I have read and agree that the article is extremely insightful. Tactically I’ve shared numerous times elsewhere this tifo video that I think conveys similar insight from a tactical standpoint. To clarify my viewpoint this entire time. What Poch does has been very consistent from Espanyol to his time with the USMBT. I don’t know if it’ll work and club vs interval is absolutely different. But he’s a very driven and serious manager and he’s competent. So i vehemently disagree with the oft stated idea that he’s on vacation or mailing it in. I also vehemently disagree with the assertion that he’s made any sort of major tactical change to a back 3 recently and that everyone here could have and would have done the same, only far earlier. His teams gave always shifted between the 4231 and 3 in build up and transition defense. Involving a hybrid role that shifts over to that RB or RCB slit depending on how you define it, as I’ve often made the comparison with Dier and what he was doing with Scally from the very beginning of his tenure with us. Yeah I’m familiar with his time at Southampton and Tottenham and enthusiastic about the potential to map those structures onto our players, but I don’t worship at the alter of Poch and I thought Gregg did very well in 02 and we have good players and the best depth we’ve ever had var none (sone of this because Poch has a good eye) and other managers could have also been a good fit. Anyway, this may help clarify for some what Poch has been trying to do with us and what the final form might be like:
But but but why was Poch and his staff scouting all of the MLS playoffs games? /s I have been following your point and completely agree. The idea that he was just mailing it in because he wasn’t calling in the guys the people want, was asinine in and of itself. What people aren’t understanding is that I feel like he put his pride aside of winning a few friendlies to build competition, culture, and depth within the pool. The most funny part now is the goal post moving some are doing as he’s getting more results, even with guys who will likely not be starters in the WC. “Paraguay isn’t that good anyway”, “his selections still suck”, etc. etc. On paper Poch is the best manager the US has ever had (he’s getting paid like it too rightfully), and he also has the potential to be the best in the field too. All he has to do is win a QF game right?
I'm pretty sure he would have had about 20 by now, including Tottenham, Wolves, West Ham, Forest, Brentford, Southampton and Leicester.
I mean I think we all overate the impact of the coach. Not that a coach makes zero difference but the biggest input is always going to be the caliber of the player pool which is much harder to change in the short term. And tournament soccer itself has a great deal of luck and variance. Arena did a great job in 2002 but we also had the breaks go our way. And the team put itself in a position to take advantage of that but there’s a lot of that factor in any tournament for pretty much any team. The flipside is we also failed to qualify for the World Cup under Arena and while I think that also had a lot to do with where our player pool was at the time and some bad luck I don’t think it was because he suddenly became a worse coach (not to say there weren’t better coaching moves he could have made). But once you get a basic level of competence as a coach internationally it’s a very marginal difference you are going to get out of a better coach. And that’s putting aside the transition costs of a club coach adjusting to the coaching internationally for the first time.
Any team who wanted to hire him would also have had to pay Chelsea a substantial fee while they were willing to waive that to let him go coach for us.
I am still not convinced Pochettino is "driven" to see the Nats reach their peak performance in the way that we might hope a manager for a home WC would be, and that's not because he makes some odd roster decisions. Maybe it doesn't matter. Getting a largely professional job from him might be better than getting full personal investment from someone else. Jury is out until next summer. He has a great club pedigree, but it is not clear at all that his "player improvement" rep can translate to the international scene with so few training and game opportunities. It seems odd to argue against his apparent "switch" to a back three as a real thing, since that would take off the board one of the most direct pieces of evidence, we have that he is thinking specifically about how to get the best performance from this pool. Maybe I misunderstand that point. I'm also not sure that implementing ten-year old tactics is an endorsement in soccer, but maybe international teams are ten years behind clubs. After a series of crappy results and performances, the team has had a series of decent, positive ones (not great ones, but the right direction). It's hard to know how much credit goes to Poch, but he has certainly gotten a good look at the full range of players (maybe save post- injury Jedi and that's not Poch's fault) he has available. He has preferred that approach over getting the presumed core reps together, which seems odd to me, but if he finds a balance among workers and creators as a result, we will see why he knows a lot more than I do. The draw is coming quickly. It will be very interesting to see how much emphasis Poch's puts on the specific opponents the US will play in his roster construction and tactics. Not that this will be simple to discern, but I trust the resources of BS to suss it out.
Damning with faint/feigned praise. Those jobs barring Spurs (arguably) are well beneath a zillion dollar coach.
I don't think anyone is arguing that we are necessarily getting an above and beyond level of effort. But there's really no evidence that he isn't doing a professional job. And because most high level managers and players -- and he's both -- are highly self-motivated to perform, I don't really see why we'd question the effort until we see real counter-evidence. Most of the things that people point to seem either to be a cultural dynamic (like lack of direct communication with the players) or frankly misplaced emphasis or evaluation (in person scouting is both, amazingly), and not necessarily indicative of effort. There's just a lot of people spent a lot of time basically saying because he called in X or didn't call in Y, he clearly hasn't bothered to learn the pool, etc. So that's the argument you are seeing. Well, for one, while we have actually played a back three against Japan and part of South Korea, we have not played a back three since, I don't think, and we didn't play a back three on Saturday. What we played -- and what we have mostly played since day one with Pochettino -- is a nominative back four where one fullback often stays back in the build up to provide three across the back during early build up. This is somewhat all semantics. Coaches will say it's a back four because it's a back four in defense. We weren't in a set defense very often on Saturday, but when we were, Arfsten was back on the left and Scally was in the RB position. And we've been doing this quite a bit. For example, Scally was more aggressive offensively in the first half on Saturday than he was in March against Panama -- that was more a "back three" than this was even offensively. So it clearly can't have been THE adjustment. Does this mean Pochettino hasn't made adjustments tactically? Of course not! For example, cover for Arfsten. There's a thing that Max is a great WB but not a great FB and a switch to a back three fixed that. Except that when Max got roasted in his first couple of games ... our RB was staying home at that time much more than Scally did yesterday. Granted, it was Nathan Harriel in the Switzerland game, but he stayed home. Pochettino has made adjustments here. Or maybe the players behind Arfsten have made adjustments -- but as guys like Roldan have gotten more time and everyone has played together, the cover for Arfsten has improved. If people recall, the first game Roldan played, he and Arfsten had a communication error that led to a good shot ... give them a few games together and that hasn't happened since. I think Arfsten has also improved. The team knows he's going to get forward, but he's being a bit more selective and he was straight out effective in this game tracking back. He's never going to be Jedi defensively. You won't want to leave him on an island. So you don't. How much was a tactical change in terms of instruction and how much was player improvement ... I don't know. But I do know it isn't as simple as "we went three at the back" because we didn't. We are likely providing more tactical cover. With Roldan and Morris, we are definitely providing more personnel-driven cover than say, Berhalter or Busio or a lower energy player. I think a good chunk of credit goes to Pochettino, personally. But I do tend to think the team was in a bad place culturally coming in so I put March into the "we find the problem is deeper than we think" than "Poch should have solved this already." To me, he gets points for: The team he is putting out there is focused and exhibiting consistent effort, something that was lacking. These 4.5 solid to strong performances in a row are the most consistent this team has been in ... forever? And they are friendlies. Players are largely self-motivated but it seems like whatever levers Poch pulled largely worked. The mindset of the team has changed in terms of aggression, risk/reward, etc. Far more than any potential formation change, getting buy in on how they play -- move the ball quickly, move forward, and counter press like hell if you lose -- has changed the team. Finding / Improving talent that fits how he wants to play. It's been funny to watch him call in guys that people hate because of "MLS" or whatever, but generally have very clear common threads to their play and watch those players blossom and improve with a bit of time. He should absolutely get credit for Arfsten, for example. I would also give him a bit of credit for the evolution of the midfield -- which I don't think we've seen finished. But after the first half in South Korea, he implemented a very quick fix, and it's been working better and better to improve the defense. One could argue that it was somewhat lucky, or perhaps late, but I give him credit for finding a fix. Less, for sure. To be clear, I think Poch is a pretty good tactical coach, especially at the international level. But he's right: CULTURE EATS STRATEGY FOR BREAKFAST. At least on a player level. Of course, his culture is his strategy. Interesting question.
In fairness to him, some were injured, some were unavailable due to CWC and he seemed to prioritize sending a message for 1-2 windows per player who he blamed for the March debacle. If what it adds up to is just better performances AND results, I'll take it, but yeah, for a while there I was having massive Berhalter '19 flashbacks. Hoping that's just wrong.
It's never a bad couple of months when you string together 4 straight strong performances against teams that don't suck (or in Japan's case, a backup team of a senior team that doesn't suck).
It’s interesting cause there’s actually going to be quite a few big name club coaches at this World Cup compared to what’s typical (Pochettino, Nagglesmann, Ancelotti, Tuchel, etc).
For the EPL specifically it’s also the case of the big 6 Liverpool and City aren’t coming open and Arsenal isn’t either but even if it did Pochettino could never go there. And of course he was just at Chelsea. That leaves Tottenham and Man United and I don’t think it’s inconceivable he could end up at United post World Cup if they move on from Amorim. I think this is true for someone like Tuchel also and part of why he took the England job. For various reasons a lot of the big jobs aren’t going to be an option in the short term.
I think what is interesting to me is that when I was sort of ranking what I thought Pochettino could bring to the table relative to other coaches, and in terms of how he's traditional won ... I thought there were three things: His teams outwork the opposition and use that to their tactical advantage. His players improve over time. I figured that relative to prior US coaches, there was a good chance he could add value at the more detailed tactical and technique level -- stand here, turn this way, if you see this, move here, etc., but it would be very hard to tell. I suspected that #1 would be a real boon. I don't know that I really understood how much the work rate and the belief / confidence in the players translated to a very clear tactical plan, but I thought that Poch was a pretty good guy to help fix some of the effort issues. I don't know that the tactical advantage has quite manifested itself as much as it looks yet; To count this as a huge win relative to the previous cycle (as opposed to the summer of 2024) I think we need to see better translation of pretty play to goal scoring chances. I was probably more hopeful than most that #2 could be material but definitely concerned that the impact would be small or non-existent because of the time spent. I think it's less detailed player improvement and more of #3 there, but I do think the fact that many of our second tier or lower players seem to be playing up right now is in part due to Pochettino and the staff's work. They either get credit for that or for scouting and player eval. But we're continuing to pile up guys that have clearly become contributors from non-contributors over his year here -- Tillman, Arfsten, Roldan, Freeman, etc. -- and the results we are getting from teams that are hardly full A teams are pretty good. It's still entirely possible we give up a bad goal at the World Cup or simply go out against a better team and in the end, the Poch era will feel bad if the peak is a run of friendlies, but I do think the team is improving and he is bringing value. It's really too bad we're unlikely to keep him past next summer. I feel like the players are definitely learning and I am very concerned about losing some of the cultural aspects he's bringing -- not just the work rate and intensity but the aggression and confidence.
True, but what does that have to do with anything? I thought we were comparing him to Bruce Arena. He's not getting those offers at any point in his life, is he?
The weird thing is, twice in the aughts, the US was basically some competent reffing away from a run to the semifinals or even a final, pending results. In 2002, as we all know, we had a penalty and a red card for Frings denied by an idiot. Do we make the penalty? We don't know, but we'd be playing up a man for 40 minutes probably in a tie game where we'd already been the better side. That would send us to semifinals against a South Korea team we'd tied a few weeks earlier (though we were outplayed), but we'd be down multiple players (on the defense in particular) on yellow card accumulation. Eight years later in 2010, we basically had to chase the game against Slovenia to tie it, and then were denied a clear winner in the final 10 minutes of regulation, and as such we had to exhaust ourselves before finding an injury time winner against Algeria (I think Dempsey was denied a goal in the first half by a ref that might have been corrected by VAR, not sure)...as such we played Ghana exhausted, which was compounded by some terrible lineup decisions from Bradley. This is very much another might have been as we pushed Ghana to extra time, and probably would have won, or had a better chance of winning the match if ref problems hadn't compromised things in the lead up to the Ghana match putting us at a disadvantage. If things go our way, we would then get a surprise opponent in the QF's, instead of a traditional scary world power, though admittedly, Uruguay with Forlan, Cavani and Suarez was plenty scary, they basically were beaten by Ghana if not for dirty play, a Ghana we played heads up....there's little question 2010, in many worlds theory lol, probably presents scenarios where we made a run to the semifinals as well, on the other hand Robert Green probably makes that save in 99 out of 100 worlds, we just live in the right one for us in regards to that, if not Coulibaly etc. Then we'd have gotten a weird Dutch team in the semifinals. History shows that this thing is weird. Nearly every cycle there's at least one team that goes farther than expected, sometimes more than one, Qatar, Brazil, South Africa, and South Korea/Japan all featured these oddities (the UEFA hosted WC's tend to go more by the numbers), sometimes depth doesn't really matter if you've got some luck on your side (see Morocco and Croatia in '2022 as well), and perform well in key moments. We had those opportunities in 2002, and 2010 despite not being close to a top 5-10 team in the world, and because of that we were able to make the Confed Cup Final and nearly win it the year before, and come within some bad ref decisions (in the group stage) as potentially beating Ghana and making a run to the QF's and maybe beyond in ''10. We don't have the depth, or the top end talent to suggest we are a semifinalist, or finalist caliber team, but that doesn't matter once a tournament kicks off and players step on the field. Weird ---- happens, weird results play out, and moments are presented that if you can grab them, offer a chance to make miracle runs like South Korea and Turkey in 2002, Uruguay in 2010, Costa Rica in 2014, Morocco and Croatia in 2022. That's why I'll be paying special attention to the draw, because part of this story always connects to how the bracket is layed out and your luck in the draw, quite often brackets are distorted, presenting a path that is one sided that you can take advantage of. UEFA hosted WC's usually go some version of by the numbers, but this is a new layout (48 etc), and it's not in UEFA, opportunities could present themselves, hopefully we get such opportunities and take advantage of them.
The reality is this quality run is 3 games, not really 4 (that Japan team was basically like our Gold Cup sides, still a professional side, but not Japan, credit for the result and performance, but need to acknowledge that we beat much more sorted sides in Paraguay and Australia, and tied a more analogous Ecuador, even if it wasn't quite their best XI (sounds like it was like 7 or 8 out of 11, and multiple big dogs missing). I'm excited, but in the end it's really 1.5 windows, pending the Uruguay game. Not sure how much of Uruguay's A side we'll see either.
I was at the S Korea game and I think it all turned around there. The team played hard and had a bunch of good shots that were unlucky - crossbar or post or stopped by the keeper making a few really good saves. I do think Roldan has made a difference but it was night and day the moment Balogun replaced Sargent. Almost instantly Korea was worried about him and he was all over the place causing havoc. He's done a lot of that since then too and the team would not look like they have without him. Pepi isn't up to where Balogun is but I hope by later in this season he's fully back and we have two chaos causing forwards that can score. I agree that it sure seems everyone has gotten the message that if you don't put in a ton of effort and running you won't get called back in. I feel I'm stupidly optimistic because as all of you are also I've watched the team along time and we always pretty much disappoint. I am crossing my fingers we don't get the level of reffing crew we got in the last game and a few of the other recent ones.
Making the final is pretty hard if you don’t have the talent but lots of teams punch above their weight all the time and make a semifinal of a World Cup. You’ve got 8 teams who have won the World Cup, 13 who have made the final, and 24 who have made a semifinal. But for a team in our talent level would require alot of luck for a number of guys to hit the top range of their form over the course of the tournament. But not impossible.
Poch is clearly a coaching genius for unearthing unknown/hidden American talents that are now leading the USMNT to victory, like Folarin Balogun and Gio Reyna
Offensively you are right on Balogun. Defensively, we gave up goals because we weren't applying pressure and weren't moving aggressively anywhere, but especially in the midfield. Poch had Roldan applying pressure up top, then getting back, covering left and right. After that, he went to much more of an all action midfield with guys all over the place and the defense has been much better since. I don't think Roldan fixed it so much that Roldan was willing to play the role and style that was going to fix it.
I think what history shows, is that in non-UEFA hosted tournaments, there's a darn good chance an upstart can make the Semifinals. History also shows that its nearly impossible to be outside of the worlds elite, and make or even win a Final. Essentially over the past nearly 80 years, there have been no surprises at the WC Final level other than certain teams considered powers, but never appearing, finally making it. '50 is the last dance for Uruguay. After that as the WC slowly evolves into the modern version, they essentially disappear into a QF at best side for the next 75 years. After that it's basically: Germany Italy France Spain England Netherlands + Brazil and Argentina The only exceptions to that trend line would be Czechoslovakia who made it in '62 (and to illustrate it wasn't an aberration, they've got two Euro Finals in the past 60 years, with 1 title, and another 3 semifinal appearances. Sweden also gets an honorable mention, as does Croatia (I often wonder if Yugoslavia would have won the WC if they could have gotten along: the fact that they fractured into nearly half a dozen pieces, and nearly all of them have qualified for Euro's and WC's, and they've often gone on runs suggests just how talented the former territory of Yugoslavia has been collectively from 1992-2024 and beyond). Anyway, my point is, once you reach the semifinals, Cinderella's slipper usually loses it magic. It's almost always the same old same old European elite, and 2 powers out of Conmebol, but a trip to the semifinals? That's something that's possible, maybe some day. Hopefully in my lifetime and while I still have all my faculties (maybe 8-10 more WC's total if I'm fortunate). Wow, it's weird to think about, I've lived from West Germany vs Cruyff (well, 2nd trimester anyway) and the Netherlands through Messi and Argentina vs Mbappe and France, 13 World Cup's, and I've maybe, if I live long enough, those 8-10. Very humbling.
I’m sure this mini trend will be highly featured in FIFA’s technical report. Everything in sports is so copycat, if those nations collectively overachieve, the profession might look different a year from now. You know, in Football Manager you can coach both, so maybe we’ll keep Poch on but let him coach Marseille or Roma on the side.
You are 100% correct. In fact most modern (2010 on) 4-2-3-1 plays some variant of strong side FB high/ weak side FB low. The variants tend to be how high/how low and do you pully both FBs or only one.
Good point about Sarge, and the strikers. We’ve looked good with Flo, and also I thought Agyemang’s player profile lifted the team. Sarge right now is well, well below the rest of the striker pack. Any word on Dike? With a 26 man squad, he’d be a fine option for Hail Mary crosses at the end of a match.