Maybe he does think he's doing a bad job. But his job is far more than just the USMNT. As a person with no twitter account who thinks the whole thing is pretty unhealthy for both individuals and society as a whole, I view him deleting it as a good thing.
I mean not that he’s blameless but Couva really was such a freak thing. Both goals we gave up that night and the other results going the wrong way after some very clearly wrong calls by the ref. It was sort of the perfect storm. The irony is if that doesn’t happen Sunil Gulati is still running USSF most likely and decent chance Arena gets the 22 cycle. And very possible he doesn’t recruit guys like Dest, Musah, or Tillman. He’s also probably a bit slower on the youth movement compared to Berhalter.
With Bruce in charge Malik Tillman would be with San Diego FC right now playing alongside Oscar Verhoeven Wagner out of the running 🚨🏁 Now official: David #Wagner, the new Head of the Youth Academy at RB Leipzig! The 53 y/o succeeds Manuel Baum and will join Leipzig from 1 July.Strongly wanted by Jürgen Klopp.Our news, now confirmed. ✔️🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/CIYvimOu8K— Florian Plettenberg (@Plettigoal) June 13, 2025 Marsch also out of the running Jesse Marsch watched the USMNT and basically said “Couldn’t be me” 😅@JillianSakovits raised a good question: Would this team hit differently with him at the helm? pic.twitter.com/D6noTj8ekv— MLS on Air (@MLSonAir) June 13, 2025
Losing to anyone but Mexico in the Gold Cup final is a failure, that's always been the bar. Poch defines success: Rinaldi: "What would success be a year from now?" Pochettino: "For me, win the World Cup... all is possible in soccer" Rinaldi: "What would success be a year from now?"Pochettino: "For me, win the World Cup... all is possible in soccer"Tom Rinaldi sits down with @USMNT Head Coach Mauricio Pochettino to talk about the 2026 FIFA World Cup 🌎🏆 pic.twitter.com/pmZeSTZVU3— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 14, 2025
The Athletic weighs in on recent developments: “The honeymoon is over and a marriage counsellor is on retainer.” The trouble is that when you watch Poch’s side, it’s not easy to spot a fluent style forming, or dependable patterns of play. To wit: they Americans are no more potent than they were on the day Gregg Berhalter was fired last July.
You think of our last six games. Two camp cupcake games with a domestic roster. The two Nations League games with the "best" healthy roster we could get. Then these two games with domestic guys and Euro fringe that have never played together before. Tyler Adams and Chris Richards probably needed name badges to know who these guys are. They probably saw the call-up sheet and said "Who is Alex Freeman? Who are these people?" If it looks chaotic, because it is chaotic. There has been no consistency in player selection. Part of that is Pochettino, but part of that is just circumstances. And I don't know what to make of it. To this day he's has never worked with some of the core USMNTers and barely has worked with others. Has never been able to use Dest and Balogun in a match, for instance. [I rewatched the World Cup recently, and we forget how damn important Sergino Dest was to the way we played. Beautiful assist on Pulisic's goal against Iran. One could easily argue that Balogun was our best player at Copa America. Goals in 2 of our 3 games. Beautiful goal against Panama. These are not bit players in the program.] There are others. Chris Richards has only started two games under Poch. Tyler Adams has only started 3 of Poch's 10 games. The list goes on. We need some data scientist to describe the roster turnover over Poch's first 10 games in a way that I can understand. I would say that the roster that looked the most like what I'd consider the closest to the A lineup was the Nations League against Jamaica. [Second leg starting XI of Pepi, Pulisic, Weah, Musah, McKennie, Tessmann, Antonee, McKenzie, Ream, Scally, Turner.] We looked good in that window, and we all felt that we were going in the right direction. We had an honest to God forward that could score goals. Pepi scored in both legs. Even then we were missing Adams, Richards, and Dest. We're missing so much of our Best XI right now, that I don't know what it means? Does any of this tell me how Poch will coach the "A" group when the games matter? Our starting XI against T&T will probably be missing 8 of what I consider our "Best XI." [If Adams is indeed out.] What does it mean? I still expect us to stomp T&T. But what does it mean? Pochettino needs to work with the A group at some point in order for me to evaluate him. I'm hopeful that since he has this group for an elongated period, that the quality of play and results will improve. We'll see. But what does it tell me about how he'll coach at the World Cup??
I don't think the 4-2-3-1 fits the players that have been selected. Central midfielders are being forced to play in the wing, which isn't working. 4-1-4-1 or 4-1-3-2 with overlapping fullbacks, or in the latter case, with one of the forwards providing width would work a lot better. But I'm not a coach.
Do we have any idea if Poch is good at comparing talent across numerous teams and leagues and then projecting how those guys will play in a new environment in concert with a different group of players? That’s what a national team needs. That is not the core competency of a European manager. They are not in charge of that. Usually they outline a need for a type of player and then the recruitment staff (under the TD) will find and select the guys who fit. If the manager has a lot of sway they will pick who gets signed from the shortlist. Famously Klopp wanted Brandt for Liverpool and the heavily data guided recruitment team wanted Salah and were able to convince Klopp to sign off. Even with good recruitment teams clubs can still fail if ownership/management screws it up. I suspect Poch and his staff are doing the work. The international game is less work than the club grind. I have no idea if they are competent at the player selection part of the job. If you give Poch the right players he has shown he can be highly competent. However, that’s in an environment where he gets to see the same group train over and over and then validate those observations with regular competitive minutes. With a national team you only get something like that in the sporadic summer tournaments. That means second hand observation and projections become more important. Knowledge is not wisdom. Effort is not execution. You can find someone who knows the ins and outs of the entire pool, who grinds tape, and that person could easily screw up team selection because of a lack of insight and the resulting poor projections they produce. If that person is the manager they could also just not be suited for coaching the team in the style that will tend to produce the best set of results. Poch has shown he can get good results from sub-elite, but still very good squads. A lot of people here and elsewhere have thought that that describes our team. I don’t think we are there in terms of talent. We’re not a Spurs who fell into some great talent but maybe didn’t have the full XI or squad to beat the very best handful of teams in the world. We do not have that kind of pool. We are more like Espanyol than Spurs or a youth rebuild Chelsea. Can he succeed at that?
Pochettino ... On Pulisic's reaction to USMNT staff's decision not to take him to Gold Cup. "Players don't need to understand or not understand [our decision]. They need to listen." "I respect and understand him. I don't need him to understand." Pochettino says he has good communication with Christian and other players. (But he adds he is not going to go all over the world to see every player. That's what his staff is for.) 1934016263015243969 is not a valid tweet id
Poch has never coached a national team and now we are watching him learn. It is not really complicated. We have the talent. Can he build a team to get out of the group? I think so. Can he go much further than that? Too hard to say at this time. The GK situation, the central defenders, those are the biggest question marks. Turner to Lyon is a big piece to the puzzle. If Zach Steffen got a Euro gig that would also help. I lean towards a 3 man backline with McKenzie backing up Richards, but there are a lot of questions and adjustments with that.
“I am the head coach. I am not a mannequin.” “Players don’t need to understand,”Pochettino said in response to Christian Pulisic’s recent comments. "Players need to listen, and to stick with our plan.“I am the head coach. I am not a mannequin.” @FOXSoccer: https://t.co/M8jDwur3ik— Doug McIntyre (@ByDougMcIntyre) June 15, 2025
Your post as a whole was an excellent breakdown of the known unknowns with Poch as a national team manager. On his ability to produce results with teams at our level, he made his bones at Espanyol and Southampton which are comparatively at, or even below our relative level. At both of those clubs the required role of the manager is more than what you described and more importantly analogous to international management; he had to dip into and heavily rely on the academy products already available and work with what he had, rather than providing a shopping list.
What Poch did with that Southampton team was amazing. That summer they were able to convince Liverpool to spend £50 million on Lallana, Lambert and Lovran, Man United to spend £30 million on Luke Shaw, Arsenal to spend £16 million+ on Callum Chambers and Leeds to spend money on Billy Sharp. And they finished in 7th the following season under Ronald Koeman.
To me its just a cultural difference from the previous regime. Berhalter had this "leadership council "of rotating players depending on who was available. One player from that group ended up being captain on gameday. Gregg was more of a player's coach. It was more of a "everybody's opinion matters" environment. Now we have a coach who really isn't saying anything controversial here. At least when you read the entire comments as a whole, and not just the two-sentence soundbite. HE'S THE BOSS. Old school. Players like Pulisic aren't dictating the plan. Pulisic isn't even the captain of the USMNT. And I do think when the boss says this publicly about the most talented player, its definitely sending a message to every player in the pool. Not just the pool or players, but the fans as well. We're not messing about here.
Except that he's calling out his best player *by name* publicly. I doubt that will go over well in the clubhouse. Even a hardo like Belichick almost never called a guy out by name publicly, while still getting his point across. Or, think JJ Redick saying the Lakers needed to get in "championship shape" while not mentioning Doncic specifically. I have no issue with the content, but there are smart ways to get your point across, and others that simply extend controversies. Even Poch's 'I'm not a mannequin' comment would earn him endless mockery in any other professional US sports context.
I mean we hired a new coach to shake things up, change the culture, etc. Of course things were going to be different compared to Berhalter. I’d also point to Berhalter’s recent comments which didn’t get a ton of attention that they had gotten too lax by the end of his tenure and it’s clear that Pochettino is trying to reinstall discipline with the group.