My only defense is that I was scarred by Jurgen Klinsmann.* *That was more because he lied about it .** **If Freese gets experimented with,my doubts will reintensify.*** ***That being said last night was a decent night.
You sound like you feel right and vindicated or something. Good for you? It makes sense that many of us were freaking out that this close to the World Cup he was still learning about the roster coupled with some poor results and poor effort. Two decent games in friendlies is great though. If we can continue this type of play - that will be great. But if Balo or Richards gets hurt - our ability to be dangerous takes a major hit against the top teams. But that said, for someone who felt he was a complete mess - the last two games are an excellent sign that maybe I’m wrong.
I have been down on Poch, and I am pretty happy with the last two games. I still think he took too long turning over every rock to find depth, and wasted valuable reps on players I don’t think belong. That said, he is establishing an identity and system. He has made it clear to everyone that there are no locks, and I think complacency was our biggest issue under Gregg. When our best players are available, his system seems to work pretty well. My hope is that taking so long to zero in on the right players does not come back to haunt us in terms of lost reps.
I mean, I only responded about the hindsight because you accused me of it. I don't think concern about the amount of time to the World Cup or concern about poor play were unjustified. I don't really freak out about either, but I don't think there's anything unreasonable about that. What I did disagree with and continue to do so is this idea that he had no idea what to do or what was going on. That he was a mess or insane. He was put into a rushed situation with a player base that had lost their ability to bring intensity consistently. And maybe they still don't have it. He's had SIX windows, if you exclude January camp, and it started to come together in window five. With cultural elements, change is hard. It might not even be fixed! I'm still 'worried' in a lot of ways. But I don't think the Gold Cup roster, for example, was even an ounce of evidence that he wasn't trying, or was an idiot, or was a mess. I think, given the circumstances, the vast majority of the roster made sense to me, and that the team improved over the window in certain real ways and showed some promise. Did I know it would come together these last two games? No. Is this permanent? I dunno. I doubt it. But that's not what I am saying. I'm saying it's not odd that after a giant failure for a coach to experiment a bit with a roster in the next window (Window #4!). Or that it might take a couple of windows for people to adjust to the expectations on engagement and intensity.
Totally reasonable and if it was our usual breed of managers I’d have probably joined the chorus. I didn’t have a rationale for my belief that it would all start coming together there for a while, other than the idea that he doesn’t care, or doesn’t have a plan seemed unfathomable to me. I also don’t buy for a second that he doesn’t know the player pool. This is a Bielsa disciple, he’s got dossiers on Rowdies and Riverhounds players, believe.
The players walked all over him when he came back 2nd (undeserved) tenure, that much is obvious. https://t.co/O2a9AGr852— SuperiorUSMNT (@EinSchwarzwelt) October 11, 2025
I’ve been as vocal about 3G’s tenure as any. But the nurturing father figure approach was perfectly reasonable and effective enough given the age of the roster when he started. Our stupid ass federation never learning their lesson that second cycles are stupid as a rule, despite X number of exceptions that prove the rule, is the real issue. Players need a new voice after four years regardless and the same dude can’t suddenly change up his whole personality and approach. No more second cycles period.
Gregg Berhalter completely changed the culture from the 2018 cycle. That Ringer article exposed what was probably the worst culture of the last 40 years. Gregg completely went in a totally different direction with the new generation. He created a more comfortable and enjoyable place to be for the young players. A team that the guys wanted to be a part of, and recruited the heck out of dual nationals. Gregg Saban. Players wanted to be a part of that program. They seemed to be ardent proponents of his return as coach. That more comfortable culture was needed at the time but had run its course. Pochettino came in and said "This ain't golfing with your buddies time. I'm the boss. You gotta fight every day. None of your spots is guaranteed. Not even Pulisic." Time will tell whether Pochettino actually has better results than Berhalter. So far he hasn't, actually. Gregg didnt' get pantsed at the Nations League and Gold Cup. He won multiple Nations Leagues and won a Gold Cup.
My point about hindsight is that it’s easy to say he knows that he’s doing when the players perform. We weren’t having this discussion after the Korea game. And none of this moment matters if Arfsten has an own goal in the World Cup. Or Ream gets exposed over and over. I don’t think it’s insane to question whether he knows what he’s doing when the results are poor. And we’re giving him credit because players tried hard? I mean culture matters and it’s part of what a coach can impact but that’s not what we’re paying him zillions for. Ecuador was very encouraging - let’s see if we show up in the World Cup. He will probably get too much credit or blame however it goes. And if we do really well because a bunch of our players are older and better and it’s home soil - it will be unfortunate that his pixie dust may be seen as the reason.
Honestly,any thing outside of quarterfinals at home is a bad result.So the 48 team field makes it easier and harder.Its a weaker group but an extra knockout game. All this to say Poch will be judged largely on results,but the expectations for results are unclear with this format.
High IQ moment. It's not some genius piece of creation or vision, it's putting a ball across the box, but you are 100% right a lot of people take a shot from a less than ideal angle there.
Anti-Poch stuff was overwhelmingly (obviously) an overreaction, to one degree or another. But that's what fans do, and posters on this board have been overreacting about the US coach for decades. The more plausible view was always pretty simple -- players weren't performing or present, mistakes were made, injuries had happened, and Poch was looking for the purposes of expanding his understanding of the full compliment of players at his disposal. All that is either completely Ockham's-razor understandable, or about stuff that is not on the coach. Certainly not on one who is still coming to grips with the player pool and still getting them to come onboard/understand his methods. That's not to say he's above criticism. But there's criticism, and then there's people literally saying Poch should be fired for roster selections for friendlies. Unhinged. And you are right, and people disagreeing are wrong. We're just not gonna read a better, more valid, or more reasonable take about his tenure than this. gogorath you might be the best poster on this whole board. Pretty, pretty, pretty obvious. This shit takes a bit of time. By the way... ALL of this will STILL be true if Poch makes some generally common sense lineup decisions for the next couple windows and the results, or whatever reason, aren't quite there. This isn't about a couple good results/performances, is my point.
I was nodding along until this. If I were to break down the top 5 responsibilities of a national team coach, it would look something like this: 1. Culture and team identity 2. Smart player selection and recruitment 3. Base tactics that fit the pool and deliver results 4. Smart in-game adjustments 5. Press and media relations I think it really does all start with culture. Frankly, I don’t think we’ve had a coach who’s been good at all five since I’ve watched the USMNT. Gregg, IMO, was terrible at 3 and 4, and was done once his buddy-buddy stuff wore thin and the culture disintegrated. I’ve questioned Poch on every one of them. We could all pick out incidents where he’s blown it. Hopefully he gets better.
From my interaction with fans online, I feel like a very loud very vocal portion of the fanbase expected Poch to come in with the exact same team GGG had and instantly make the team better. Did Poch maybe overcorrect it a bit too much for Gold Cup? Sure. But to play devil's advocate, how much do people change their tune during the Gold Cup with the same results but we have a healthy Johnny/Haji and Tolkin,Paxten getting the minutes Luca, Berhalter, Arfsten and Big Pat got (or even over Downs/White)? There's probably a different tune because the fanbase likes (or liked with Paxten) those players and people look at the Gold Cup differently.
Berhalter’s culture led to one tournament that was a complete flop. Poch also had one of those albeit it was his first competitive set of games with the U.S.
What if our R16 opponent is Argentina or Spain? To me, it makes no sense to set a target like this without seeing the draw.
I agree. We have to be judged based on the draw. But if we finish second in our group and that’s the source of a tougher path, that’s on us.
That's the wild card aspect of the 48 team draw.we should have a cake draw and a relatively easy R32.But maybe not. So we wind up looking at tea leaves and eye tests until June.
Player Motivation is the most important responsibility of a NT manager. When players are motivated and believe everything else falls into place.
And my point is that I absolutely said that he knows what he's doing after the Korea game. My comment isn't about results. And it's not about some kind of binary dynamic where it's either he's a genius and no criticism is allowed or correct or he's an idiot. My point is that it was not hard to see what he was doing and to see that it was a logical path that may yield good results. That doesn't mean it will yield good results or that no other path couldn't. It's just that it is logically consistent and should be treated as such. I'm absolutely ranting against the constant extremist dichotomy that his lineups "are insane" or that he's clueless. No. It was very obvious at the time that he was doing such "insane" things as "looking at other options for players who had failed to perform" and "trying to create a culture where players bring intensity to every game after they clearly didn't bring intensity to the Copa America or Nations League." He literally told us this. And it makes total logical sense. It's perfectly fine to question whether these methods will work; culture change in particular is hard. What I think is both dumb and degrading to the overall dialogue is the pretending that there was no logic to his decisions. There absolutely was. He said it. I said it. Several other posters said it. But people insisted on being weird, claiming this high level coach was an "idiot" or "insane." If you thought that, you weren't trying. I don't actually put you in this bucket, though you seem to be taking it as such. But for about half the posters here, the total consideration begins and ends with the idea that anyone in a (sometimes top, sometimes any) European league is by definition better than anyone not (or specifically in MLS) and the coach is an idiot for even looking there. Nearly everything people are saying good about Freeman and Arfsten were there to see in their first few games. In smaller quantities, but the pluses were visible. There was apparently no common sense allowance for mental mistakes in a player's first USMNT game after just two days of practice. And there's still weaknesses ... but it's weird, those are harped on as if we don't have to compensate for the weaknesses of guys like Scally. It was not insane to look at Max Arfsten or Alex Freeman, and I said so at the time, and it's turned out to be true. My point isn't that I'm special. It also wasn't "insane" to look at Tristan Blackmon, even though I don't think he's going to make the roster. It's okay to look at options; sometimes you don't know that someone can be valuable until you see them in person. My point is that ANYONE could see that if they stopped to think about it from Pochettino's point of view and with an open mind. And that EVERYONE should have acknowledged that if there was a cultural issue (and it was pretty clear SOMETHING was wrong) that perhaps bringing in the same roster over and over wasn't going to fix it. Again, none of this means that what Poch is doing is going to work. Life isn't certain. But the idea that it isn't a viable plan with possible success is dumb. The idea that it doesn't make logical sense within actual facts is incorrect. The A team was bad at Copa America and then was bad at Nations League. People seem to want to pin that on Tim Ream and otherwise just keep plugging with the same crew no matter what. If insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, then that is the actual insanity. --------------- Oh, and if Max Arfsten gives up an own goal in the World Cup, that doesn't mean it was a bad decision. Players do make mistakes. We lost against the Netherlands because Pulisic muffed an insanely good chance, Tyler didn't get back on D, Musah and Dest both hesitated on a defensive assignment in the box and Jedi turned off and completely ignored an attacker. All those players have more talent than Arfsten, but one mistake does not define a player at all. Zimmerman gave up a pen; he was still very good at that World Cup and saved us multiple times against England and Iran.
I don’t agree with that. We don’t have a top 16 lineup or squad or pool. Making the round of 16, aided by homefield advantage is a passing grade.
I don’t know man, wide angle with the GK sliding past the near post and a runner in the middle. That’s just normal competent play.
I've never had a problem with questioning. It's the characterization that his actions made no sense or logic, that's he insane, or lazy, that he doesn't care, that no one can make sense of these things. No, he's had a plan, he told you it, while nothing is guaranteed it made absolute sense even if there are also alternate plans that make sense. We're here to discuss; it would be absurd not to criticize. But I find it hilarious that there are posters whose depth of analysis is "Joe Scally plays in the Bundesliga" but then don't bother to even try and understand or listen to a top flight coach explain their reasoning. Of all the voices on here, he's the only one who has been repeatedly successful at the highest level coaching a team. Maybe just give a listen? Maybe try and understand with an open mind? And to be clear, I wasn't talking about you with my posts. I know you think he's a bit of a fraud, but your criticisms are different than what I am talking about. Most coaches would disagree. Especially with the national team. It's a very important aspect of any coach to ensure the players play hard and focused. Do I think it's mostly under their control? Absolutely not. Do I think they can contribute to it? Yes. Do I think that this team (or any team) goes ANYWHERE if they don't play with a very high level of intensity? Nope. There's a group here that has somehow taken the disdain for high effort to pretend it's an either or situation with skill. Go back and watch the 2022 World Cup guys; Argentina played with insane effort. No one wins shit without it. You seem to be attributing things to me I don't really believe or know. I don't know that this intensity level increase is permanent. I don't know how much is due to Pochettino's machinations and how much is due to the players actually waking up. I don't know if they will bring it to the World Cup or if they would have anyway. What I do know is that they didn't bring it to Copa America or the Nations League and they did against Ecuador. I'm very happy with that. If I'm saying any kind of "told you so" on that point ... it's simply that yes, it's pretty clear that there was a problem, right? That intensity level was clearly different. A lot of people painted it as bs; just what bad analysts always say after a loss (which is somewhat true in many cases). But the difference was clear as day. This does not mean Poch is a magician. Hell, I don't even think he DID that much; FFS, the GC roster wasn't his decision for the most part. Poch will get too much credit or blame; he's a coach. I'm not saying that's he's an amazing coach who has fixed us. I'm saying his actions have made logical sense the whole time.