Mauricio Pochettino deserves a lot of credit. He is a higher profile manager with a history of getting results and led a team to the highest club level competition in soccer and then took on a job a lot of managers like him wouldn’t have wanted. His time with the United States Men’s National Team was not easy. He took on a young side that was lacking an identity and confidence and built that into a team that had its best World Cup in a quarter century.
At the start there were doubts and bad results
and somehow worse results. Poor performances and losing streaks led to questions and disquiet from fans. He was dedicated to his process and played the long-game and it paid off. Few could have predicted that the USMNT could get the results that it did in this World Cup in the style that they did it in. Dominant wins against Paraguay and Australia along with a clean-sheet in an elimination game played with 10 men where the team scored after getting a red card. Seriously? The USMNT did that? In the World Cup?
Critics were answered, the team had a shot at getting to a World Cup quarter-final. What stood in their way was a nation from the Low Countries. The ending to the story is not what the manager would have expected as he compared the team to what Morocco was able to do in 2022. Still, the vibes were good and the team played into its strengths and had some good games against decent opposition.
After the tournament it wasn’t clear that Poch would return. For one thing, he’d been ambivalent about coming back and had been linked to other jobs leading up to the World Cup. It seemed like he was something of a hired hand just brought it for a one off to go out in a blaze of glory. However, now it seems like he is set to return with talks for a contract extension moving forward and likely to be signed in the near future.
Managers often go through this process. Doubt turns into confidence and disappointing results are mitigated in consideration of their successes. After all, questions going into the tournament were answered with great showings, decent showings, and a bad elimination against a very good team. This could be said about Mauricio Pochettino; it was also said about Gregg Berhalter.
The last full-time USMNT manager led the team to a decent result against Iran, a disappointing draw with Wales, a great 0-0 draw to England, and a bad elimination game against a mostly good team. Ultimately, Berhalter was brought back only to be let go because the progress he promised never materialized following the 2022 World Cup and took a step backwards in the Copa America. In the end, Berhalter – like his predecessors going back to 2009 – was consistently successful against regional rivals like Mexico but struggled significantly to secure marquee victories against non-CONCACAF giants.
Two years after Berhalter’s departure, the US Soccer Federation is set change names in a familiar script. It’s seen that Mauricio Pochettino is capable of leading the team to win against regional rivals and even decent teams outside of CONCACAF like Japan, Uruguay, Senegal, and Paraguay. But, when it comes to better competition the team has struggled and lost to Turkiye, Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Turkiye (again), and Belgium (you know, again?).
Berhalter was let go because despite the mood around the team getting better, the team plateaued after the World Cup. Pochettino is set to return after the team put together a good run in late 2025 before taking a step back against Belgium, Portugal, and Germany… and then putting together a good run in the World Cup before taking steps back against Turkiye and Belgium. Poch was brought in to at least close the gap between those teams and yet the USMNT is still sitting under a ceiling that it still cannot break. Hey, at least the vibes are good.
