretty strong evidence to support, than hiring Gregg was not stupid even if they thought one of the others was marginally better. It would have been much harder to fire any of the other three without looking bad and potentially hindering future hiring options than it was to fire Gregg because the lack of meaningful games due to no qualifying. Of course if they wanted Gregg to coach at 2026 than rehiring him wasn’t stupid either, but I won’t argue that wanting Gregg to be the coach in 2026 might have been stupid but as I said there is pretty strong evidence suggesting Gregg isn’t who they wanted. Regardless, a broken clock is right twice a day and they have a much better coach now than they could have had if they hired someone other than Gregg in 2023.
just read he’s not going to be based or living in the US. Makes me question his passion for the job. Go ahead people, tell me I’m crazy and that it’s not important for our Team USA coach to live in the USA while coaching Team USA. I hope you are correct, but we will disagree. I guess USsoccer could not get a 2 year commitment from him without this accommodation? Yikes, doesn’t sound like Poch wanted the job as much as negotiated his comfort for the next couple years. We need him to be up for the challenge of a lifetime, a leader willing to go all in to succeed, at least that’s my opinion. And he’s never coached a national team before, but somehow got to call the shots on this? we bend over to far, like with JK. Hope I’m wrong
Could be. On the other hand, it could also keep the USSF out of his hair.
I guess I don’t really see the big deal of a national team coach being on a different continent, especially when by far the lion’s share of his players live and play on that continent themselves. In a country as big as the US, with his players literally scattered all over the world, a coach is going to do the vast majority of his scouting and communication via remote anyhow.
I do get the concern that people have that he’ll give MLS players short shrift, but when Gregg used MLS players he got criticized as a homer too. Pochettino may actually give MLS players some extra looks just to avoid being called a Eurosnob, and to put some additional pressure on his Europe-based guys.
I guess I’d like to see the arrangement and how it shakes out before I go getting alarmed. If it looks like he’s coasting and just punching a clock, that might be a different story.
quozzel,
“he’ll give MLS players short shrift,” MLS is quite a bit better than it was when Gregg started.
Plus, and maybe I’m making too much of this, there’s this guy in Miami who has some insight into the very latest MLS players and their quality. This guy is also from Argentina and it is said that Pochettino gets along pretty well with him. Pochettino is on a short timeline so he’ll need all the help he can get.
Besides, the World Cup is being held here so it would behoove him to spend some time getting to know the venues on game day if possible and understanding what the travel is like.
Poch has plenty to do and it sounds like fun.
one way of seeing this is that we have simply dumped the “has to come to the office in chicago/atlanta” requirement. i don’t see that requirement as serving much purpose other than keeping the coach low-powered and under foot by making them office with the rest, report to a GM, meetings, required to explain himself, etc. to me i want a fairly liberated coach making his own selections and tactics.
i think we let klinsi live in cali. i don’t see this as much different. they can send him scouting links. and analytics. he can watch games live. phones and email work almost anywhere. ideally his staff is in some proximity but if we have a brain we’re letting him pick his staff, give or take maybe a domestic guy who knows MLS players and pipeline prospects, or can be consulted on cultural issues.
i also think this might help address the “european B team” donut hole. that is, the problem where the A team is on merit, but the B team is often MLS heavy. we have an odd blindspot for A/B marginal veterans and prospects located in europe with limited or no recent cap history. they can’t play january games and they aren’t the first choice for full release window games. to me the experiments or second choice therefore tend to be MLS or MX who can get released for january — regardless if that’s really the second best or best unknowns we have.
if poch is in europe, he can literally hop a plane or train and watch some of the forgotten players under GB.
ok, you’re crazy AND it’s not THAT important
He will more than likely be looking at and keeping tabs on players playing at the highest level of football, which is in Europe, where he will be based. Potentially maybe an MLS player or two will catch fire and be worthy of a call up, but I don’t see that happening…
“Yikes, doesn’t sound like Poch wanted the job as much as negotiated his comfort for the next couple years.”
Really?
“We need him to be up for the challenge of a lifetime, a leader willing to go all in to succeed, at least that’s my opinion.”
If he lives in Spain or England then he will right around the corner from most of the guys who will, most likely, be our regulars. And given the circumstances at this point, the more access he has to the guys the better. If I were him, right now I’d want to be catching as many of their games as he can.
“And he’s never coached a national team before, but somehow got to call the shots on this? we bend over to far, like with JK. Hope I’m wrong”
The fact is JK came to the USMNT having coached Germany to a third place finish in the World Cup. Even with that experience you still don’t love him.
Most of all, I would also point out that Emma Hayes had zero experience coaching a national team. How did that work out for us?
Emma would be great anywhere because good coaches are very adaptable. And Pochettino is a good coach.
Have you seen the reports ….the guy isn’t going to live in America. He’s going to stay in Europe & coach the USMNT from Europe. (Problem number 1) – Chelsea owes him money and will need to pay him before he takes over the USMNT. A Wales guy hires an Italian guy and casual fans thinks this is a plus? Americans, who don’t have hyphens in front of their American won’t watch USMNT. He’s only going to select Europeans. Friendly reminder, we didn’t make it out of the group stage on a tournament we hosted because we had no MLSers. Our toughness lyes in Americans who live & work in America. He’s not even going to live in the US. He’s not even gonna socialize with Americans. That’s utterly disgusting that a coach not from America isn’t going to live in the U.S. That’s the equivalent of a NBA coach wanting to coach only home games. My grandparents, great grandparents were born in America, which dates before 1870 census. If you can’t track your bloodline in the US that far back, you can call me names & insult my intelligence yet you can’t understand. Continue your willful ignorance of a country you supposedly claim. Most of us have no idea how talented America is at this sport because we don’t pay attention to US team sports or America’s athletes. A Wales guy who hires an Italian guy for a WC played in the U.S. proves my point without me saying anything. Who’s the commenter that keeps pushing “tactics & strategy” aren’t important? Is it senile, dementia, or just lying? I believe this falsehood comes from someone a dishonest person in real life. Next thing you gonna tell me is people who use the “inverted winger” are smart. I have no control over who gets hired, correct. I’m just not part of the cult.
Who is your American coach then?
Your concerns are well articulated, I share many of them.
But for the record:
Mauricio Pochettino may be of Italian descent but he is an Argentine.
Argentino!
It seems to me that the important question is, is he a better coach than Berhalter? I can’t believe the mindless nativism I see. For those of us who have been around a while, remember Bora Militunovic? Nobody complained then and he got us out of our group, something few people thought possible. How about Guus Hiddink, who coached a whole lot of different national teams and had a knack for over achieving. Tata Martino over achieved with Paraguay. Did Paraguay complain because he is Argentinian? Roy Hodgson of England has managed 22 different teams in 8 different countries, including the national team of Finland where he took them to their highest ever international ranking.
Your concerns are well articulated, I share many of them.
But for the record:
Mauricio Pochettino may be of Italian descent but he is an Argentine.
Argentino!
IO2T,
“Next thing you gonna tell me is people who use the “inverted winger” are smart. ”
Arjen Robben and Angel Di Maria are two classic inverted wingers who made a lot of people look pretty smart. CP has been an inverted winger for the bulk of his career.
“That’s utterly disgusting that a coach not from America isn’t going to live in the U.S. That’s the equivalent of a NBA coach wanting to coach only home games.”
Like Darko Rajakovic, (Toronto Raptors)? All his home games are outside of the US.
How often do you travel by air?
If he lives in London and can afford direct flights Pochettino will be about as close to Atlanta or Chicago( ?) as he would be if he lived in Honolulu or Anchorage. I presume you consider Hawaiians and Alaskans American enough? He can get a great rate at the Red Roof Inn in Atlanta.
I missed the part about not socializing with Americans. There are more than a few I wouldn’t want to socialize with either but I don’t see how he is going to enforce that. I mean his players are Americans.
He’s a merc. The new Bora. Gregg fucked it up so he’s being hired to get the senior team in the best possible shape for 2026. He’ll be gone after that. Someone else will have to shoulder the burden of fixing, for the long term, what everyone knows is a clown car of a USSF.
So it doesn’t matter if he lives in Buenos Aires , London, Dubai, Lodi, Jenks, Caracas or Reyjkjavik.
Emma Hayes’ great passion for America was wonderful but it made people forget it would have been for nothing if she did not also happen to be one hell of a great coach.
If this goes through I’m going to wait until I see how the team responds to him and how they play before I worry about where he pays his utility bill.
The 19th Century is calling you. They want to be paid royalties for your using such an old and discredited argument from that century. Back to the good old days when Irish need not apply, Jews not allowed and Catholics weren’t real Christians. Maybe you should start a new Know Nothing Party or join the KKK, who say only “real” Americans should be allowed to do things. And my family goes back to the 1870’s and I suspect I know a helluva lot more US history than you do, so don’t give me that shit. Oh, and maybe you should start to actually think.
Fill your meds bro! And also try box breathing for a lil bit. Woosah!
Yay
Yay
All the complaining about how stupid USSF was at rehiring Berhalter, they now have a coach with a much better pedigree than the only other three options they had available at that time. Two years is more than enough time to prepare a team for the WC.
No that can’t be true. Take Morocco they switched managers in August before the 2022 World Cup and finished checks notes …4th. Oh ok I guess you’re right.
Unfortunately we don’t have the talent or depth of Morocco. But this is a statement hire by USSF.
Are you saying it wasn’t stupid for the USSF to rehire Gregg?
My only opinion at this point is that I prefer Pochettino over Matarazzo and Berhalter. It will be probably at least 3 windows after he starts before we get a real idea if and how he will change and hopefully improve the team. What I find bizarre are the numerous comments about the Women’s team which, if I recall correctly, just won the Gold Medal at the Olympics. I remarked not long ago that a manager keeps or loses his or her job based on results, not tactics or strategy. I think we should keep that in mind. There are many different ways to win games, regardless of the sport. 2 of the greatest American coaches, John Wooden, and Vince Lombardi, won by emphasizing mastering the basics. And with Wooden especially, he would change tactics to fit the players he had rather than to try and fit the players into a pre-set scheme. There was an NFL coach named Bum Phillips about whom it was said, he can take his players and beat you and then he can take your players and beat his team. That’s how the best coaches find success.
That obviously wasn’t true because Bum Phillips won no championships.
Chuck Noll says “Bum hold my beer!” Bum’s career record 82-77. His marketing wing though appears to be the real success story, because it wasn’t until he drafted Earl Campbell that he even made the playoffs.
Whatever kind of coach Phillips was, the principle still applies. A good coach can take a team and make it better than the sum of its parts.
Actually Bum Phillips actually said that about Tom Landry, the legendary coach of the Dallas Cowboys as a compliment and recognition to Landry’s skills
That certainly makes a lot more sense. Of course Chuck Noll still 2-0 in Super Bowls against Tom.
Midwest R,
“When he worked at clubs with limited budgets – like Southhampton – he made do with what he had.”
Good. That is pretty much what he will have to do with the USMNT. Kane and Son are not walking into that locker room.
that’s berhalter mentality. you hire a midtable guy to get you top of the table? we need someone who can run the table. who knows how to win every type of game, the laughers, the ones we maybe shouldn’t win. no, that’s naive at best, settling at worst. berhalter was great at mediocrely doing right about what our table slot said we should. nothing more, nothing less.
you don’t hire someone your level, you hire someone better than you deserve to identify the overlooked and whip you into shape.
re your kane argument, it’s typical of the defenders of our mismanaged fed. we have had some history of producing good players, particularly keepers. i think half the problem right now is we actually do have some campbells coming down the pipeline but we have royal succession mentality folks who think they should sit in line behind someone else just because they have first team experience, a couple senior caps, and they played U23 or something. you do not cash in as easily or well on your reynas if you tell them to go sit in line this next world cup because it’s not yet their turn or you’re nervous they are just age groupers. you watch holland whoop up on the usual suspects instead, but at least they can show their first team cards and jersey numbers to the fed before it happens.
to me it’s an odd position to be taking that the coach is passively crippled about the roster. i thought part of his job, of the upper age group coaches jobs as well, was to ferret out the best talent and not just create and enforce a queue to literally stand ahead of the best kids coming up.
IV
“that’s berhalter mentality.you hire a midtable guy to get you top of the table? we the laughers, the ones we maybe shouldn’t win. no, that’s naive at best, settling at worst. berhalter was great at mediocrely doing right about what our table slot said we should. nothing more, nothing less.”
That’s what I love about you IV, your total lack of logic or imagination.
I see Gregg is still living rent free in your head, forcing you to “fight the last war”.
You’re saying we need someone “who can run the table. who knows how to win every type of game,”. Since we’re talking USMNT here, we’re talking World Cup.
So the guys you want, the ones who have won the World Cup lately are Scaloni, Deschamp, Jogi , Del Bosque, Lippi and Scolari.
Don’t waste money on Scaloni. By your criteria he is not qualified to manage your USMNT. He managed Argentina’s youth teams and was an assistant for Argentina and also at Sevilla but Argentina is his first senior head coaching job.
The only other guy who might be realistic is Jogi. And maybe you know something we all don’t, but I’ve heard nothing about him being interested in us or vice versa.
Midtable, top of the table, that’s club manager talk. This is the international game which is all about tournaments. Seven games at most crammed into a couple of weeks. You need a guy who understands such focused intensity. Players who might do very well in a short intense tournament might not do well over the long haul of a club season.
“you don’t hire someone your level, you hire someone better than you deserve to identify the overlooked and whip you into shape.”
If you’re talking about big winners at the club level, Klopp, Pep, Ancellotti, Conte, Mourinho, Van Gaal, Mancini, Pellegrini, Zizou, etc. none of them seemed interested.
If you’re saying Pochettino isn’t at a level equal to what you think we deserve, then you are foolish. There’s no doubt that Pochettino has been a level or two above Gregg as a manager. And , as a manager of any description, he may be a level or two above anyone who has ever managed the USMNT.
As for identifying the overlooked and whipping them, well, time will tell.
“re your kane argument, it’s typical of the defenders of our mismanaged fed. we have had some history of producing good players, particularly keepers.”
Like who? We’ve never produced players as good as Kane or Son.
“ i think half the problem right now is we actually do have some campbells coming down the pipeline but we have royal succession mentality folks who think they should sit in line behind someone else just because they have first team experience, a couple senior caps, and they played U23 or something. “
Instead we have folks like you who are convinced that Cole Campbell is certainly the next Yamine Lamal based on a couple of games vs. other kids. Cole may live up to the hype or not but you are a descendant of the same people who overhyped Freddy Adu and poisoned generations of American soccer fans.
“you do not cash in as easily or well on your reynas if you tell them to go sit in line this next world cup because it’s not yet their turn or you’re nervous they are just age groupers. you watch holland whoop up on the usual suspects instead, but at least they can show their first team cards and jersey numbers to the fed before it happens.”
Gregg’s not here anymore but he sure is living in your head. And at the rate Gio is going, he may follow Gregg out the door.
“to me it’s an odd position to be taking that the coach is passively crippled about the roster. i thought part of his job, of the upper age group coaches jobs as well, was to ferret out the best talent and not just create and enforce a queue to literally stand ahead of the best kids coming up.”
Your words not mine and somewhat melodramatic words with a hint of bullshit.
Sorry. I forgot that you don’t understand international football.
In club football, like at Chelsea, a new manager goes over the player pool and if he sees holes, he can, if they have the money, buy players to fill them.
In international football, he is limited to whoever is eligible to play for the USMNT. He can’t buy a Kane or a Son. Those are the rules. You can look them up on a computer.
With just about a year and a half to go we have some young and some overlooked players who may break through and make their case. Everyone will start out with a theoretical clean slate (it’s not really that clean). Pochettino will have to go over all of these possibilities. Buying a Kane and a Son would probably be a lot simpler but might not be as effective.
The present player pool has largely underachieved. Improvements will mostly come from improved coaching and organization because the odds are Pochettino will have to do what Emma did, “coach up” mostly what he was handed.
We will see if Gregg left Pochettino as much to work with as Vlatko left Emma.
if this is where this is going, can we ditch varas and get him picking the team and out there coaching for september? we have zero need to perseverate further or engage in berhalter continuity down his path. we have finite windows to prepare and may be in a situation with club world cup next summer where there is a release tug of war with gold cup. our last full-release summer regional tournament may have already been burned.
i read somewhere a hangup is sorting out how much CFC owes him before he takes our job. so when he sorts that my guess is it’s announced then.
but, hopefully, i also read someplace where we expect him in charge in september. i hope to see some fresh faces.
added nugget is he may get to stay based in europe which makes me wonder if (a) we will schedule more friendlies there and (b) the call sheets will tilt even further that direction.
At worst it’s Poch tells him who and what he wants just as Emma did with Twila. There’s currently 25 days until the beginning of the September window. Federations must give 15 days written notice of a possible callup. Given that Poch hasn’t been formally announced it seems unlikely he’ll have a drastically different roster than what the federation has prepared. Poch’s teams in the past have been high pressing, possession based with fast transitions. So a lot of similarities but not exactly the same. Poch obviously unlike Emma doesn’t have a job currently so you’d think he could get to the USA in 3 1/2 weeks. Supposedly he’s getting on a plane tonight.
I think John Brooks likes this. I hope he takes advantage if given the opportunity.
I don’t get the love for Brooks, I’m sure he’s a great guy and the goal in the WC will always be incredible but he hasn’t been very good at club level for years. If you watch Bundesliga you get to see him in highlights every week look lost and confused as goals go by him. He has struggled to retain a starting job for the last four to five years. He couldn’t get a sniff at Benfica. Defnitely Wolfsburg in the last couple years and then Hoffenheim last year seemed to be trying to find a way to NOT play him. Did you know he is without a club right now?
I get people hated Berhalter but and it was easy not calling Brooks to be put on the list of horrible horrible atrocities he committed against the USMNT, but he was right about Brooks. Brooks not been good (international level good) for about five years.
And he was pretty much a pure zonal-marking guy in a 3-man backline anyhow. I absolutely remember watching him get pantsed repeatedly by Costa Rica when they spanked us 4-0 in qualifying…which incidentally got Jurgen Klinsmann fired. In a four-man man-marking system, the dude struggled, bigly.
He was good in distribution and he was a force in the air and inside the box on set pieces. As a defender…not so awesome.
i don’t see it. brooks’ chance was that his coach matarazzo won out. that would have given a bias in his favor. as it stands he’s not an incumbent and has no particular history with the new coach.
brooks to me was better in touch football type games — england at the world cup — where the teams nervously, tentatively circle each other, don’t press each other, don’t risk possession, pass sideways, then cross it in hopefully, at which point he clears it out from a zone unless it happens to land at the foot or head of someone unfortunate. and in that context he gets time on the ball to hit home run passes over the top.
but how often do you think you get to mark air or take your time on the ball in either concacaf or big soccer tournaments? you try to fart around with the ball there you are a crumpled lump after you are tackled. and in the CR game they would chase him and mr. slick suddenly starts making technical mistakes. that and if they had someone excellent he was slow and couldn’t stay with them, eg, neymar.
that being said, the defense is a nightmare, MP may not know the history like a fan does, and if he’s living in europe and scouting, then brooks is right in the sweetspot, and might at least get a look. i then hope there is some scout someplace reflecting institutional memory who can point out that history. because if you hire an american the history is immediate for even a guy you just hired. marsch would know the history.
but my hope would be that MP being new to it all is a generally beneficial fresh look and reset, and that if that means brooks gets a game or two before MP sees through it, sobeit.
I’m hopeful this works out, we’ll see. If he is passionate about the very serious hurdles ahead that he must lead the team over, he has a chance. I hope he is passionate about US Soccer because without it, no chance once the same old same old BS starts slapping him upside the head.
Bring the passion Poch!!
That’s the worry isn’t it. He has no connection I know of the US let alone US Soccer. By the time Klinsmann took the job he was more Californian than German.
I would have to believe it will be a contract heavily laden with goals and incentives. A veteran coach like Pochettino knows he has a 2 year window with the US team, and needs to reach those incentives to extend that contract.
Oh I highly doubt he wants to extend beyond the WC. He either wants to take over Argentina or will get back into club football.
Good. At least the quest for a new coach has concluded.
It’s a good astute hire.
If this appointment is indeed true, there can be no more excuses to not get it done, period!
He works well with “youth-movement” and scouting, flexibility in tactics, and he knows how to deal with “super-egos”.
I disagree with the “youth movement”. While Poch was/is not as bad as Mourihno, my recollection is that he was not youth oriented manager at his clubs.
When he worked at clubs with limited budgets – like Southhampton – he made do with what he had.
Midwest R,
“When he worked at clubs with limited budgets – like Southhampton – he made do with what he had.”
Good. That is pretty much what he will have to do with the USMNT. Kane and Son are not walking into that locker room.
in a nutshell, my issues with GB on personnel would have been he seemed stubbornly stuck on 99% of a lineup even while we didn’t put up results, and the feeling he sandbagged some of the best prospects pointlessly, eg, reyna, richards. psychologically i thought it was — as arena put it — that he seemed more about analytics than eyeball scouting. your best kids then may not have first team numbers to analyze, even if eyeball scouting would say they are excellent.
this has the net effect of punishing your best prospects at the best teams that have stacked rosters and make first team playing time tough to get. you start playing people from the union instead, who couldn’t make their U20 team. it’s perverse.
to me this team struggles when development dries up or the roster/tactics ossify. i do believe we should hand out caps more broadly and wait until deeper into cycles to settle on who is “winning” position battles. make players earn it. get competition and performance. reward positive play as opposed to ideas in your head.
and we can debate exactly how far that should go but my primary thing is do not sandbag the best prospects. richards and reyna should not have been waiting in any lines. nor should campbell have to wait in some sort of royal succession line. we need scouts freed up to say that, you know, these U23s are ok, i like yow, but that campbell kid coming up is even better.
because to me this team tends to “take off” when it identifies its donovan/beasley/pulisic type players early, and goes with it as opposed to fights it. right now we are inexplicably stuck on a losing lineup and very good, too good, at explaining why no one else deserves in it.
i hope MP gives a fresh look to all this and i hope the fact he’s literally there means he gets out watching games in person, as opposed to reading analytics reports and box cores, and is identifying skillsets and thinking about how player A might work with player B. what we have had for a few years now is like a computer was picking the roster.
i should add, not just like a computer was picking players, but also a computer was doing tactics. like he wants jedi and dest out of context to cross balls in, but picks no one good at target play to finish those crosses. a computer would make that mistake because it’s like, well, this guy over here hits many crosses and gets some assists. and this guy has a bunch of goals. must go together. but the match between them needs to be qualitative, that they can finish the type of passing jedi offers. GB would even mention player profiles in passing but seemed to have no grasp how his lineup was meant to play together as a unit. ie how profile A relates to profiles B and C.
IV: Arena is a narcissist. He talked smack about Berhalter because people were talking about Berhalter having a better record and it ticked him off. If you look at the analytics of some of the guys Gregg picked he wasn’t using computer numbers. Gregg just liked different players than Bruce. By the way all managers at that level are narcissistic, you have to be somewhat to think only you know what’s needed.
JR: i agree that arena ran his mouth because he wanted to argue for relevance despite couva. but an egotist can still be right:
“[Berhalter is] a young coach and he’s really into the sports science and the conditioning and all the metrics are important and analytics and all of those things.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to step away and look at guys and say who can play. . . . They’re looking at 50 different things sports scientists are telling them to look at, looking at all the data and this and that. Sometimes you’ve got to look at the characteristics of the players and see what’s going to make a team and what kind of leaders you have.”
“When you go into Honduras [sub in Panama here perhaps], that talent doesn’t mean ______. . . .It’s about rolling up your sleeves and battling because you don’t have control of a lot of stuff — the officiating is terrible, the fields are terrible. It’s all of that ____ they haven’t been through before. This is a young group so they haven’t gone through these grueling campaigns and dealing with all the stuff you deal with in Concacaf.”
you can see the analytics stuff in there. you can see GB’s inability to get his team in the middle of the spectrum on being soft versus out of control, ie, physical but not ejection-much.
i thought he had his former assistant pegged. and given that mentors don’t usually tend to crap on mentees, it says something.
i could go down a list of arena faults, it’s not intended to big him up. but i think you rarely got blunt frank commentary from former coaches, failed candidates, or the player pool, outside of reyna and a handful others, most of whom were marginalized. there are no lengthy tick-tock pieces like on klinsi and guatemala, airing out honestly what people thought.
i think we need to actually get at what went wrong so this isn’t just a superficial fire/hire exercise, but we actually fix things. that the next guy’s tactics work, that he has the right approach to coaching, that he can scout, that he can game manage, etc.
Let’s go!!!!! Someone who has coached at the highest level….. Let’s go!!!! Someone who doesn’t care if you played in the US youth system or not… Let’s go!!!!! Someone who doesn’t care who your parents are or if you have any affiliation to prior US soccer members ….. Let’s go !!!! Someone who’s coming in unbiased and will give everybody a fair shot… Let’s go!!!!! Someone who would select a team based on current merit.. let’s go!!!!!!,
Clean slate…. where everybody has to prove themselves in the player pool….. I absolutely love it!. Play for your club like your national team position depends on it.. because NOW it just might😂. LEEEETTTTTSSSS GGGGGOOOOOOO!!!!!
Also, a top quality, well known and well-respected head coach’s player interest / recommendation / selection could go a long way in the eyes of top / elite organizations……which could possibly open the doors for a lot of US players in Europe in itself.
Awesome news!!!!
“Someone who’s coming in unbiased and will give everybody a fair shot… Let’s go!!!!! Someone who would select a team based on current merit.. let’s go!!!!!!”
Everyone has their own biases. We just don’t know what his are.
He’ll have to get to know, evaluate, train then pass judgement on players in the pool, hence his biases will come later
After Matarazzo, Pochettino made the most sense to take this position. Being a free agent makes someone like him more willing to agree to a short-term contract, as opposed to Matarazzo leaving relatively stable employment. The lack of experience coaching a national team should not be a concern. We were looking for a proven coach with experience at the highest levels of football, and got it.
after? you mean well before. there is no sane pecking order where one hires matarazzo before pochettino, who a ranking i was reading last night of european managers had in their like top 10-20.
bluntly, i freaked at matarazzo rumors in part because it was like, no transparent, non-corrupt, efficient, optimizing hiring process ends in that result. that it was going to be another half baked insider thing again. few other teams in the world say, hmm, i want to hire a coach, then land there. it’s too easy to do better and we need it. and we talked about sponsorships and stuff to pay for it if we needed, but i didn’t think he required any.
it was like how do you take the old job openings and end up with berhalter. no way unless you have fed politics and A knows B who knows berhalter or is related to him.
even here it’s crocker and mauricio worked together before. but at his level of hire i’m going to choose to take it for now like “klinsi lives in california with his american wife,” as beneficial kismet.
last, if crocker doubles down on the same tactical tree, and his former coaching hire, then this should be his job on the line as well. i thought he was overrated for GMing a relegated team, and if he’s gonna double down on identity, after being an identity enforcer for england, then if the identity doesn’t work, he doesn’t work.
On what planet was Matarazzo an insider? Never involved in US youth or full team, never played in MLS, no serving as an assistant to any US manager.
(previous discussion)
https://sbisoccer.com/2024/08/reports-mauricio-pochettino-is-top-target-for-usmnt-head-coaching-job
Interesting.
So … lemons, auras … hot coals, arrow points to the neck … not a problem? Spiritual energy … maybe even a good thing?
And England … apparently wasn’t seriously interested?
Hmm.
His energy, charisma, and optimism do all seem like clear positives. And you have to hope that he’s actually enthusiastic about having so much potential talent to work with, however unorganized so far.
But … Do any of you tactics mavens have a take on his approach to defense? That’s where it seems to me the USMNT is going to have to start, er, building up / out from the back.
Canada might just be able to test a revamped back line, but New Zealand is probably a freebie to try out young players?
How has Pochettino fared historically when it comes to defense?
Kudos in any case to US soccer for trying to hook a big fish.
Pochettino apparently very much prefers the 4-2-3-1, but he’s a lot more flexible that Berhalter and he will go 4-3-3 or 3-4-3 based on opponent. On the surface the two have a similar philosophy – high-pressing, building from the back, compact shape that seeks to cut off passing lanes. The reality is, they’re polar opposites in philosophy.
Berhalter is a stodgy zone guy, a lot more rigid, and his attacking players have a lot less license to interchange positions…we’ve seen it. Boring, straight-up-the-railroad tracks, stifling, predictable, slow-as-molasses buildup. Pochettino’s a lot more direct; his emphasis is on transitioning from defense to offense as quickly as possible, and he allows his players to take more risks. They’re allowed to freely interchange and create.
On the surface, it’s a lot of what we’ve been screaming for for years. We’ll see how it implements itself. It would appear, anyhow, to be a significant upgrade.
imho, biggest challenge will be setting up tactically depending on the opponent, as in our region requires things that is not necessarily useful outside of it.
if Pochettino cannot improve on the USA receiving 5 yellow cards and a red in 3 games like at the Copa (while Argentina received 7 yellows in 7 games, DePaul got only one yellow card the whole tournament, LOL!!!, or Uruguay just 6 yellows in 7 games, and 2 reds including one on purpose at the end of the Colombia semi loss)…we’re still toast, toast, toast
even Team USA Basketball, men and women, can barely overcome international reffing shenanigans…Team USA soccer isn’t anywhere close to being able to do that, so unless we get a fair shake, we’re still screwed
well, we’re gonna see if this is more of the same or an evolution. i think it was important both symbolically and for the team to hire a top notch manager. it gets them quality coaching and it sends a message for future openings, especially if we can manage the relationship where he still sells our team and job when he’s done.
in terms of tactics, the more i read the more i got concerned it’s too similar. that you might be fighting traces of berhalter-programming if you just walk down the same path with a new guy.
i can appreciate faster transition and more risks, but the way we played already took risks at wingback. and i am not sure the same players can hit their passes any better if asked to play faster, particularly at mid. i am also concerned that games like wales speak to what happens when this team tries to play 100 mph for a first half then hold on.
look, i think we needed this “level” of hire. at that “level” i will give the guy a honeymoon particularly if he makes different personnel choices and shakes things up.
but i personally think if you just watched the women, the irony was the half court efforts didn’t do crap, it was the 3-pass throughball counters. bam bam goal. the more it involved horan glacially knocking the ball around or the wings trying to force crosses into a defense gotten back, the worse it got — LIKE US. what worked was get back, intercept passes midblock, then get behind the defense. that fits american athletes’ strengths. that doesn’t assume we went to la masia when we didn’t.
In regard to IV”s comments with comparisons to the USWNT at the Olympics –
you also can’t deny that the Triple Espresso Line played the three forwards in their more natural positions and removed Alex Morgan who – god love her – couldn’t shoot the ball into the ocean while standing on the beach at the last world cup.
MWR: lemme put it this way. i am curious what happens last year if it’s a healthy swanson and not morgan. swanson can finish, yes, but is also good at incisive passes to create for others going to goal. i thought the MF was underpowered but with good enough a frontline, they create for themselves. though let’s be real, it was barely adequate, a series of 1-0 as it progressed.
which then turned on the revamped backline. to me a lot of it was the O-30s shown the door in the back. if they led by girma and naeher can pit shutouts, you only need the one. the men could learn from that. but the men don’t want a shutdown girma, they are more fixated on distribution or getting forward. if you then ship goals, then we need 2-3 to win games.
anyhow, my point on the women’s frontline would be they would for periods default back into hopeful crossing or farting around the perimeter with the ball. rodman and smith were not much more effective than at WWC when that was the offense.
when that took off was when some back or DM won an interception, got the ball quickly to an AM or swanson, another pass or 2, goal. upfield before the other team could clog. behind the defense before it got back. that uses smith and rodman’s speed, and if you get behind a team then you just play balls to feet or slightly lead your teammate. it’s no longer trying to drop some 30 yard cross on a head or to get the timing right on some wormburner across the box. it’s a 3 on 2, put the ball behind the defender, beat the keeper.
too little of american soccer right now is commit defenders and play the ball behind them. right now we pass sideways and cross, and the defense sees it coming and just shifts around in front of you. take people on, create mismatches, and go to goal.
MWR: fwiw dunn looked vulnerable in the final — i mean brazil peppered us for a period and that could have come out different — the MF was mediocre, albert was starting to push horan (or someone) out of the MF lineup, and naeher and others are getting old. which, on top of nitpicking whether all contributors to the triumvirate were equal, means i will be curious how this roster churns out over the next couple years.
IV: thought Dunn was one of the MVPs of the Olympics for the USWNT, along with Fox, Girma and Naeher
Now that is some exciting news!