Mauricio Pochettino to give the United States a boost ahead of the World Cup
Major League Soccer has 453 foreigners from 81 countries, and the US national team has almost all developed in Europe. This is a contradictory model that works well, between economic sustainability and sporting added value.
The United States, currently number one in the FIFA women’s football rankings, is in 18th place in the men’s league, thanks to the fact that it is only a regional powerhouse, with no conditions to compete for the top spots in major events.
The added responsibility of having to play in front of their own audience at the 2026 World Cup, which they are co-organizers of together with Mexico and Canada, has led them to take time to prepare a team that, despite the good infrastructure, clear interest and rapid growth of Major League Soccer (MLS), continues to be made up almost exclusively of players who play in European championships.
In this sense, the North American Federation decided to invest heavily in a prestigious coach, the Argentine Mauricio Pochettino, 52 years old, who made his debut with a 2-0 victory over Panama. Pochettino, who made his career in Europe as a player and coach, having managed Espanyol (161 games), Southampton (60), Tottenham (293), PSG (84) and Chelsea (51), has as the crown jewel of his coaching career the presence, with the ‘Spurs’, in the 2019 Champions League final, which they lost to Klopp’s Liverpool 2-0.
By deciding to hire Pochettino, the Americans returned to a path they had already followed more recently with Jurgen Klinsmann (2011/16), and which has been a tradition since, with the Scot Bill Jeffrey, they defeated the all-powerful England 1-0 in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil. Along the way, names such as Dettmar Cramer – two-time European champion with Bayern Munich and a key figure in the establishment of football in Japan – and Bora Milutinovic, led a team that is a regular at the World Cup, having reached the final phase of eight of the last nine editions, and which has the Americans Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley as examples of success.
Pochettino’s debut
American soccer is full of contradictions. Even if they had learned from the mistakes made in the mid-1970s, when they signed some of the best players in the world to the league, many at the end of their careers – among others, Pelé, Eusébio, Bobby Moore, Cruyff, George Best, Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto – and started building the house from the roof down and not from the foundations, which allowed them immediate success and a compromised future, the numbers of the MLS, whose brightest star is Lionel Messi, are still bizarre. In the 29 clubs that compete in the two conferences, there are 453 foreign players from 81 different countries, which leaves little room for local talent to emerge, which is emerging at a good pace, thanks to consistent development programs based on the school system.
As for the best North American talents, instead of staying in the country, they prefer to try their luck and evolve to other levels in European football.
Mauricio Pochettino, in his debut against Panama, used 17 players and only one – Tim Ream, 37 years old, who spent 12 seasons in England, between Bolton and Fulham (2012/24) and has now returned home to represent Charlotte FC – plays in the MLS. Let’s see:
Matt Turner (Crystal Palace); Scally (M’Gladbach), McKenzie (Toulouse), Ream (Charlotte FC); Muisah (AC Milan), Busiu (Venice), Morris (Middlesbrough), Robinson (Fulham); Aaronson (Leeds), Sargent (Norwich, Pulisic (AC Milan). Also playing were Ricardo Pepi (PSV), Tessnam (Lyon), Malik Tillman (PSV) Haji Wright (Coventry), Zardejas (Mexico City) and Hansen (Palermo).
