The U.S. men’s national team’s endured back-to-back losses during the March international window, but head coach Mauricio Pochettino revealed he rather get the losing out now than in one year’s time.
Pochettino’s squad suffered a 2-1 loss to Canada in the CONCACAF Nations League third place match on Sunday night, ending what was a disappointing window. Despite Patrick Agyemang scoring his third international goal this calendar year, the USMNT conceded a second-half winner to Canada’s Jonathan David.
It marked the USMNT’s first pair of consecutive losses since the 2024 Copa America and their first against a pair of CONCACAF opponents since 2019. Pochettino was frustrated with the pair of results but ultimately admitted there is still time for overall improvement.
“It’s better [to lose] now because I think we have time,” Pochettino said postmatch. “Because if we will be in this situation in one year time, for sure. I will tell you, ‘Houston, we have a problem. SOS.'”
“We are all [disappointed] and the fans need to feel the disappointment that we didn’t win,” he added. “But I’m not going to allow [us] to feel pessimistic because I think we have good players. We are going to find a way to perform and for sure we are going to compete in a different way.”
Similar to the Panama match, the USMNT were second-best on the night against their northern neighbors. At times, they controlled possession, while also at times they were put under spells of pressure by Jesse Marsch’s squad.
Three of the USMNT’s key leaders; Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, and Weston McKennie were all surprisingly substituted off before the final whistle as the Americans sought out an equalizing goal. However, Pochettino’s second-half arrivals failed to have little impact on the final scoreline, while Agyemang and Diego Luna walked away as two of the few bright spots.
Adams, who has only just returned to USMNT action this year, admitted that for the USMNT to have long-term success, every player needs to buy into Pochettino’s ideas.
“I mean, listen, it’s hard for me to judge. I think my mentality is a little bit different,” Adams said to reporters. “I think we need to have every single person buy into exactly what we’re doing and what we’re trying to do. But it’s just the little things for me. Duels, tackles leaving your mark on the field, not being naive in certain moments, being a little bit more clever.
“All the details of the games that I feel like when I watch people play with their clubs, we do,” he added. And then when we come here, sometimes I think we forget a little bit what the games are going to give us.”
The USMNT will now have to wait until June to get back onto the field as a unit, knowing that there aren’t many more preparation opportunities left until the World Cup schedule begins.
One of the most disconcerting things for me is that Canada seemed quicker, had better spacing, and did a better job of cutting off passing lanes. In short, they played together as a team much better than the US did. Marsch has created a situation where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, where we seem to stuck with the opposite. I remember some here saying that Marsch’s approach wouldn’t work at a high level of competition. Well, it certainly worked against us. The US needs to become a much better team, being able to find open teammates, moving off the ball so that there is always an open teammate, awareness so that when a player is receiving the ball, he knows where it goes next even before he gets it. And Canada’s interplay around the 6 yard box was much better than ours. Those are the things we need to work toward. Among other things, Marsch out coached Pochettino.
I guess, Morocco was terrible the summer of 2022 and finished 4th so he’s not wrong, but …
it’s about the efficient but smart use of time. people chuckled at my expense for saying maybe take 6 months and try some new players and explore the pool. we doubled down on the usual suspects. we did his little tweaks which by this tournament had disappeared. and then what i watched was basically copa redux. we wasted 6 months.
and the gross part is you have folks saying “well this was never going to be the women,” but then ignoring that implies maybe we have more of a personnel scouting/eval job to do then. it’s this odd paradox where we shouldn’t be compared to a team that just needed a new coach, but then act like only the coaching change is what we need.
no, they have time, but you have to make better use of it than what we are or so what. we just spent 6 months and maybe learned from all that, that agyemang and luna can play. and i don’t even know where agyemang fits in a full strength roster. so how much are we really adding.
i also think reyna is better than luna — and they would be great rotating with each other — but we will never learn because we are back set on “hate” mode.
the thing is that you can pick up on the “vibe” for how camp is going to play out, before they show up. just like at the world cup reyna getting benched was before he started loafing, not after.
luna will be golden boy. luna will be pretty good but we will shop for someone else. reyna will get “rediscovered.”
how about we get both on the field? how about we prove stuff more than one weekend before making long term decisions?
i mean historic US teams we’d play this out over a year. a few people would get time. some would emerge. and we’d make you show up more than once before you got annointed.
the soccer is more on the ground than before, but the thought process behind the team and its tactics is awful and like fanboy level. and based on all the turnovers maybe possession isn’t going to be our thing hmmmmmm
Agyemang seems to have been under rated or overlooked every step of they way in his career. A 6’6″ player who is athletic, fluid, has great stamina and did seem to show for the ball as well as do the dirty work of chasing. How did the scouts at so many levels miss him?
He is a victim of pay to play. If he was in Europe dude would be going off in Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Championship, or Eredivisie. America never gonna be top 10 cause people care to much about, class and race. See how Brasil put race and class aside and their best players come from low income black and brown backgrounds. People gonna be mad at me saying this, but it’s true I’m in a black and brown body, so I’m speaking from exp.
I believe East Hartford is in the Revolutions, territory and they aren’t known for being the best youth system. In order to get seen by scouts you’ve usually got to be playing in top competitions. I looked up his youth club and compared my local club which isn’t elite level it’s pretty cheap, but his father said he was working 2 or 3 jobs to afford fees for his three sons. Perhaps another factor is Patrick was a late grower. His brother said Pat was 5’8 his sophomore year. He didn’t even make varsity until his junior year of high school. And of course the issues Striker suggests especially for immigrants.
Striker 91,
“America never gonna be top 10 cause people care to much about, class and race. See how Brasil put race and class aside and their best players come from low income black and brown backgrounds.”
Don’t kid yourself. If in Brazil they seem to put class aside it’s because they see the important color, green. They notice class and race just as much as people do here.
Race issues have not stopped the French from winning the World Cup. They are just as race and class conscious as Americans.
First, last and always it is about following the money.
Here is a condensed tweet from French player Benjamin Mendy (Marseille, Monaco and Manchester City) , a World Cup winner after winning the World Cup:
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“It’s terrible that our team is being insulted all over the internet for “not being French”. I’m so sad for our players. They must feel so bad reading that.
Because there’s one thing that people need to realize, and as a French I will try to shed some light on that. Here, it’s an horrible insult to say to someone that he is not French because the color of his skin. Only racist far right pieces of shit do that here. They would tease (and still do) black kids and arabs based simply on the color of their skin “You’re not French, get back to your country !”. And the kids would respond “But… this is my country ! I was born here ! I’ve never knew another!”. And I can assure you 100% that all of our so called “Africans” players went through that all their life and had to fight unfairly to be accepted has normal French citizens.
Why is everyone trying to shove down their throats the nationality of their parents or grandparents when most of them have nothing in common with the country you’re trying to link them with besides their skin colors ? It’s completely up to them to decide the level of connection they feel with their parents/grandparents country of origin, you don’t get to decide that for them. It’s also a very intimate thing and most of our players are very reserved about this topic. Why are some people trying to shame them for feeling French when they have every right to do it ? What is this weird obsession with race ? Who the fuck are you to tell them if they are French or not ?! I’m not even going to talk about the people saying players like Lemar, Varane or Payet are Africans or have African origins, because that’s just… wow.
But the worse thing, and what actually makes me write this text, is that this abuse is suddenly not only coming from racist far right assholes.
No, right now, outside of France people from all political sides and even all colors are repeating this bullshit “African Team” thing.”
*********************************************************************
So you see Striker, it’s all over not just in East Hartford, Connecticut. I’ve been to East Hartford and there are worse places..
IV,
“it’s about the efficient but smart use of time. people chuckled at my expense for saying ”
People don’t chuckle at your expense. There’s nothing chuckle-able about you not usually making any sense.
“maybe take 6 months and try some new players and explore the pool.”
Pochettino did that. Unlike most of y’all he took Cupcake and MLS very seriously and got Patrick, Luna, Ben, Max and Captain Jack out of it. Ben did not do great but Capt Max and Capt. Jack looked okay and Patrick and Big Balls have taken the fancy of the fans and the media. Not a bad return from his Cupcake crew. Patrick is the new Conor Casey (who spent 5 minutes at BVB). Conor did not make the World Cup team so for Patrick’s sake, I hope he does better.
“we doubled down on the usual suspects. we did his little tweaks which by this tournament had disappeared. and then what i watched was basically copa redux. we wasted 6 months.”
In your select team mind sure.
But back in the national team world, the usual suspects were missing Jedi, Flo, Dest, pornstach Johnny, Ricardo , and Malik. Six who would have made the roster and five probable starters there.
That’s about 45
% of your starting lineup, not an insignificant percentage.
Pochettino also got to see many of his starters and how they react to a loss.
That’s important information, not a waste.
So what are you moaning and bitching about?
Why don’t you give us the names of credible replacements for the usual suspects? You can’t do that can you?
He learned much more by these losses. I would set this team up like France does quick counters with the speed.
Didn’t realize Diego gets faster with the ball at his feet.
I would stress less emphasis on total possession and more on getting the ball forward quickly.
“I would set this team up like France does quick counters with the speed.”
When France goes on a counter they have guys like MBappe, Griezmann, Dembele, and a bunch of other guys whose names I can’t spell or pronounce to run it.
It’s not a bad group.
I agree we should look to quick counters more but just FYI, it works better when players like Jedi, Dest, Pepi, and Flo are around to help CP, Weston and Weah work it.
It almost sounds like coach pooch reads this very website. I think our coach underestimated this competition, and our opposition. That mistake won’t be made again by him.
Not for nothing, but you start Diego Luna in that Panama game, and we are up 2 nil by halftime, and the story of this weekend turns out a little different.
Truth be told, our national team has always done best when expectations were not so high. Counter attacking requires an element of surprise.