With a World Cup looming and losses piling up, those on the outside are finding it difficult to trust Pochettino's process
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Multiple times over the last few months, Mauricio Pochettino has responded to questions about American soccer culture. It's not Argentina, he has said. In an ideal world, it would be something like college football. The passion, the togetherness, the pageantry – having recently experienced it, Pochettino was enamored with it. Imagine that atmosphere for U.S. men's national team games.
Fortunately for Pochettino, though, that isn't the case. For all of the benefits of the culture of Argentina or NCAA football, there are downsides – namely the pressure on those who take the field. Every game, every result, regardless of circumstances, matters. Pochettino himself said he believed in that line of thinking at his first news conference when he was hired last year.
That, though, hasn't been the case with the USMNT in 2025, a year in which Pochettino has largely prioritize process over results. With a World Cup looming, those on the outside are finding it harder and harder to trust that process, particularly without any guarantee of what that end result will be. Through all of the noise, Pochettino has continued to experiment and, at least in the short term, that tinkering is not working.
The reason has been clear: Pochettino is desperate for competition within the squad, so much so that he was willing to shake the core of the USMNT to generate it. The problem he's discovered is that the USMNT's core is more important than ever – and more irreplaceable, too. And so the losses have piled up – he has just nine wins in 17 matches since taking over for the fired Gregg Berhalter last year – forcing Pochettino and the USMNT to confront reality. The plan isn't working.
American soccer fans are more patient than most, and Pochettino has alluded to that. However, the time for patience is nearing an end. Soon, the time for results must begin. In the wake of a 2-0 loss to South Korea on Saturday night, Pochettino, rightly, said that a team really doesn't have to win until the World Cup begins.
That may be true, but in the high-pressure environments he's so enamored with, losing this much wouldn't be tolerated. Optics matter. So do results. The good news? This is fixable so long as Pochettino and the USMNT stare down a few harsh truths.
Getty Images SportA rough 2025
Numbers don't lie, it has been said. And the USMNT's numbers in 2025 aren't telling a good story.
After losing to Mexico in Guadalajara last year, Pochettino's USMNT went into 2025 seeking a signature win. It hasn't come yet. While a series of Gold Cup victories with a weakened squad surely built momentum, it doesn't overshadow the series of losses to World Cup-caliber teams. Losses to Panama and Canada initiated the USMNT's summer shake-up. Pre-Gold Cup defeats to Turkey and Switzerland set off alarm bells.
Pochettino was notably upset by the Gold Cup final loss to Mexico, at least partially because he knew that it meant the narrative would shift around his players' efforts this summer. And then came Saturday, a 2-0 loss to South Korea. With some, but not all, of the regulars back in the picture, the USMNT once again lost to a World Cup-bound team.
Pochettino, though frustrated, said he saw positive signs. Coach speak, surely, because the USMNT were, by and large, second best in just about every version of the eye test. In their last seven matches against top-25 teams, the U.S. have been outscored 11-2 in the first half, and haven't beaten a non-North American top-25 squad since Iran at the 2022 World Cup.
For all the talk of promise, talent and excitement, the fact is that, right now, this USMNT group has yet to show they can beat legitimate opposition. They've gone toe-to-toe with a few, for sure – namely Brazil last summer – but the program has lost virtually every ounce of goodwill in the year since that pre-Copa America friendly.
So is it doom and gloom? Absolutely not. In truth, the answers are essentially staring Pochettino in the face.
AdvertisementGettyA dead-end competition
Johan Cruyff once said that this sport is simple – the hard part is to play simply. That quote can apply to management, too. Sometimes, setting up a team can be as easy as "play the best players."
It's something that the USMNT, for one reason or another, has not done for a long time. Injuries have robbed the U.S. of Antonee Robinson, Sergino Dest, Folarin Balogun and Ricardo Pepi for extended periods of time. Christian Pulisic skipped out on the summer, although he returned for that South Korea game.
Meanwhile, talented players such as Weston McKennie, Yunus Musah, Joe Scally, Tanner Tessmann, Aidan Morris, Johnny Cardoso, Malik Tillman and Haji Wright were left at home for this camp. So, too, were centerback contenders Mark McKenzie, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Auston Trusty. There are others. Quite clearly, the USMNT that played South Korea wasn't at full strength. That was true for the Gold Cup, in part due to injuries or club situations. Much of it, though, is also seemingly by choice.
He hasn't outwardly said it, but Pochettino was clearly frustrated by the results in the Nations League, and his roster selections since indicate that. It's been quite clear that he's been trying to foster competition to both introduce potential World Cup contenders and remind the established players that nothing is guaranteed.
"When you see different national teams that won World Cups, I think you really understand what [that means]," Pochettino said. "Players need to feel the threat from your teammate, and they need to defend their place in every single possibility that they join the national team.”
The problem is that there's been to defend. The competition has produced very few bonafide contenders while robbing this group of several crucial chances to build chemistry with the players that will actually be at the World Cup next summer. The biggest lesson we've learned over the last six months is that there are a finite amount of World Cup-quality players in this player pool, and at no point recently has that group actually been together.
Former USMNT star Charlie Davies put it bluntly after the South Korea loss, saying, "I’m trying to stay positive, but this is a failure. We don’t have a signature win, we don’t even have a signature XI… We have signature sh*t, is what we have."
The results, ultimately, have suffered because of that. South Korea are very good, and they're also a well-drilled team that knows who they are and what the guys around them are going to do.
Pochettino seems ready to fix that for the USMNT. He said prior to camp that this was his final go at experimenting and, starting in October, the process of buckling down will begin. The problem is that, while that timeline works for Pochettino, it doesn't for the public as they look for some signs of life months before a World Cup.
Getty ImagesDealing with public perception
Social media, of course, is an imperfect barometer of national team progress. So, too, are pundits. In truth, there's really no dissecting Pochettino's plan until it runs its course, even for those who understand their version of the national team.
There is something to be said for public opinion, though, particularly in a country that, as Pochettino said, is still expanding its soccer culture. The fastest way to nurture that culture is to win and, in particular, to win at World Cups. Right now, it's hard to argue that the U.S. looks to be in a better position to do that than they did when the final whistle blew on their 2022 adventure in Qatar.
“Mauricio Pochettino isn’t a fool, but he’s trying to pass the buck here,” former USMNT striker Herculez Gomez said this week. “He’s putting up excuses like ‘Hey, I don’t score the goals and I can’t defend them, the real thing we’re trying to do here is instill a culture, and get them on the right path.’ They didn’t give you $6 million a year so we can look back 20 years from now and say ‘Oh Mauricio Pochettino, he’s the one who laid the foundation.’
"No, no, no. It’s for a World Cup, a tournament. They need you to get this pool of players ready for a home tournament, not to shape the next 60 years of American soccer, which he has no understanding of.”
Former USMNT midfielder Stu Holden, meanwhile, was frustrated with Pochettino's tactics, which have failed to produce many goals against top opponents, saying, The fact is, again, we didn't score a goal. Again, we didn't beat a top-25 opponent, which we haven't done since the 2022 World Cup. And once again, we're left with more questions than answers."
Former USMNT star Charlie Davies put it bluntly after the South Korea loss, saying, "I’m trying to stay positive, but this is a failure. We don’t have a signature win, we don’t even have a signature XI… We have signature sh*t, is what we have."
Pochettino shouldn't be surprised by the criticism. In truth, it's healthy to have such debates in a soccer country. These comments aren't any different than coaches in Argentina, France or England would deal with. In fact, they're almost certainly more measured.
The difference between those countries and the U.S., though, is that America is about to host a World Cup. The program is no longer in a place to send messages or, as Gomez said, build foundations. It has to be in a place where it could win World Cup games.
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Getty ImagesThe need for wins
Tyler Adams understands the frustration. He, too, doesn't want the USMNT to lose these games.
"I love the feeling of winning," Tyler Adams said after Saturday night's loss. "So I would like to win games before the World Cup. But I understand his thought process. We talked about it in there. You can still have a good performance and not necessarily get the result. Yeah, I think at certain times, it's important to get some results but, for what positives we can take from today, it's about getting new faces into the national team and getting them exposure."
Going forward, getting those results won't be easy. Up next is Japan on Tuesday, to close the September window. After that, the U.S. faces Australia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay to close 2025. All five of those teams are bound for the World Cup. All will present challenges the USMNT will need to navigate next summer. In that sense, these are the perfect tests, but they're ones the USMNT will actually have to show up prepared for by bringing their best.
No one is asking for, or expecting, the USMNT to go out and win all of those games. There will be bumps along the way. Bumps are good. Bumps provide lessons, prepare a team, separate those who can make a difference from those who can't. The road to 2026 can't only be bumps, though. There needs to be some tangible success to build confidence, both inside and outside of the program.
Maybe that won't make a difference in the long term. Maybe all will be forgotten with a few wins next summer. There's something to be said about the present, though, and what that means for the future.
“We need to start to win when the World Cup starts,” Pochettino said on Saturday. “There are too many examples of teams that win and then arrive at the World Cup and they don’t arrive in the best condition. I was involved in 2002 with Argentina, we were winning for years and then, the World Cup, and we were out in the group stage.
“I think for sure we have talented players and we are going to be much better and we are going to prove and for sure we are going to arrive in the best condition. That is my message to the fans. We are going to arrive in a very good condition and with the help of the fans, I think we are going to be very, very difficult to beat.”
The USMNT hasn't shown that yet. It sure would be helpful if they did soon.