Next manager after Poch

As far as who is making these decisions? Who knows?
Perhaps they'd been working on the identity of the Olympic coach before Crocker left for greener pastures. This is a hire that makes a lot of sense. Cherundolo is a great "get" for this kind of part-time job. I thought left LAFC in order to move back to Germany...................???? Perhaps the job offers didn't materialize there like he hoped?

While we don't have a Sporting Director, there are plenty of folks at the USSF who can finish this off. Onyewu, for instance.

 

Well played

 

After reading comments from numerous sources like espn and bbc, it seems that the USMNT was poorly coached by Poch compared to the Belgian coach. I hope Pochettino returns to club coaching in Europe. Pellegrino Matarazzo, an American who grew up in NJ and played for Columbia U. before professionally playing in Germany should be first on the list, amd has expressed a desire to coach the U.S.

 

Do you have any links for that? I've been saying he was out coached, and no one has agreed. I'd like some confirmation for my bias.

That said, if we re-sign Poch, I'm ok with that. I think it would be difficult for us to do better. That said, I'd be ok with BJC, too.

 

I'm always good with BJs buh-da-da-dum-de-dum.

 

You really think so? I don't. But if true (not that there's anything wrong with an American coach) that's sad.

 

That is pure nonsense. Start with the fact that LAFC missed the playoffs in 21 which was the reason for the parting of ways between LAFC and Bradley.

LAFC was one of the top squads in MLS during Dolo's tenure.

 

I do. I don't really have any inside info, but I do know there's a large group of USSF insiders who at best parrot the idea that a foreign coach can't understand the US player and pool, or think it simply should be a US coach for a US team, or at worst, well, you know.

I mean, you really don't need to go far to see a decent number of former players still supporting Marsch -- didn't Howard tweet like less than a month ago he thought Marsch should be coach?

I also think there's decent overlap with the group that simply thinks we can't play this way or we need to be grittier and more like the older players.

Former players make up a huge portion of the USSF voting bloc now, and many of these American coaches are their former teammates and friends. And just as important, these guys are like them -- it's grit and their personal incredible character that got them through. Think all of Lalas' tattooed millionaire crap -- he in large part believes this stuff because of what it means for his self-image. Lexi wasn't talented; he got where he got because he's a better person than you.

So much of our former player base seems very invested in proving out why their style or way was better.

I don't know how much support there is, but it's not a company, it's a very messy set of associations with lots of politics. I guarantee there's some.

It's also worth noting USSF is constantly yo-yoing. Arena and Berhalter were clear reactions to Klinsmann's bullshit. Pochettino is different, but the will to go big was almost certainly in some reaction to going domestic.

Despite the absolute shitter of a game, I think we need to maintain forward momentum. I don't know if that's Pochettino. It's not necessarily NOT a domestic coach.

But what I don't want is someone hired because they have the best resume of a domestic coach or because there's a lot of former teammates and associates in US Soccer and we suddenly shift the entire direction of the style of play for a coach who won't be around after 4 years.

 

I looked at the articles in multiple sources again and you’re right; the blame for a team playing like the USMNT against Belgium is hardly due to the coaching and likely to be due to the individual or collected players’ lack of adapting to the opposing team’s defense and offense. WIth the USMNT playing so poorly why didn’t Poch at least try and change up their play? Maybe it was just not possible.

 

No, bro, I’m saying we were outcoached. Belgium knew where the weak spots in our press were and they knew where we were going to pass the ball before we did. Poch got done.

 

Lets pretend that is true. What exactly should Poch have done?

 

I think any discussion about tactics in the Belgium game--and anything else Poch did--is pretty much impossible to have when the players, individually and collectively, played so, so incredibly poorly for nearly every minute of the game. If they hadn't all had such a stinker, then we'd be able to discuss tactics. But given how the guys played, it seems like a moot point.

 

There is the case sometimes where the tactics are what makes the players look really bad. However, I remember thinking we looked absolutely terrible right from the kickoff.. within the first minute. Hard to call that a tactical issue when that sort of thing takes at least a little while to manifest.

 

It wouldn't be difficult to do better. International management is mostly club director work and only partly coaching.

 

Poch's record vs--

the elo Top-20: 1W0D6L
Mexico and Canada: 0W0D3L

He finished 4th in Nations League
He got outcoached and the team embarrased in the round of 16 2026 WC

 

I wouldn’t blame anybody if we re-hired Poch. I would understand it. It wouldn’t be the worst.

We would have to pay him more and give him more power. We saw how that worked for the 2018 cycle.

What I would honestly prefer to happen is that Poch goes away back to Europe and we hire someone for a full four-year cycle.

I don’t care, pick your man. American or otherwise. 4 years from the start.

We have literally never done this even though it makes the most sense for the national team.

There’s always the one or two years of interim manager slash purgatory period. Or, we keep the current manager into the next cycle and he quits or gets fired halfway through. And if that happens, see the first sentence of this paragraph.

 

They looked nervous and scared. Couldn’t remember a game where a team was like that. Garcia made the right choices with that lineup and plan though.

 

To be fair, he didn't exactly take over a winning machine when he was hired. I want a new manager for this cycle, but am appreciative of his contributions.

 

He pulled Dest and had Afams dropping between the CBs as the 3rd member if the backine in position instead of Fresman who pushed higher & wider like Jedi on the left..

And it worked, too. We were decidely on the front foot until Freese's blunder. Though Onana getting hurt also helped.

 

Poch isn’t to blame for Ream ball watching, Richards giving the ball to Lukaku or Freese handing Belgium a free goal. They doubled up on the right and still got beat.

fundamentally, there wasn’t any other tactic that’s going to make up for brain dead and lazy play from your defense

 

And given how they did against Türkiye, I don’t either

 

I’d love to retain Poch if we could, but assume we can’t. The reason I’d love to retain him is that by my eye we achieved levels of play this summer that I have never seen before for the USMNT. We looked, for a stretch of 5 or 6 games, like a team capable of winning multiple ways, including playing really beautiful football when the situation called for it. I dread a return to the horseshoe of sadness and aiming to eek out ties and 1-goal wins in the group stages.

I do not ascribe the Belgium disaster mainly to Poch. Weaknesses in our last lines of defense was always going to be exposed eventually by good teams. Nor can the suddenly epidemic of bad touches and bad decisions be chalked up mostly to tactics, IMO.

 

If we weren't hosting, I would actually think the hire would indicate that Cherundolo was less likely to be considered for the main team spot. It's just not a tournament that we've taken that seriously lately. Having it in the US makes this spot more important, certainly.

But FIFA also seems to want to deemphasize the men's side, cutting the tournament back to 12 teams.

Who knows what the Men's Olympics will look like in two years.

 

Surprised he haan't been able to patch onto some 2 or 3 Bundesliga team