USMNT should imagine it might probably win the World Cup, new coach Mauricio Pochettino says

NEW YORK — “Imagine.”

That phrase has over the previous few years change into intently related to America’s most well-known soccer coach, the fictional Ted Lasso of the Apple TV sequence of the identical title. The identical mantra is now the message coming from essentially the most celebrated and completed coach in U.S. males’s nationwide staff historical past.

[RELATED: How Mauricio Pochettino will immediately impact the USMNT]

Mauricio Pochettino was formally unveiled because the USMNT’s new boss at a grand press convention in midtown Manhattan on Friday, and when the previous Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham Hotspur supervisor was requested what he desires to perform with the Individuals because the nation prepares to co-host the most important sporting occasion the world has ever seen 21 months from now, Pochettino did not try to handle what even essentially the most optimistic U.S. followers may see as a completely unrealistic expectations.

“We now have time, and we have to actually imagine in issues, in massive issues,” the 52-year-old Argentine stated. “We have to imagine that we are able to win all of the video games, that we are able to win the World Cup.”

There’s clearly an enormous distinction between considering you’ll be able to win the sport’s most coveted trophy and truly doing it — one thing Pochettino little doubt understands in addition to anybody. However he additionally is aware of that to have any form of success in 2026, his first order of enterprise needs to be restoring the USMNT’s badly shaken confidence.

After changing into the primary Copa América host to be knocked out in group play earlier this summer season, the squad’s self-assurance is at its lowest level for the reason that program’s epic failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. So Pochettino’s quick aim should be to get his gamers to as soon as once more play with out worry, to imagine that they will stand toe-to-toe with any opponent — regardless of which one.

“In fact the arrogance was a bit of bit low after the Copa América,” Pochettino stated. “I feel it is an excellent technology of gamers. We have to present that we play like a collective on the pitch.”

That work will start in earnest subsequent month. Pochettino’s first match accountable for the U.S. will come on Oct. 12 in Austin, Texas, the place the Individuals will meet Concacaf rival Panama in a so-called pleasant. 

“For me,” Pochettino stated, “it is not pleasant.”

Attending to not simply know the gamers however to see them in camp, on the coaching area, within the meal room on the lodge, will let him and his three-man workers of longtime assistants Jesus Perez, Miguel D’Agostino and Toni Jimenez know precisely the place issues stand. “We now have a plan, and a very powerful factor is to really feel how they’re on the sector collectively,” Pochettino stated. “[The players] can categorical themselves, how they see the staff.”

Pochettino stated the thought is to finally base himself within the U.S. full-time. However house-hunting within the Atlanta space — the place U.S. Soccer is establishing a state-of-the-art coaching facility — will not start instantly. He’ll stay in his adopted hometown of Barcelona for now, enabling him to maintain shut tabs on the USMNT’s largely European-based participant pool. Constructing these relationships will probably be essential.

“They should really feel our help clearly, to really feel that we take care of them,” he stated. “When the gamers really feel that you just care, you get the most effective [out of that] participant.”

Because the staff’s dismal Copa efficiency confirmed, there’s quite a lot of work to do. “Enchancment for us is admittedly vital,” he stated. “We wish to play good soccer, good soccer, thrilling soccer, attacking soccer.”

“They should know precisely what we have to do, how we have to compete, how we have to behave like a staff,” Pochettino added. “And the potential is there, the expertise is there.”

It is a part of what attracted considered one of Planet Fútbol’s most coveted membership coaches to his first worldwide job. It wasn’t the one factor, although. Pochettino has lengthy been intrigued by the U.S. as a rustic as a lot as a soccer nation.

“It is a profitable tradition, a profitable mentality,” he stated. With a house World Cup on the horizon, the chance was too good to go up. For the U.S. Soccer Federation, the hiring is nothing wanting a coup. 

“His soccer résumé speaks for itself,” stated U.S. president Cindy Parlow Cone. “Past that, additionally his ardour — and you have heard it from him in the present day — and his perception that we are able to go and do nice issues and that he might help us get there. Put all that collectively, and we imagine that we’ve the most effective particular person on the earth for this job.” 

“It is about creating one thing particular — that is a very powerful factor,” Pochettino stated.  

In opposition to the actually elite soccer nations — simply eight have ever hoisted the World Cup — that will not be straightforward. It is going to be subsequent to unattainable towards any opponent if the mentality is not arduous as nails. 

“We’re going to compete,” promised Pochettino, who arrives with a fame for getting essentially the most out of his gamers and in addition creating expertise from inside.

That is the place to begin, after all. The place the U.S. goes from there’s as much as them. There aren’t any limitations so far as Pochettino is anxious. “In case you stated to me that I would like to select just one phrase,” he stated when requested what satisfied him and his workers to go away European membership soccer behind and take the leap the U.S. job represents. “As a result of we imagine. We imagine we are able to work collectively to attempt to obtain what individuals, and us, all need: to win, and never solely win video games however to go for large trophies and to be there, competing, for the World Cup.”

“We’re right here,” he stated, “as a result of we wish to win.”

Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports activities. A former workers author with ESPN and Yahoo Sports activities, he has coated U.S. males’s and girls’s nationwide groups at FIFA World Cups on 5 continents. Comply with him @ByDougMcIntyre.

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