IRVINE, Calif. — The last time the U.S. men’s national team faced Australia in October, Mauricio Pochettino wasn’t happy at halftime of the friendly.
The score was tied, Christian Pulisic had left the game injured and a year into his reign as U.S. coach, Pochettino lit into the squad.
“They come and they fight,” Pochettino told his team of the Australians. “When are we going to fix that?
“That is not soccer! Soccer is going there all together. … It was dead, the team. It was dead. You need to talk!”
“We have the quality, but now in 45 minutes, we need to show more quality. Play together!”
“If you make a mistake, I don’t care. But communicate and fight.”
The Americans responded with a 2-1 victory that night in Colorado, with striker Haji Wright scoring both goals, and U.S. Soccer subsequently releasing video of the halftime speech.
On Friday in Seattle in a World Cup group-stage match, the Americans face the dangerous Australians again after having embraced the mentality of the passionate Pochettino. All these months later, Wright still remembers the message.
“The coach wasn’t too happy with letting them punch us, in a way, without punching back,” Wright said. “So I think going into this game we’ll be able to prepare a bit more, knowing how they’re going to be.”
How has Pochettino, the fiery 54-year-old Argentine, changed the team’s mindset?
“One is that we’re American and we don’t take s___,” said midfielder Sebastian Berhalter, whose father Gregg coached the team before Pochettino. “I think that’s something that he really put in.
“Even though he’s Argentinian, he has that mindset of like, look, this is what we do and this is who we are and this is what America’s about. So even from the outside perspective, he showed us Americans what we’re about. He really drilled that into us, and I think that’s some that has helped us this last cycle.”
Pochettino was announced as head coach in September 2024, taking his first international managerial job after having led such clubs as Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur. He came aboard at a time when the U.S. was looking to perform better against top-tier opponents and take the next step in the World Cup.
After some difficult moments in the coaching transition, Pochettino’s team sparkled in its World Cup opener. Playing with his attacking style, the Americans’ 4-1 win against Paraguay on Friday at SoFi Stadium marked the highest-scoring game in their tournament history.
The well-traveled Pochettino has demanded more of the Americans and is well aware that there was a culture that needed to change, as evidenced by his comments to El Pais before the Paraguay match.
“When I see arrogance in the United States, I think there’s a bit of confusion,” he said in Spanish. “‘I’m from the United States. I’m number one. We’re the best. We fought, and we were the first to reach the moon. …’ But then I don’t compete, and I don’t win. I think in soccer we find an imbalance between what they think they are and what they actually are. I hope we can win. … Because sometimes we find many people who believe that the United States has to win because ‘we’re the best in the world at basketball and hockey.’
“Their culture is playful. They want to play. We told them, ‘Guys, playing soccer is one thing, competing is another.’ They’re two completely different sports. They grow up in a culture of playing. Why? If you start in MLS and you haven’t won a game in three months and you’re at the bottom, what’s the consequence if there’s no promotion or relegation, no international competition? American sports reward losers! But soccer is different: if you reward those who don’t win … if you don’t have goals, you don’t fight. If I lose, what happens? Nothing. They just fire the coach. Also, the American player is disciplined. But with a sense of complacency that isn’t good in soccer. It took us a year and a half to change that mentality.”
Forward Tim Weah said that the team has “changed a lot” after that last game against Australia and played with more aggressiveness. The teams square off again while tied atop the World Cup group standings and again with Pulisic on the mend.
Forward Brenden Aaronson, another player who could step in as Pulisic continues to recover from a calf injury, said Wednesday that every player has reached the point where they have a full understanding of Pochettino’s system.
“The biggest thing that he asks for is that fight and that grit and the aggressiveness, and I think that’s the minimum for him,” Aaronson said.
“When you bring that into your game, that’s what he wants to see the most. The (Paraguay) game, we competed … we were aggressive, we won a lot of second balls, and I think when you can do those things in international matches, you have the upper hand always.”
Contact Diamond Leung at dleung@reviewjournal.com. Follow @diamond83 on X.
