There are only so many ways to improve a national team.
You can develop better players, but that takes a long time. You can turn to different professional players than the ones who typically make up your squad, but there are only so many rocks to turn over. You can recruit dual nationals, but that’s not a guaranteed way to add talent. You can better your off-field resources and staff, making it as easy as possible for players to perform at their best, but even a tired Lionel Messi who’s only eaten fast foot is likely to put together a better performance than a rested, clean-eating Brenden Aaronson.
Following the men’s national team’s failure at the Copa America, U.S. Soccer pulled one of the only other levers they could find in hopes of achieving success at the 2026 World Cup: they changed coaches. By replacing Gregg Berhalter with Mauricio Pochettino, U.S. Soccer threw another dart at the managerial board to see if they could land any closer to the bullseye.
Of course, whether Pochettino can help make the U.S. into more than the sum of their parts is to be determined.
It seems like a real possibility, given the Argentine’s history of success at the club level. But it certainly didn’t happen in a 2-0 loss on the road in Mexico on Tuesday. Between injuries and Christian Pulisic’s early return to AC Milan, the USMNT traveled to Guadalajara missing eight regular starters from the Berhalter era. The United States, uh, then proceeded to play like they were without eight starters.
Missing key players and with just two games under his belt, there is still much we don’t know about how Pochettino plans to improve the USMNT. But between a 2-0 win over Panama on Saturday and that loss to Mexico, we know more than we did before this window opened.
Here’s what we’ve learned about the new manager’s on-field setup.
