Mauricio Pochettino’s USMNT mission started with depth this week in Texas. Contemporary off lengthy flights from Europe, their minds and our bodies weary, gamers pushed via “powerful” coaching classes; Tuesday’s was “one of many longer ones we have had with the nationwide group,” veteran defender Tim Ream mentioned.
Additionally they started, in fact, with “fundamentals,” with rudimentary actions, with introductory conferences. “An important [thing],” Pochettino mentioned final week, “is that we have to set a number of ideas, few ideas” — moderately than “spend two, three hours speaking about techniques.”
The hope, although, is that ultimately, these ideas and ideas will ignite the U.S. males’s nationwide group; that Pochettino, the most outstanding and costly coach in program historical past, will revolutionize it.
And if he does, the revolution will most likely take form in soccer’s three most consequential seconds — those after his gamers lose the ball.
It’s troublesome to know precisely how Pochettino plans to rework the USMNT. Though his title conjures visions of the courageous, relentless press he dropped at Southampton and Tottenham, he has regularly tailored his techniques to his personnel — particularly at his final two stops, PSG and Chelsea. He reined within the press. He has typically tweaked attacking shapes. In reality, a few of his “positional play” and formations may remind followers of what they noticed underneath earlier U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter.
The place he’ll possible differ, although, is in defensive transition. “It is the section once you lose the ball that we’re going to be very, very, very demanding,” Pochettino mentioned final week.
On this important section of the game, a group basically has two choices: to retreat into its defensive form, or to swarm, hunt the ball, and attempt to win it again. Berhalter sought a center floor between the 2 extremes. Pochettino seems like he doesn’t need to compromise.
“After we lose the ball,” the brand new boss mentioned, “we have to be determined to get better [it] as quickly as attainable.”
This so-called counterpressing — and, on the whole, a extra aggressive method to soccer — may outline Pochettino’s USMNT.
Pochettino’s start line: Berhalter Ball
Earlier than we delve into Poch Ball, although, let’s rewind and outline Berhalter’s USMNT — which developed over time.
It started with a really perfect, a acknowledged need to “use the ball to disorganize the opponent and create goalscoring alternatives.” The aim of the group’s possession, although, appeared to morph into extra of a defensive one over time. They prioritized “relaxation protection” — the positioning of gamers, whereas in possession, to guard in opposition to opponent counterattacks. When requested in regards to the group’s tactical id on the eve of the 2024 Copa América, Berhalter mentioned, partially: “One factor I do know for certain: Our most success is gonna come from with the ability to restrict our opponents’ high-quality goalscoring alternatives.”
And in some ways, he completed that. In three group video games on the 2022 World Cup, the USMNT conceded zero objectives from open play. On the Copa América, when video games had been 11-v-11, they had been equally sturdy. Towards Mexico, in World Cup qualifiers and the previous two Nations League finals, the USMNT saved 4 consecutive clear sheets.
The comparatively cautious, inflexible method shielded and nullified weaknesses at heart again. Nevertheless it got here with tradeoffs. Solidity got here on the expense of attacking fluidity and adventurousness. And this grew to become Berhalter’s downfall. The U.S. struggled to persistently create high-quality probabilities of its personal, particularly via central areas.
The million-dollar query was, and is: Was {that a} tactical failure? Or a participant failure?
Or, extra possible, was all of this a debatable-but-reasonable selection that Berhalter made primarily based on the gamers at his disposal? His most dynamic ones — Christian Pulisic, Tim Weah, Sergiño Dest, Antonee Robinson — performed in vast areas. His defensive midfielder, Tyler Adams, was a lot better at cleansing up errors and stifling counters than progressive passing. His greatest central playmaker, Gio Reyna, was typically unavailable on account of harm.
So, Berhalter strayed from his beliefs — as many membership coaches who come to worldwide soccer understand they need to do. He grew to become extra pragmatic, tailoring sport plans opponent by opponent. “Once you have a look at the highest, high groups on the earth,” Berhalter mentioned in June, “I feel that is what they’re the very best at doing: adapting.”
The query now could be whether or not Pochettino will come to related conclusions.
Pochettino’s philosophy
A part of Pochettino’s philosophy just isn’t all that totally different from the one Berhalter outlined practically six years in the past. Taking part in with the ball “is the principal goal,” Pochettino mentioned. He and his employees “like to dominate video games, and naturally to have the possession … as a result of I feel it is the easiest way, initially, to defend; and second, as a result of … the way in which that we need to win is to play nearer to the opposition objective.”
So, he implores his groups to construct assaults from the again.
If an opponent presses excessive, he doesn’t need indiscriminate lengthy balls to keep away from the press; he desires his midfielders and forwards “to maneuver, to provide choices, good angles to your teammate,” as he mentioned final month; he desires the participant on the ball to just accept some danger, and discover these choices.
And he desires them to play ahead, deliberately, shifting as a unit to arrange store within the opponent’s half, and tilting the sector.
On a Zoom name with reporters final week, Pochettino highlighted all of that, the attacking section, as certainly one of “two phases of the sport it’s essential to management.” The opposite was the aforementioned defensive transition section. And the 2, in fact, are very interconnected. Your attacking form is your defensive transition form. Your priorities and methods with the ball have an effect on what you are able to do once you lose it.
That’s why Pochettino, like Berhalter — and never not like Pep Guardiola — has most popular a considerably inflexible assault. If gamers stick with positions inside a well-organized construction, they’re higher ready to react when assault abruptly turns into protection.
In that pivotal, transitional second, the group that misplaced the ball is usually at its most susceptible — as a result of its gamers had been positioned to assault, to not defend. However there’s a corollary: the group that gained the ball is usually ill-equipped to assault or maintain possession — as a result of its gamers had been positioned to dam passing lanes and compress area, moderately than to supply passing lanes and create area.
Coaches, due to this fact, face a selection between limiting their very own group’s vulnerability or, alternatively, pouncing on the opponent’s poor construction. And traditionally, Pochettino’s groups have pounced. They’ve tried to win the ball again inside three seconds of dropping it, and to take care of their foothold within the attacking half of the sector.
They’ve additionally pressed, ravenously, in non-transitional phases. Powered by punishing health regimens, Pochettino’s 2013-14 Southampton squad ran greater than some other group in English Premier League historical past. His early Tottenham groups had been equally confrontational, hounding opposing defenders and goalkeepers. In his 2017 e-book, Pochettino described the best: “I need my groups to impress a managed dysfunction, to create a lot motion that it distresses the opposition.”
At PSG, although, he typically couldn’t pursue that. An efficient press requires 11 coordinated, match and dedicated gamers. Pochettino, as an alternative, had Neymar, Kylian Mbappé and an growing old Lionel Messi. So he performed to their strengths.
A pair years later, at Chelsea, and consistent with broader tactical developments, his gamers pressed, however nowhere close to as aggressively as they’d at Tottenham. They’d additionally sit in a mid-block at instances, and concentrate on forcing opponents towards the sidelines, by walling off passing lanes and central areas.
So it’s unclear how aggressive his USMNT shall be with out the ball. The U.S. gamers, for essentially the most half, are able to urgent — a trait that Berhalter, to a point, ultimately leaned into. However time is scarce — but essential to get the gamers in sync and totally onboard.
Pochettino brings flexibility, depth to USMNT
As for the extra granular particulars — the shapes and patterns that can convey philosophies to life — Pochettino will certainly be pliable.
He mentioned final week that his beginning factors shall be a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-3-3 — the identical fundamental alignments that Berhalter used — however these simplified formations don’t inform us a lot.
Berhalter’s USMNT alternated between, roughly, two attacking shapes — a 3-2-2-3 and 2-3-2-3 — relying on the opponent and their very own midfield construction; and between two defensive shapes — a 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 — relying on the opponent and their most popular line of confrontation.
Pochettino will certainly alternate as properly. At Chelsea, he toyed with numerous alignments all through the 2023-24 season. At PSG, he adjusted primarily based on participant availability. His greatest Tottenham group spent a few of the 2016-17 season in a 3-4-2-1 base, with three heart backs, however that’s largely as a result of it suited personnel — Eric Dier was excellent for the center of the again three, whereas Kyle Walker and Danny Rose had been glorious as wing backs. The next season, with Walker gone and Rose injured or out of favor, Pochettino went again to a 4-2-3-1 to get all 4 of his attacking stars — Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen and Son Heung-min — on the sector collectively.
So, lengthy story quick, he isn’t a cussed idealogue. He has a imaginative and prescient, and beliefs, however “we have to see the gamers, really feel the gamers, see all of the traits,” he mentioned final month. “We’re very versatile.”
And his first camp has possible pushed residence that time. Greater than half of his possible 2026 starters — Dest, Adams, Reyna, Weah, Folarin Balogun, Chris Richards and Cameron Carter-Vickers — are absent on account of harm. Pochettino must work with, and adapt to, no matter worldwide soccer throws at him.
He’ll additionally must convey the imaginative and prescient a number of days at a time, in roughly 10 coaching camps, most of them quick, between now and the 2026 World Cup. So there isn’t a time to waste. That work is underway, forward of Pochettino’s first sport, a Saturday pleasant vs. Panama (9 p.m. ET, TNT).
And his “common message,” ahead Josh Sargent mentioned, has been clear: “Something we do, whether or not with the ball or in opposition to the ball, he desires it to be intense. If we lose the ball, get better it immediately. That is been a giant message to date.”
