NEW YORK — “Imagine.”
That phrase has over the previous few years change into intently related to America’s most well-known soccer coach, the fictional Ted Lasso of the Apple TV sequence of the identical title. The identical mantra is now the message coming from essentially the most celebrated and completed coach in U.S. males’s nationwide crew historical past.
[RELATED: How Mauricio Pochettino will immediately impact the USMNT]
Mauricio Pochettino was formally unveiled because the USMNT’s new boss at a grand press convention in midtown Manhattan on Friday, and when the previous Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur supervisor was requested what he needs to perform with the Individuals because the nation prepares to co-host the most important sporting occasion the world has ever seen 21 months from now, Pochettino did not try and handle what even essentially the most optimistic U.S. followers would possibly see as an entirely unrealistic expectations.
“We’ve time, and we have to actually imagine in issues, in massive issues,” the 52-year-old Argentine mentioned. “We have to imagine that we will win all of the video games, that we will win the World Cup.”
There’s clearly an enormous distinction between considering you may win the sport’s most coveted trophy and truly doing it — one thing Pochettino little doubt understands in addition to anybody. However he additionally is aware of that to have any kind of success in 2026, his first order of enterprise needs to be restoring the USMNT’s badly shaken confidence.
After turning into the primary Copa América host to be knocked out in group play earlier this summer time, the squad’s self-assurance is at its lowest level because the program’s epic failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. So Pochettino’s instant purpose should be to get his gamers to as soon as once more play with out concern, to imagine that they’ll stand toe-to-toe with any opponent — regardless of which one.
“After all the arrogance was just a little bit low after the Copa América,” Pochettino mentioned. “I feel it is an excellent era of gamers. We have to present that we play like a collective on the pitch.”
That work will start in earnest subsequent month. Pochettino’s first match accountable for the U.S. will come on Oct. 12 in Austin, Texas, the place the Individuals will meet Concacaf rival Panama in a so-called pleasant.
“For me,” Pochettino mentioned, “it isn’t pleasant.”
Attending to not simply know the gamers however to see them in camp, on the coaching area, within the meal room on the resort, will let him and his three-man employees of longtime assistants Jesus Perez, Miguel D’Agostino and Toni Jimenez know precisely the place issues stand. “We’ve a plan, and crucial factor is to really feel how they’re on the sector collectively,” Pochettino mentioned. “[The players] can specific themselves, how they see the crew.”
Pochettino mentioned the thought is to finally base himself within the U.S. full-time. However house-hunting within the Atlanta space — the place U.S. Soccer is setting up a state-of-the-art coaching facility — will not start instantly. He’ll stay in his adopted hometown of Barcelona for now, enabling him to maintain shut tabs on the USMNT’s principally European-based participant pool. Constructing these relationships can be essential.
“They should really feel our assist clearly, to really feel that we take care of them,” he mentioned. “When the gamers really feel that you just care, you get one of the best [out of that] participant.”
Because the crew’s dismal Copa efficiency confirmed, there may be loads of work to do. “Enchancment for us is basically vital,” he mentioned. “We wish to play good soccer, good soccer, thrilling soccer, attacking soccer.”
“They should know precisely what we have to do, how we have to compete, how we have to behave like a crew,” Pochettino added. “And the potential is there, the expertise is there.”
It is a part of what attracted one among Planet Fútbol’s most coveted membership coaches to his first worldwide job. It wasn’t the one factor, although. Pochettino has lengthy been intrigued by the U.S. as a rustic as a lot as a soccer nation.
“It is a successful tradition, a successful mentality,” he mentioned. With a house World Cup on the horizon, the chance was too good to go up. For the U.S. Soccer Federation, the hiring is nothing wanting a coup.
“His soccer résumé speaks for itself,” mentioned U.S. president Cindy Parlow Cone. “Past that, additionally his ardour — and you’ve got heard it from him immediately — and his perception that we will go and do nice issues and that he may help us get there. Put all that collectively, and we imagine that we’ve got one of the best individual on the earth for this job.”
“It is about creating one thing particular — that is crucial factor,” Pochettino mentioned.
In opposition to the really elite soccer nations — simply eight have ever hoisted the World Cup — that will not be simple. It will likely be subsequent to unattainable in opposition to any opponent if the mentality is not laborious as nails.
“We’re going to compete,” promised Pochettino, who arrives with a status for getting essentially the most out of his gamers and likewise creating expertise from inside.
That is the place to begin, in fact. The place the U.S. goes from there may be as much as them. There aren’t any limitations so far as Pochettino is anxious. “For those who mentioned to me that I want to select just one phrase,” he mentioned when requested what satisfied him and his employees to depart European membership soccer behind and take the leap the U.S. job represents. “As a result of we imagine. We imagine we will work collectively to attempt to obtain what individuals, and us, all need: to win, and never solely win video games however to go for large trophies and to be there, competing, for the World Cup.”
“We’re right here,” he mentioned, “as a result of we wish to win.”
Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports activities. A former employees author with ESPN and Yahoo Sports activities, he has coated U.S. males’s and girls’s nationwide groups at FIFA World Cups on 5 continents. Comply with him @ByDougMcIntyre.
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