Huge hire by US soccer if true
***US Soccer***
- Thread starter Dorrman
- Start date
Oh wow. Can't believe it's actually happening. I like it!
That’s huge. Let’s go!
Man, my thread on this is page 1 still. The forgotten man. It’s okay. Not bitter or anything. But anyway, I knew he had a connection to US Soccer, but I didn't remember. Twellman helped me. US sporting director Matt Crocker had the same position at Southampton when Pochettino was manager there.
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USMNT: Former EPL Manager of the Season, Mauricio Pochettino set to become head coach
Reliable reports that Mauricio Pochettino has accepted the US Soccer manager position. Working out finer contract details. EPL coach of the year, twice league runner-up, one cup runner up, and one time Champions League Final while with Spurs. League and cup winner with PSG. He must want out of...
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I'm good with this hire! I think most are.
Did he coach Dempsey at Tottenham or was he after?
Did he coach Dempsey at Tottenham or was he after?
On paper I like this. He likes to use pressure to break opponents. But when you have Kane, Son, etc it’s easier to do this knowing you have weapons who will net the ball when you get them the ball up top. We have talent… deeper than ever, but still have questions all over. He needs to identify the top 11 and roll with them. What I like is in the past he moved off a popular player for a young Henry Kane… was controversial at the time but paid off big time. So, he’s not afraid to make big decisions.
I didn't know much about his tactics so that would be a more interesting brand of soccer to watch.
Totally off topic question about something that bugs me... you mentioned find an 11 and stick with them. Are we the only county that gives as much time as we do finding depth in the player pool? I mean, we use entire tournaments and multiple friendlies doing it. I calculated that in 2 years we had our non-A team playing more games than our top group. Why?? I get that it's a grueling season in Europe and all but that seems crazy to me. Just play all our friendlies in Europe because our fans suck anyway.
I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that most countries have an XI and just stick with that. It’s a more unique challenge for USMNT/canada/mexico who have their squads divided between North America and Europe-based leagues, with the correspondingly different league calendars. So availability is sometimes a question, and friendlies/tournaments are a time for experimenting with new lineups.
HOLY F***ING SHIT THEY DID IT??!!!
He's just one step below the Klopp/Guardiola Tier of candidates.
I was critical of the "Berhalter out" crowd because I didn't think we could get someone much better. But I'm wrong. Gregg grab your shit and get out.
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We need to find our 11. Period. Yes, we will use 15-16 players in a tournament, but for the most part it's figuring out the best 11 who will see the bulk of minutes/matches. US has played a lot of guys but have done this to find young promising guys. However, it's done too much in my opinion. And, our roster selection has been questionable at times too. I'm hoping an outsider with good track record will come in and see things maybe those closer to the situation haven't and will not be afraid to make the hard choice to get the talent on the field regardless of name on back of jersey or what they have done in the past. And... then allow the guys to play un-robotic football.
See I think the problem currently is kinda the opposite - I think there’s general consensus on who the starting XI are: pulisic, balogun, weah, Weston, Adam’s, gio, Jedi, miles, Richards (currently), dest and turner at keeper. Fairly healthy bench with guys that could start as well imo.
Where I think the problem was, guys were getting complacent in a second cycle with GB.
I'm just gonna take some time to celebrate. This is the biggest name hire in the history of the USMNT.
I'm sort of wondering about what happened to their discipline as players. You had Dest getting red carded for losing his shit over a out of bounds call he disagreed with that wasn't even during a critical time in the game. You had Tim Weah punching a dude in the back of the head and costing us Copa advancement. The whole situation with Reyna. . .
And it’s stuff like that can concern me when we talk about a coach who is regarded as a players coach. Granted, it’s harder as a national team coach to sometimes enforce accountability when players do stuff like what Dest or Weah did, but youd think there’d be a come to Jesus type meeting behind closed doors. Everything that went down around Reyna is just bizarre to me. If GB envisioned that small a role for him whether that was injury-related or what, then it almost would have been better to not bring him at all. And while gio didn’t deal with it well in the moment, the way GB threw him under the bus, then the backlash from his parents…I’ve never seen anything like that on this level before.
I said after the WC that I wanted a new coach - if for no other reason than that there just doesn’t seem to be a great track record for national teams and coaches thru a second WC cycle.
I'm disappointed that they passed over Bruce Arena. Oh well.
Having been a Colts fan and experiencing the news report that we were getting Josh McDaniels as our coach and finding out he backed out, plus the fact that I didn't believe US Soccer could bring in a coach of this caliber I'm gonna be slightly worried about this until his name is on the dotted line.
I heard it brought up. What happens if a big club like Real Madrid or Man United needs a coach before the world cup and they call Poch. I suppose that's a risk we have to take if you want someone big. But my brain is having a hard time trusting this. Feels like Nick Saban just agreed to coach Iowa next year.
I heard it brought up. What happens if a big club like Real Madrid or Man United needs a coach before the world cup and they call Poch. I suppose that's a risk we have to take if you want someone big. But my brain is having a hard time trusting this. Feels like Nick Saban just agreed to coach Iowa next year.
Honestly, I’m not sure the last time I heard of a national team coach leaving for a club position with a WC coming up. Especially when that team is hosting it.
Poch is nowhere near the Saban level of coaching talent. He is however a clear step above any of the MLS candidates that were out there, to say nothing of GB.
Maybe we watched the same thing and I heard it brought up too. I'm hoping that maybe if it happens a year from now Klopp might be available again haha
I'm guessing Klopp will be called first by anyone.
That said the ultimate point is you have to be worried that a major club might give Poch a call.
Maybe I'm underselling the USMNT job a bit but I don't understand why he took it and part of me thinks he's just finding something to occupy his time til one of those clubs calls him.
Maybe not but point is that he's a tier below the top tier of coaches. So he's like Jim Harbaugh maybe.
Partly it’s only a relatively short commitment - I’d be shocked if he sticks around after the WC. But being the HC for a host nation at a World Cup is a huge item to add to the resume, and if he does well, he’ll have his pick of jobs afterwards.
USMNT might not have the traditional appeal of say a Germany or Spain, but from a talent standpoint, I think they’re potentially firmly in that second- tier just below the world elites of say France and 3-5 others.
Agreed, which I think is a good comp for where I think our team is currently.
True but the elite elite managers usually take club jobs.
So while we are just below the elite tier of teams, we are far below the elite tier of coaching jobs because club jobs have to be included in that.
It’s apples and oranges to me in terms of the type of jobs both are. Club managers have much greater control over their roster makeup than national teams do, where barring getting dual citizenship guys to flip, your pool of available players is fixed and won’t change. So the tactics/formations you preferred as a club manager aren’t always possible at the national team.
I suspect GB would have liked some variation of the 3-5-2 but he never had 3 CBs healthy at one time that worked well in that system. Of course, his tactics also left much to be desired.
These are good points you bring up, but there are three major attractions to the job:
1) By all accounts, Matt Crocker at USSF and Pochettino had a great working relationship at Southampton. Which leads me to the next point:
2) He’s coming from a notoriously dysfunctional and toxic culture at Chelsea. And compared to that, and the fishbowl of London and the British press, sunny California sounds like a good break for the next two years at least. Which leads to…
3) World Cup 2026 is the once in a lifetime opportunity to coach the most powerful nation in the world, in the greatest tournament in sports, and win over that nation and grow the sport in the final frontier of the sport. I think that grand vision has an appeal for a guy like Pochettino.
I agree to an extent... but so many others got minutes it was hard to tell if these were the guys. I'm guessing some of these guys wont be the guys when he gets in the door. I bet he shakes things up some.
When all were healthy - save for Ream who I left out due to age, those were consistently in GBs first-choice lineup. Main exception to that would be Musah over Reyna during thenWC.
I know, and I understand that. I just think we should be playing more European friendlies and use a majority of those European based players. I'm also not advocating that don't develop some players but we sometimes go so far. We are giving so many games to players who are on the twilight of the career or for sure on the backside of it. I think the Gold Cup needs to be used with our top squad because we have to figure out how to beat these teams that bunker, play physical and crappy soccer.
Depends on who’s available and when the friendlies are as far as play euro squads, what with the nations league crap and all, that’s several windows each year we can’t use for friendlies.
Gold cup I alternate. The one the year following the WC bring the B squad, guys that need the exposure and could push for senior squad. Year before, bring the first team and use it as a dry run.
Side note: Get to know the name Berit Parten, guys. Five star, Ms. Minnesota Soccer, freshman phenom forward for the Hawks. A first half hat-trick in exhibition play against South Dakota, and now two goals in the first 12 minutes of her regular season debut against Oregon State. Waiting for the second half to start, but this is the first time I’ve seen a Hawkeye that I thought could one day challenge for senior USWNT minutes.
Well why the heck can't she get Maddyn Greenway here to do both basketball and soccer?
I'm glad we have her. I think we missed out on the girl at Bettendorf who is going to Nebraska. She single handedly won the state tournament this year.
Right, I don't care about Nations League and that is kind of what it is for. I HATE that it dictates our friendly schedule.
I just don't believe we should be going every other for Gold Cups. That's not what they do at the Euro or at the Copas. I truly believe the guys that are vying for that senior team spot should prove it in the Nation's League only (or Olympics). Just my two cents.
Oh I strongly dislike the nations league as well.
Euros and Copa are different in that they’re also much more competitive, and include a qualification process; for Euros at least - not sure about Copa. We don’t have that for the Gold Cup, and generally the talent gap is so wide…it’s a challenge for USMNT. Generally speaking Mexico has been the only team that can rival our first team on an annual basis, allowing for cyclical challengers that rise up.
And with the WC expanding in ‘26 it’ll get even worse going forward. More teams from CONCACAF means less stress for us in WCQ.
Idk what the answer is here. You want the first team to get reps against better squads in the world but if you do that you limit opportunities for young talent to gain that international experience.
I did think about that after I said the Copa and Euro thing. Copa only has SA teams so they all automatically make it. You are right about the Euros but that's just better teams getting to play better teams unlike us who slum it with Mexico, now Canada and usually one other team that doesn't suck for 4 years.
I still believe the importance of the Gold Cup is two fold:
1- Play a meaningful tournament and manage players in the group stage games while adding up the pressure of win or go home games that you can't get from friendlies.
2- learn how to beat these teams who will pack it in and play physical/ flop/ time waste in games for qualifying.
You are right about expanded fields. While being an Iowa fan, I always expect the worst but we will have to play really, really bad to not qualify going forward.
Couple videos for USMNT fans:
Haji Wright scores in the season opener:
Sounds good…
Haji Wright scores in the season opener:
Sounds good…
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