Yep. He got a few minutes at the end. Interestingly, Ramos played the whole game at attacking midfielder and Vanney came on in the 85th at striker. The 3-1 victory gets them to the semifinals of the Concacaf U20 championships, but more importantly qualifies the US for the U20 World Cup in 2027. U-20 World Cup AND semifinals bound! 🎟️⚽️ @Concacaf U-20 Championship pic.twitter.com/XerbZlKRmQ— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) August 5, 2026
Bob Bradley was also at the start of his second cycle when he was fired, I think after losing the Gold Cup Final to Mexico.
Well I’m a statistician by trade and by heart so a sample size of 4 doesn’t mean much to me. If a coin lands tails 4 times in a row it doesn’t mean it is more likely to land tails next time. There is a second confounding variable that would explain why we would tend to see drop offs in the 2nd iteration when NT coaches are retained - coaches are usually only retained when they had an unusually good outcome the first go round. So no matter who is coaching the next cycle, we would expect some drop off due to regression to the mean. Of course, none of the above means retaining a coach is a good idea. I just think we need stronger arguments than the outcomes from a sample size of 4. (The same way I don’t think Vanney’s sample size of 2 titles prove he has some “secret championship sauce.”) Especially when we are talking about NT coaches who may differ significantly in ability and style. For example, for some coaches 2 cycles might be a terrible idea (rah-rah motivators, for example), while for others the greater time with the players and program might be exactly what they need to build a culture and playing style that ultimately will be successful. In any case, we will find out over the next few years whether this retention works or not.
Why is it an issue to be limited to a small cadry of people based on who is likely to accept less salary wise? That’s what I was meaning at least. I sort of figured that was self explanatory. And no, I don’t think either of the two you mentioned are any better than Poch though if we were limited to only those options I’d be fine with either. I just don’t want to be constantly limited by the same old same old. If the USSF is truly serious about elevating the program to a world wide contender they need to go after top of the line personnel. That includes potentially eligible players, coaching and management staff, support staff, etc. What I do know for certain is that we are not going to be able to attract a top men’s coach for the salary the USSF is paying Emma Hayes who is probably one of the top managers in the world on the female side. It’s just not going to happen.
Top of the line personnel historically have not wanted the job. And I’m a little leery of Poch’s inability to react to when things went not so great. If the two I mentioned are equivalent to Poch then we are overpaying. And that is my fear. They are also both proven winners with international experience. Not like we would be choosing from two meh coaches in MLS. Fundamentally my main issue: Poch hasn’t proven out his ROI. In fact, it’s currently negative. No trophies…same finish.
I generally agree with you... Except that I witnessed firsthand the greatest half of USMNT soccer ever IMO vs Paraguay at the World Cup. That matters, the victories vs Australia and Bosnia matter, if we needed a result vs Turkiye I'm sure we would have gotten one too. Orange Man and Papa FIFA ruined the tournament for the men's team, and I'm sure Poch was as befuddled as we all were at the inability of the USMNT to rise to the occasion vs Belgium. I for one am excited to see what he can build over the next cycle, I just hope he doesn't get poached and makes it to WC 2030!
Ramos and Vanney both in the starting lineup for the USYNT U20s in the semifinals of the Concacaf U20 Championships Your #U19MNT Starting XI taking on Costa Rica in the U-20 semifinals! 🫡⚽️ @Concacaf U-20 Championship pic.twitter.com/7iJkBN7jq4— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) August 7, 2026
Ramos opens the scoring with a long-range shot that takes a deflection or appears to fool the goalkeeper RUBEN RAMOS GETS US GOIN’! 🔥Banger at the Azteca 👏 pic.twitter.com/zyTqoHy3Yc— U.S. Soccer YNT (@USYNT) August 7, 2026
Im not sure if top of the line personnel wouldn’t want to coach the US if we were actively perusing them and perhaps willing to over pay to get them to commit to what is a very average program on the global stage. I also think we fundamentally disagree on whether our World Cup performance was acceptable or not. Also we disagree on Poch. I would take Poch over both Chreundolo who is an unproven manager anywhere outside MLS and Nancy, who I think is a promising coach but also has not really had much success anywhere outside MLS. I do get your point. We just don’t agree on it.
Poch had barely half a cycle. Name me any coach that did well with barely half a cycle...if that. Especially when he didn't have as many competitive games as he could have had (as in Competitive games away in CONCACAF at least, which really are unique). I wasn't really commenting here during the WC, but my biggest issue, and I'm not sure its Poch's fault, but he could have tried to at least put a stop to it, was the Teams mentality after the Bosnia game. Yes politics and FIFA reared its ugly head and it might have affected the team, but that's not enough of an excuse for me. The biggest problem was the Media tour. The overall mentality. Prior to the Belgium Game we had guys calling into Late night shows, doing personal appearances during the knockout stages of a tournament. They were actling like they already won something Like what. THAT is what destroyed us. If we had lost against Belgium 2-1 in a hard fought encounter I think nobody would have had the same reaction. Instead our boys were completely flat footed the entire match. They were rattled too easily. The US Team should have had their protective barrier walls up about ALL media, only making the official pre-game post game appearances anyone normally does.
That’s fine. I think you rate “outside MLS” more than I do. I am a fan of a positive ROI. Nancy took a dumpster fire to an MLS Cup and almost won CCL - should have to be honest. Felled by good old stomach virus. Cherundolo will get a shot with the Olympic team. I really like that - see what he can do. If you want to say the cycle hasn’t been long enough I’m ok with that. The results of the last year freaked me out. Then two good games. Then a weird exit to Belgium where the line up cried for Luna/another CM. There are some funky decisions in there and subs were odd. Hopefully longer time will yield results! I’m finally back watching this team with gusto.
I think Poch changed the culture around the team in a good way. When he came in it seemed like a few players were running the show and deciding for themselves when they were going to play or not play. Greg let it go too far. I don't think the powers to be at US Soccer have any better ideas than Poch, they seem pretty clueless about the players, so maybe this is the best outcome.
I'm not judging Pochettino solely on whether or not he won those trophies; you claimed Pochettino had a "long history of success" and I correctly pointed out he in fact does NOT, at least in terms of winning actual titles. That includes leagues, tournaments and actual title matches played with the USMNT. So what does Soccernomics say about overpaying for a coach that's won nothing, including with the team you're bringing him back to coach? To your point, losing tournaments doesn't tell the whole story. So why don't we talk about defense, which you (correctly) critique Vanney for: in Pochettino's 8 games against European teams, he has a 1-7-0 record; conceding 22 goals. 22 goals in 8 games. And the 1 win was against Bosnia, who were at the time ranked below Saudi Arabia. Other than that, he can't even manage to tie a decent squad. And this is my issue with overpaying a big name coach; as a kneejerk you have defended his (bad) record with the USMNT and even attributed to him success he didn't have, just because he's a big name. And unfortunately that's how he'll be evaluated both internally and externally. He'll get more of a benefit of the doubt and less scrutiny than Berhalter did, who had better results because they think he's cooking up some kind of magic sauce. But generally big name club coaches don't transition to NTs well.
Can you name 10 NT winning coaches? NT coaches across the board get paid way less than club coaches; it's generally not a position where you shop for the biggest name on the market. The achieving NT coaches have been insiders, entrenched with the youth national teams or the domestic league: Deschamps, Scaloni, Southgate, de la Fuente. Zlatko Dalic never coached outside Croatian League and lead Croatia to back-to-back 2nd and 3rd place finishes. England "upgraded" to a superstar coach with Tuchel and got eliminated in the same spot, albeit against a poorer team and with one of the most baffling coaching decisions leading directly to a loss I've ever seen. NT coaching is more about vibes than resume. It's a case where familiarity and proximity to the culture are a benefit; no NT has won with a foreign coach. I'd take an enterprising and accomplished domestic-oriented coach that really wants the job over a big foreign name.
MP9: “as a kneejerk you have defended his (bad) record with the USMNT and even attributed to him success he didn't have, just because he's a big name” I’m all for debating the merits of rehiring Poch. It’s a topic with valid points to be made - pro and con. But what I don’t appreciate is you remarks disparaging my pov. I have never made light of your reasoning process - I would appreciate the same courtesy. So let’s focus on soccer - starting with whether Poch has had a “successful career.” 1/2009->5/2012 at Español: Hired with team 3rd from bottom flirting with relegation, took them to a mid table finish. Got first win vs Barca in 27 years. 09->10, 10->11 also were comfortable finishes for the club. Poor start in 11->12 and was fired in Dec. Note Poch was the teams longest tenured coach since Camacho in 93->96. 13->14, Southampton: From wikipedia — “In his first full season at Southampton, Pochettino led the team to an eighth-place finish, their highest league position since 2002–03, while also recording their highest points tally since the Premier League began in 1992–93.“ 14->18, Tottenham: 14->15, Finished 5th in PL. Next year finished 3rd, the clubs best finish since 1990 but criticized because the last 2 game losses cost them 1st. (Fans can’t resist creating narratives out of n=2 games that have random components built in.) The next season finished 2nd, highest club finish since 1963 and were unbeaten at home for 1st time since 1964. May 2019 led club to first ever Champions League Final. Next year started off terribly, was fired in Nov bc team was in 14th place. Second time Poch after string of great seasons at club fired midseason because of terrible start. 1/21->7-22: PSG. Hired halfway through 20-21 season, came in 2nd in Ligue 1, eliminated in qf of CL by Man City. 21-22 won Ligue 1 title. 23-24, Chelsea: Finished 6th in EPL, fired. This is long so I will stop here before US tenure. Without looking in detail some will be disappointed in US tenure because of rough friendlies record and because of poor performance against Belgium in WC. Others will judge him primarily by the meaningful games of WC and point to out overall energized and aggressive style of play and our record # of WC goals scored. But I think two things are true of his European career. First, and foremost in my eyes, he had enormous regular season success with the very best clubs in Europe, taking several to heights they had never reached before. Second, he only won one title, a fact which has tarnished his record. Note however that no team he ever coached was expected to win the the EPL, La Liga or CL, except possibly PSG, where he did win at least one title. Taking a team expected to finish say 5th to just missing 1st - is that a failure or a success. In my eyes it’s the latter. Because as you guys know I place less evaluative weight on outcomes that are determined by the results of a couple games. This is literally true — with Tottenham he was only three wins from winning both the EPL and the Champions League! I challenge anyone to compare that resume to Cherundalo or Nancy. Both of whom I like, btw.
Nancy has a title and nearly a confederations trophy - placed second. Different league. But it is comparable. Cherundolo also has a trophy. You can call that one and done fine. But Nancy’s success in CCL means he’s not a one trick pony. I can’t compare him to another league because his next club gave him something like eight games which is ridiculous. They are both starting their careers trying to coach in Europe. Hard to blame them - Poch gets the benefit of the doubt due to his pedigree. Well earned pedigree, but it is a benefit of doubt. Cherundolo won’t get the chance for several years @skydog - he has to overcome the fact he’s American. LAFC was purchased but was still an expansion side. The Crew were a hot mess. Let’s not call their success accidental. Fine with Poch’s club success. I haven’t seen it translate to the National Team. We have zero trophies. And the “rough” friendlies…Listen we can lose - ish happens. But you just have to look back in this thread to see how alarmed we were. The team looked awful for months on end. To the point where I’m wondering if success came from a starting XI that gelled - and Poch had no ideas after the starting XI tactics. That’s why I’m so fixated on return on investment. For his pay he needs to elevate the team. And one half against Paraguay doesn’t cut it for me. The time argument I can get behind. But if we continue to kinda hobble over the next year and still have nothing to show for more money? I get cranky. Could care less about a comparison to Gregg except for the fact he did earn hardware. I’ll never forgive him for the Copa though. Not his fault Weah earned a red card but still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Im guessing you mean winning national team coaches from outside rather than from within? There are tons. Some with extensive CVs some not. Some did consequential things some didn’t. Or is that the point the point you are implying?Anyway, I’ll let it drop after this. I didn’t quote your whole post but I read it. I won’t argue it much but we do disagree on certain things. The program has basically stagnated for 20 plus years with us drawing exclusively from domestic or near domestic options like Klinnsman. I don’t know if I am overvaluing anoutsider with a solid CV as much as I am realizing a new direction is probably needed. I don’t know at this point if that is Poch or not but I strongly believe US Soccer needs to chase him and others like him. And they will want more money both due to their experience and the fact that the USSF is not anyone’s dream job which further inflates what they want. Parts of the current CBA present issue to meeting those demands. We had a weird financial arrangement with Poch for his first contract and will likely see that again here. Which suggests to me it was him or the domestic route. And again I think you need to let our new direction/culture/ vibes ride rather than go back to the same old well.
It was really harsh to fire Bradley for that really. We now know that Gulati was looking for any excuse to bring in Klinsmann. I don't think the two cycle thing is a big deal. I think all those extensions made sense at the time. Klinsmann's was probably the most questionable, but it was given even before the 2014 World Cup.
Good write-up. I followed Poch's career fairly closely since I follow the PL and UCL fairly regularly. My reasoning is not that Poch is a bad coach; he obviously isn't. BUT : 1) I still think people are overrating him and his NT performance based on his resume 2) I don't believe club resumes translate to NT success in general For point 1: I don't share your view that you can't assess coaches by tournament success. Having said that, Tottenham lost their UCL Final in one of the unluckiest ways possible! In the first 10 minutes of the final a penalty was awarded against them when a ball was crossed into Sissoko's armpit while he was pointing at another defender. But either way, I think Poch was obviously seen as a bit of a rising star at that time. While he did well at PSG, he would've also been seen as not meeting their expectations and the Chelsea situation was just difficult; not a failure on his part. But I don't think he reached the heights of truly elite coaches many thought he would while he was at Tottenham. It's partially a red flag for me for an ambitious coach on the cusp of becoming elite in Europe to take a NT job. It would be like Mbappe coming to MLS next season. Either he's given up on those aspirations or doesn't have serious interest from a truly elite European club. It's also possible he was truly attracted to the US project and was willing to forgo the money and prestige of Europe to coach the US -- but then why field offers from clubs, then? Pochettino's results were worse than Berhalter's, despite having a better team and the benefit of playing at home. Berhalter won 2 Nations Leagues and 1 Gold Cup. In the World Cup he tied England (ranked 5th) and Wales (19) and beat Iran (20) and lost to Netherlands (8). All the teams he faced were in the Top 20. Pochettino, with a better and more experienced squad lost Nations League and the Gold Cup. In the World Cup playing at home, he only beat teams OUTSIDE the Top 20 and LOST to those within the Top 20: Paraguay (41), Australia (27), and Bosnia (64). He lost to Turyike (22) and Belgium (9). Remember, Berhalter was also dealing with Gio Reyna going rogue behind the scenes. And after those results, they hired a whole consulting team to determine if the guy should come back. After Pochettino's results -- they ran to him with a money bag. For point 2: I have not observed NTs achieve in international competitions by hiring successful club coaches. Most successful NT coaches are relative nobodies. The last 5 winners: de la Fuente (Spain): Coached Bilbao's 2nd team, but spent most of his career with Spanish youth teams before coaching Spain. Scaloni (Argentina): Coached Argentina U20s before taking Argentina job. No club experience. Deschamps (France): One of the most decorated on this list, had success with big clubs in France and Italy before taking the France job. Low (Germany): Won a few league cups in Austria and Turkey before taking the Germany job. del Bosque (Spain): Won titles with Real Madrid in the early 2000s, but was coaching Besiktas when he took the Spain job. What about other teams that out-performed expectations: Morocco made it to the semis of the World Cup in 2022 and an AFCON Final lead by a coach who never coached outside of Morocco and Qatar. They made the QFs of this World Cup with a coach who was entrenched with the youth teams and before that was an assistant coach at Anderlecht. Croatia made back-to-back 2nd and 3rd place finishes at the World Cup with a coach who never coached outside Croatia. England made it to the semis in 2018 and 2 Euro Finals with a coach from the England youth teams and before that had a small stint at Middlesbrough. Belgium finished third under Roberto Martinez, whose biggest accomplish before that was an FA Cup win with Wigan (actually that's pretty impressive!) Costa Rica made the QF in 2014, winning their group, tying England and defeating Italy, Uruguay and Greece along the way. Jorge Luis Pinto. His biggest prior achievement was winning the Costa Rican league with Alajualense. United States: Defeated Spain and reached a Confederations Cup final, then went on to win a World Cup group with England in it then next year. Coached by Bradley, whose biggest accomplishment was winning MLS Cup with Chicago Fire. Also, the US made the QF of a World Cup under a coach who'd never coached outside the US.
On the flipside, how have big club coaches actually done in the World Cup? Capello (England): Won titles with Milan, Madrid, Roma and Juventus before coaching England in the 2010 World Cup. Came 2nd in a group with US, Algeria and Slovenia, get pounded by Germany in the R16. Tuchel (England): Eliminated in the semis of the 2026WC, matching Southgate's 2018 performance, after collapsing terribly against Argentina and conceding 2 goals after the 85th minute. The collapse was directly a cause of Tuchel's game management; I have never seen a clearer case of a manager throwing a game away in a World Cup. Subs off his goal scorer and only vertical threat and decides to park the bus at the 72nd minute. Ancelotti (Brazil): The best Champions League coach of all-time (5x titles) lost to Norway in the R16. First time Brazil failed to reach the quarters since 1990.
Gus Hiddink took the South Korean team to a 3rd place finish in the not so distant past. No prior international experience or domestic knowledge. Just an extensive club CV. He then also managed a winning record with Australia, Russia, Turkey and Curaçao though he didn’t manage to replicate another semifinal appearance. I don’t think your argument is as cut and dry as you’re making it seem. And also I don’t get the anti Tuechel sentiment. Not just from you. It’s pretty common even amongst friends of mine. But he managed a 3rd place finish at a world cup and has maintained a winning record during his tenure. I get some of his decisions were odd and his decision to try to bunker to grind out results ultimately didn’t work in the end but isnt 3rd England’s best finish since they won at home in 66? It’s always tough to meet the expectations of English fans though.
I can't be the only one who thinks that didn't cross the line, and of course the standard of "overturn" is clear and obvious when the camera angles you have suck. ok better angle but it was a handball regardless.