Thread by @MenInBlazers

ROG ON POCHETTINO AND THE USMNT 🇺🇸🧵

Rejoice, America! What a day this is for all who love the sport of soccer and its growth here in the United States. Argentinian manager Mauricio Pochettino, 52, is going to be the new manager of our US men's national team. (1/9)

Who is he? Simply put, a really good human being. At his best, when set up to succeed, a charismatic coaching mind, a man-motivating master craftsman with a black belt in empathy who builds his projects around passion; and the single most-accomplished and globally respected club coach US Soccer has ever hired. In his playing days, he was a long-haired center-back, a bloke annoyingly impossible to win a header against. As a coach at his peak, he took a young Tottenham squad and in an almost alchemic way turned them into a team that believed they were Premier League contenders and became Champions League finalists. He has since had his lumps, won the league with PSG—for what that was worth—but was also chewed up by the politics of the project. Then that season at Chelsea, whom, under conditions of surreal madness, he turned round and led to an end-of-season surge, finding a way through the most chaotic turbulence imaginable.

There is no doubt that experience ground him down. I spent some time with Poch last year and it was hard to watch him operate without the natural joy and control I had seen him exert at Spurs, where he was a force of nature who enabled fans to dream. "He's magic, you know…" A detail obsessive, he made his young players shake the hands of everyone in the training ground—from receptionist to coaches to fellow players—the first time they saw them, and the whole place was just popping all day to the sound of perpetual high fives as everyone kept dapping each other up. It felt like the sound of collective wonder. (2/9)

There are a number of unknowns about the hire, a number of challenges, and I will get to them, but no coaching hire is perfect. None are a given. Every one is like a donor organ that can either be welcomed or rejected by the host body. There is no such thing as a slam dunk. The one big knock on him is he has never coached an international team before.

But let me break this down in some depth. First of all, measuring Pochettino up to the original mission statement set out by Matt Crocker, US Soccer's technical director. God bless Matt Crocker, by the way. Under conditions of hysterical pressure, going out and pulling in first Emma Hayes, then Mauricio Pochettino—whom he worked with at Southampton—to lead our teams is incredible work. A true coup. But back to what Crocker said in July: "I just want to get the best coach possible that can help the team win, and whether they're from the US or elsewhere, they've got to fit the profile, which is a serial winning coach, somebody that can continue to develop this potential group of players, somebody that's got a huge interest and a passion for player development," Crocker said. "It continues to be still a young group… but also a group that now is sort of in the realms of having a number of apt experiences that we should be getting out of the group. That's going to be my intention."

So let's go through this list. Best coach possible that can help the team win? When you take away those who said no like Jurgen Klopp and maybe Thomas Tuchel, Poch was pretty much the best coach available. But that phrase, "a serial winner", that he is not. He won the title at PSG; I don't know what the French for gimme putt is, but it is the closest thing football has to a participation trophy. Yet the rest, the ability to develop players, to lead a young group, to understand the mindset of players attempting to take that next step up in Europe? His whole modus is about valuing a culture—one built on mutual respect, team unity. I talked to him at Spurs and he discussed in depth how football is primarily an emotional sport, how that emotion needs to come from within the team. (3/9)

Go back to my interview with Tyler Adams 10 days ago and I asked him what he thought the US needed from this next coach. He said: "We need a coach that's ruthless… Coming in and putting everyone in their place and understanding that, listen, this is what needs to be done and this is the way that we're going to do it, and there's no ifs, ands or buts. It's not really a conversation. It has to be more of a decision that's made and this is the way we're going to play." There is no doubt these players will respect Poch for his Premier League acumen and his World Cup experiences as a player. And this morning when the likes of Tyler and Christian Pulisic call their teammates who have played under Poch they are likely to hear really positive things. Emma Hayes, too, has a great relationship with Poch. She was a Tottenham Hotspur season ticket-holder and loved watching the Harry Kane and Son Heung-min wonder.

The players will also hear that Poch will make them suffer. Pochettino teams are based on working for one another, hard running, fighting spirit. He talks about the concept of la grinta; grit, determination, resolve. I remember watching his Spurs clipping Manchester City in 2016, when Tottenham players would run six more miles than their opponents. His training methods are notoriously hard, fitness is foundational, with double and occasional triple sessions. One of his Southampton players, Dani Osvaldo, once admitted: "At times you want to kill him, simply because he makes you suffer like a dog. But in the end you get the right results." One of Poch's favorite methods is the Gacon test, an interval run that begins with covering 125 meters in 45 seconds, resting for 15 seconds, then adding on an extra 6.25 meters every round. That is the essence of the personality he is trying to convey to his team, the standards he wants them to understand. That to suffer collectively is to win. (4/9)

Which players are going to thrive under Pochettino? US players with three lungs, who can run and run. Antonee Robinson is a classic Poch player. Total engine, impactful at both ends of the field. That is a Poch dream, like Kieran Trippier at his prime but Scouse-American. Jonny Cardoso too, the Brazilian-forged skills, the mix of physicality and high football IQ. Tyler Adams, if fit, is a Poch prototype.

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, the big question, does it work? Can it work? Can these techniques—honed in a club set-up where you have weeks in preseason to drill them in and can wheel and deal in the transfer market—have the same effect with an international team where the players come in, have two, at max three, practices, and then play? That is the real acid test, the big unknown. International football is a different beast to club football. That is something Gregg Berhalter never seemed to tactically adjust to, but there are other questions. (5/9)

Where will Poch live? Is he moving and if so where will he be based? In the first Berhalter hire, living in Chicago—and I guess that would now be Atlanta—was a prerequisite. Is it still? Will Poch leave London? He could make the case most of his players are in Europe; will he be the first US men's national team coach not to live in the United States? Part of the job is being a spokesperson. Being a face of the team, being a barker for US Soccer to gee up the widest possible audience, being visible. If Poch stays in Europe, who is going to be on the Today Show couch? Who is going on Colbert? Who is going to be the face of the team in the United States?

Poch is bilingual, which is huge for the Spanish-language fanbase. It is enormous to have a manager of the US team who can speak fluently and naturally to the enormous Hispanic American audience with tactical intelligence. A massive win for US Soccer, but there is a connected question. Does Poch have an American connection for his coaching staff? How will he fill it out, who will he have watching MLS here for him? Will there be a designated hire who is the bridge between Poch and his omnipresent and quite brilliant number two, Jesus Perez, and the American mindset of the players and the unique idiosyncrasies of CONCACAF? It is a parallel universe, the Star Wars cantina of international football which Jurgen Klinsmann never really got and burned a lot of bridges in the process. Is there someone like a Tim Howard or a Steve Cherundolo who would be a culture fit on his staff? (6/9)

If you look at Poch's career, he does have connections to a number of Americans, albeit fleetingly. DeAndre Yedlin and Cameron Carter-Vickers were both on his Tottenham squads, though neither played a ton. Brad Friedel was still around when he arrived—late, late-career Brad Friedel, but still great Brad Friedel. Poch also targetted a number of Americans in his club settings, being linked to Weston McKennie when at Spurs, Adams at Chelsea, Pulisic also at Spurs. He has scouted, likes and is interested in the American player. If he can make Tottenham players take the field believing they are winners, isn't that exactly what we need?

From his perspective. This is an incredible project for Poch, who loves coaching in the Premier League. He could have taken a big job in Italy or Spain, but the honest truth is there are few options available to him now Erik ten Hag is staying at Manchester United. He could not coach at Liverpool or Arsenal, he has already done Spurs and Chelsea. Where is there to go that could be better than to lead a team into a home World Cup? At this crucial time, this is a joy compared to, say, taking the England job and just having the crap kicked out of him by the tabloid media. And remember, this is a bit of a no-lose. He is inheriting an American team that were just grouped in the Copa. He is picking our men up at rock bottom and can give it a go, to be the face of the nation. (7/9)

I'll tell you also what he is not. He is not Emma Hayes. He does not have the same American narrative in his biography that allows him to make such emotional claims as "America made me". What he is not going to do is make a big claim about what his mission is at his first press conference. There will be no talk about making the world fear American soccer or making America fall in love with football. He's just going to try and win. All that matters are results, because the most American thing of all is winning.

So bring it on. Bring on the Gold Cup, I suddenly feel. Poch's US boys lining up against Jesse Marsch's drone-loving Canadians. Against Steve McClaren and his sun burn on the Jamaican sideline and Javier Aguirre's redemption-seeking Mexico. Get that popcorn ready; World Cup 2026 is now just 665 days away. That is the blink of an eye for a culture-builder like Poch, who knows he has so few meaningful games to build culture in. Canada play the US men's national team on September 7th. I would be amazed if Poch takes the sidelines so quickly for that game, but bring it on. The bad news? No country has won a world cup with a manager who is not from their nation. Let's worry about that later. (8/9)

For now, it feels so joyous to feel so optimistic again, to feel a sense of possibility. Can Poch do what Emma Hayes has to our US women? Let us wait and see. Let us pray that, like Wu Tang, Poch is for the children.

GO, GO, USA! ❤️🤍💙