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The 52-year-old’s appointment was confirmed between the two matches, meaning Pochettino wasn’t there in person, but he watched from afar as the USMNT suffered.
The defeat to Canada in particular exposed just how far off the expected standard the USA is right now. There was no coherent game plan. In and out of possession, the USMNT were shown up by a Canadian team coached by Jesse Marsch, an American who previously interviewed for the job Gregg Berhalter ultimately kept. Marsch had reason to be smug.
This current USA team was meant to be a golden generation. Players like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams and Gio Reyna were supposed to lift the national team to new heights. Instead, the USMNT is stuck and has called on Pochettino to push them forwards and rescue the 2026 World Cup.
Under Berhalter, the USA was sliding towards a calamitous tournament on home soil. This summer’s Copa America highlighted how Berhalter’s team had regressed since the 2022 World Cup when the USA at least appeared to have given themselves a platform to build on. Ultimately, though, the foundations faltered.
Pochettino has under two years to prepare the USA for the 2026 World Cup. He has no time to waste in remoulding the national team in his own image, particularly because the USMNT doesn’t have to qualify for the tournament as one of three host countries. Pochettino will start with two friendlies against Panama on Saturday and Mexico on Tuesday and even those matches matter. Friendlies – and next summer’s Gold Cup – are all he has to work with.
Berhalter infamously stated he wanted to “change the way the world sees American soccer.” That always seemed like too grand a mission statement and Pochettino’s remit is indeed narrower. The former Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur boss is reportedly only contracted until 2026. He will be judged in the micro, not the macro.
Time might be Pochettino’s biggest opponent as USMNT head coach. The Argentine is renowned as a sharp tactician with a good feel for the modern game, but he may have no choice but to strip back his own ideological beliefs to point the USA in the right direction again. Pochettino might have to go back to basics.
“It’s most important to be simple, players need to not create too many complications,” said Pochettino during his first camp as USA boss in Texas. “The players cannot believe that when they’re going to arrive to their first day in Austin that we are going to be in the room spending two or three hours talking about tactics and different things. Most importantly, we need to settle a few concepts that I think are principle and after that I plan to develop with time.”
Some things will be out of Pochettino’s hands. Many of the USA’s best players are struggling for their club teams at this moment in time. Reyna, for example, has been plagued by persistent injuries for years. Even when he has been fit, the attacking midfielder has struggled for game time at Borussia Dortmund. In fact, Reyna has played more minutes for the USA in 2024 than Dortmund.
Until recently, Folarin Balogun was a peripheral figure at Monaco having made a €40m move from Arsenal last year. Even with the centre forward on a scoring run of three goals in his last three league games, Balogun has yet to be fully integrated into the USA attack. Adams, Sergino Dest and Tim Weah are all injured while goalkeeper Matt Turner hasn’t made a single Premier League appearance for Crystal Palace this season.
It might be the case that Pochettino simply doesn’t have the talent to guide the USA to glory at the 2026 World Cup, but US Soccer has rolled the dice by hiring an elite level manager. No national team at the USA’s level has ever made such an ambitious appointment. It could be argued that the USA’s hiring of Pochettino is the biggest managerial appointment in international football history.
Over 15 years of management, Pochettino has proved himself at all levels of the game. At Espanyol and Southampton, he had raised two teams beyond their perceived potential. He did the same at Tottenham, guiding the North London club to their first Champions League final in 2019. Even at Chelsea, as chaos took hold last season, Pochettino guided the Blues to a respectable sixth-place finish.
For all his experience in the game, though, Pochettino has embraced a new challenge by taking over the USMNT. This is his first job in international management and he could barely have taken on a more demanding one. The true measure of Pochettino’s USMNT will be taken at the 2026 World Cup and progress must be quick for this gamble to pay off.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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