Mauricio Pochettino on USMNT: ‘In five or 10 years, we can be No 1 in the world'

New York Times

18-03-2025

FIFA president Gianni Infantino was a guest of U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office earlier this month. The two men posed with the trophy for the Club World Cup, held in the U.S. this summer. Trump called Infantino, who also attended his inauguration in January, 'the king of soccer', and asked his FIFA counterpart whether he believes the U.S. Men's National Team (USMNT) can win the 2026 World Cup. 'Yes, with the public behind (them),' Infantino earnestly replied.
Advertisement
One week on, Mauricio Pochettino, the head coach of the USMNT, was relaxed and confident enough to laugh about it. 'I was disappointed with his answer,' Pochettino said with a grin about Infantino's reply. 'He should say…'You need to ask your great coach, Pochettino!' Because, for sure, he can give a better opinion!'
This is the world that Pochettino now inhabits. One where the answer to a question posed in the White House, from one of the most powerful men in the world to another, hinges on Pochettino's ability to deliver in his job.
When Pochettino took this job six months ago, it felt like an unusual football step. He was saying goodbye to the elite end of the European club game, to the Champions League, to daily interaction with some of the best players in the world, to performing in front of packed stadiums every three or four days for nine months straight.
But while so many of the pressures of club football's daily grind have gone, Pochettino has discovered pressure of a different magnitude. It is difficult to quantify the global significance of his new job. Suffice to say that the 2026 World Cup will be one of the biggest sporting events in history, and the performance of the U.S. team integral to it. When the USMNT start their campaign at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on 12 June next year, the eyes of billions of people will be on Pochettino. If the team starts well and generates that unique momentum that tournament hosts can tap into, Pochettino could quickly become one of the most famous people in the world.
In that light, the move from club football does not look so surprising. There is far more at stake here than even at the biggest clubs.
'I think the pressure is going to be there because we are a host,' said Pochettino, speaking to journalists in central London last week. 'It's a country where the mentality is about winning. In sport, in everything that Americans are involved in, they want to win. That is the culture. Of course, it is going to be a pressure, but a welcome one. That means that we are going to feel the adrenaline that we need to feel.'
Advertisement
Every elite manager has an ego and a sense of their own legacy. Every elite manager is on the quest for greatness. Pochettino has always been in love with the history of the game and the World Cup itself. He grew up watching Argentina win the 1978 and 1986 World Cups and was mesmerised. He played in the 2002 edition. He has always known that the World Cup is the true pinnacle of the game. 'The feeling is completely different from another competition,' he said in 2022. Coaching at a World Cup has been a lifelong dream.
After Pochettino left Chelsea at the end of last season, he had a decision to make. It had been an exhausting year at Stamford Bridge but he had ended it on a high, teaching his team to play his football and guiding them to a sixth-placed finish in the table. The expectation was that he would look for another big club job — until U.S. Soccer got in touch. 'After Chelsea, the offer arrived from the USA,' he said, 'and we were already paying attention.'
Pochettino explained more than once how only eight countries have ever won the World Cup. (He quickly listed them: Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, then the European five of Spain, France, Germany, England and Italy.) The point he was making was that when so few countries are on that list, there is nothing wrong with working for a team who is not. What Pochettino did not need to explicitly say was that there is nothing more tantalising in sport than the prospect of being the ninth team on that list. Anyone joining that club is a once-in-a-generation event. Why shouldn't the USMNT aim that high?
All of this will have been swirling around Pochettino's mind when he decided whether to take this opportunity last year. 'Not only the challenge on the pitch, that is of course the principle,' he explained. 'But also the challenge to live and experience to know a different culture, different people. Always USA was a country that was a mystery to me. The people are completely different.'
That was a selling point.
Advertisement
Pochettino spoke to Gerardo 'Tata' Martino, his old team-mate from Newell's Old Boys. Martino is 10 years older than Pochettino and has had a long coaching career in club and international football. He took Paraguay to the 2010 World Cup, Mexico to Qatar 2022, as well as having a brief spell in charge of his own country Argentina. Martino also managed Atlanta United and Inter Miami in MLS.
He has now spent six months dealing with the fundamental dilemma of the international manager, whatever the level: how do you get your ideas across to the players in such a limited timespan?
'We have one disadvantage and one advantage,' Pochettino explained. 'The disadvantage is that you don't have time. The advantage is that they are so focused, the players. The focus, the discipline and energy they apply when they come (are completely different). Maybe they spend three days with us but they are so focused on learning how we are going to play. Sometimes, club players are more like, 'OK, we have time'. This is different with the national team, as the players arrive and are desperate to learn. That is a good thing.'
But still, much of Pochettino's work over the years has been built on controlling his players' physical conditioning. His staff likes to monitor them intensely to keep them in the right shape to play his pressing football. Spending months away from the players makes that harder. Pochettino does not want to see it as a negative and spoke positively about technological solutions to this age-old problem.
'Technology is going so fast and sometimes when you are involved in the clubs, you don't have time,' Pochettino said, explaining that he was working with companies who can help player performance from afar. 'The technology is going to help in so many ways. It's going to be really important to improve one per cent or two per cent. Small things can be massive. We really love to work, as a coaching staff, with the science.'
Pochettino is happy to put the responsibility on the players themselves. 'The players also need to understand that they need to push themselves,' he said. 'It's not the responsibility of the clubs if the players are fit or not fit. The players need to be professional.'
And of the players themselves, Pochettino spoke warmly. He has been impressed by the attitude they have shown him so far. He has always been curious about other people and is especially about these players' paths in the game. He explained how some of the USMNT players did not play soccer until the age of 12 and only then picked up the game. 'This is a completely different mindset,' he said. 'That is important for us also to learn from this.'
Advertisement
Aside from the technical level or club experience of the players, there is another crucial factor: whether they contribute to the team dynamic that Pochettino wants to build. Pochettino's most successful club sides — Espanyol, Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur — were marked by a remarkable unity between the players, a sense of brotherhood, a total commitment to each other, to the idea of the group, and to their shared goals. None of those teams would have been imaginable without it. (The fact that Pochettino managed to build a unified team out of the Chelsea squad he inherited is also to his credit.)
Pochettino praised the 'very good mentality and culture' created by his predecessor Gregg Berhalter during his USMNT tenure. 'The mentality is there, the discipline is there.' Now Pochettino wants to build on it. He sounded just like he was talking about his old Spurs team.
'It's really important that we need to build our own team,' Pochettino said. 'It's not only the characteristics of the players, it's about the discipline and the atmosphere that we want to create in the national team. We need 23 or 26 players who will be happy to be in the squad and want to help the national team from every position. We have to create this good energy. Because if not, it's going to be tough.'
The plan is to teach these players a style of play so they can 'dominate against most national teams' but be able to adopt a more transitional counter-attacking game against the biggest sides. The key is to get the players to believe in themselves and each other. In that sense this is a job that reminds Pochettino of his time working with Espanyol and Southampton, where he transformed the ambitions of the group and made them think differently. Xesco Espar, a mental coach who Pochettino has worked with in the past, once told me Pochettino's great strength was to 'see the greatness' in players before they even saw it themselves.
Pochettino has just called Giovanni Reyna into his squad for this week's CONCACAF Nations League games. But Pochettino said he is not only looking to see Reyna's technical level with the squad. 'We really believe in him because the talent of the player is there so we see if he can recover,' he said. 'It's not only about knowing if he can play well, it's about if he can create a good atmosphere in the team. That's going to be very important for us.'
These games — Panama in Thursday's semi-final, and Canada or Mexico on Sunday in either the final or third-place playoff — will be at SoFi Stadium where the USMNT open their World Cup campaign. Before that though, there is more work going on behind the scenes that will be fundamental to Pochettino's success. U.S. Soccer is building a new base — the Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center — in Atlanta. It will be ready in time for the World Cup. Pochettino referred back to his list of eight men's World Cup winners to explain how important it will be.
'The eight countries which have won the World Cup all have amazing training centres,' he said. 'Before the World Cup, U.S. Soccer is building an amazing training centre in Atlanta and that is going to be one of the most unbelievable training centres in the world. That is going to be the base of soccer. It is the moment where people can see, soccer is going to be a serious sport because it has a home.
'We need to congratulate the federation, and all the donors involved, who are helping to grow the sport, because it's No 1 in the world. Because in five or ten years, for sure we can be No 1 in the world. It could be.'