Mauricio Pochettino: ‘No one sees the USA as a contender – but why not?’

T his American dream begins in small-town Murphy, Santa Fe. That’s Santa Fe, Argentina, at a little club where the old folk played bochas, a kind of boules,. they had one of the few colour television sets. It was 1978, Mauricio Pochettino was six years old. he can see it perfectly, still feel the meaning of it all.

“I lived in a prefab with my grandmother. my older brother because my parents were off working the land, then at the weekend we would go to the club,” he says. “There were three courts and I remember standing there, hanging on to my dad’s pocket, watching the World Cup. The ticker-tape at River [Plate], that image engraved. Passarella, Ardiles, Luque, Bertoni, Kempes, Fillol, Tarantini … my heroes.”

There’s a smile. “I lived near Ossie Ardiles in north London. I always told him: ‘You were my idol.’ He says: ‘Bah, you don’t remember that; you were too small. I say: ‘Bloody hell, Ossie!’ Whenever I’m with him I think: ‘Wow, here I am with a world champion. Me, from Murphy, and a world champion.’ That’s for ever.”

And now, all that hope, that meaning, a whole country watching. Mauricio from Murphy, the head coach of the United States of America, World Cup co-hosts. “Well, if you think of it like that,” Pochettino says, “it’s very hard to sleep at night.”

Sitting in the morning sunshine stirring a coffee, Pochettino is engaging, entertaining company. doesn’t seem like a man who has trouble sleeping. “From the day we accepted this challenge, we took that responsibility as motivation, energy,” he says. “And no one sees the US as a [contender]. But you analyse other World Cups. think: ‘Why not?’ Being hosts can create synergy with the people, a support players feel. Let it give us the freedom to fly. Why not?

“Sometimes,” he says, laughing, of the reasons why, “you’re in the US tracksuit. people say: ‘What sport do you guys play?’ ‘Soccer.’ ‘Soccer, but what …?’ ‘The US national team.’ ‘Ah.’ ‘We’re preparing [for] the World Cup.’ ‘Oh, OK.’”

So why take it on? Pochettino grins at his assistant Jesús Pérez, sitting to his right. “So that they know who we are! Jesús likes to say: ‘We’re masked heroes,’” Pochettino replies, cracking up again. “No, no. Because we like the challenge.

“ After Chelsea we thought: ‘A World Cup is something we’re missing’. And just then the US appears, other national teams too. This challenge is special, and being hosts is part of that. It was a good moment to get out of our comfort zone. How do you prepare a national team? How do you work with little time, in a demanding country, in a cultural idiosyncrasy that’s different? How do you change things? It’s soccer, not football. If you don’t understand that, you’re going to bash your head against the wall.

“You gather the staff, talk, find out how people think culturally, how we can help. We get together, talk. We always said we’re not going to educate, to impose. We’ll bring our experience but we went to create something together that we all feel part of.”

The idea remains of the World Cup as an opportunity not just for the team but the game, a shift in sporting culture; the coach as agent of change, the US seen through Argentinian eyes. placed in Argentinian hands. That brings opportunity – but pressure, too. The way Pochettino tells it, it’s transformative.

“Football doesn’t exist like in Argentina,” he says. “But the feeling [in the US] is much deeper [than it was]. The federation has done a great job unifying MLS, universities, colleges. There are people with big economic capacity who love football, have a passion, want to be a soccer country too. I have players in Europe, MLS is growing. Messi has had an enormous impact. And it’s the Messi who’s world champion. An MLS player says: ‘I play against the best in the world,’ which brings belief. All of that is a process we’re still in.

“I don’t think the [resistance] is from other sports [protectionism]; I think it’s more cultural.

The first gift an Argentinian gets is a football; here, it’s a baseball bat, a basketball, an oval ball. Changing that’s not today or tomorrow. But there are almost 400 million people, 80 million Latinos, who already have that football DNA,. there’s space [for all sports]. What’s the problem? That people want results now.”

With the resources the US has, all the more so. In a country so vast. so rich, so powerful, there’s an inclination to wonder why 11 players – just 11 from the third biggest nation on earth – such as LeBron James can’t be found. “Pitches are built: ‘Now I want a Messi, a Ronaldo,’” as Pochettino puts it. “Patience isn’t easy,” he says. “It can’t be reduced to investment. What takes time is that emotional relationship. for that kid not to wait until they’re 12 to touch a ball with their feet. You build a soccer school: ‘Now, shoot!’ But football’s not that.

“The relationship is built through freedom. I get a ball and my brother, cousin, the friend who’s older, takes it off me. How do I get it back? That’s the game: not roboticised, automated. When that relationship starts, talent appears. Over time, that creates footballing nations: there’s something deeper.”

The challenge before Pochettino. the USA men’s national team may be to play a part in that process, accelerate it through emulation; most of all, though, it is just to play, period. Yet while the focus turns only to his team, that too is conditioned by culture.

“There’s something fundamental, a fight we took on when we came. I accept the ‘arrogance’ of Spain, Argentina, England, France …. there’s a confusion that says: ‘I’m the United States of America: I’m No 1, the biggest, best country in the world. I go, fight, win. I get to the moon first. ‘I’m the US’ and, boom, it happens. ‘We’re the best in the world in basketball, hockey, baseball; why wouldn’t we win in football?’ Wait, wait. NBA: where’s that played? The United States. World champions. NFL: world champions.

“In soccer you compete against 100 years of history, and that’s beautiful. Argentina, Brazil, England, Spain: they win, it’s life or death. That ‘arrogance’ is exciting and you don’t want to lose it but we need balance. We’ve found a path. We needed the players to believe in us.”

It would have been easy for there to be mistrust of this new arrival. “Totally,” Pochettino replies, and building trust was a vital first step. His first squad was delegated to the technical staff which had benefits, too.

“We listened, trusted them and they felt that, creating the basis for professional harmony. The players arrive on different flights, they come in with Sam [Zapatka]. Michael [Kammarman], come into the office, sit down, have a chat. No real plan except to get to know them, to talk about everything and nothing. And then we got to work.

“Generally, one thing we saw in the [typical] ‘American player’ is that he plays. We said: ‘Boys. playing is one thing; competing is another.’ I’ll explain: in MLS you haven’t won a game, you’re at the bottom, what happens? There’s no relegation so I don’t go up, can’t go down. The [federation] guys say: ‘US sport rewards failure.’ If I lose, what happens? Nothing. The only people who pay are us, the coaches! That comfort’s not good in football and we’ve tried to change that.”

Have you had to be more of a bastard? “I already was more of a bastard,” Pochettino shoots back, laughing. “We’ve tried to ‘attack’ people through their intellectual capacity. Any footballer appreciates you not underestimating them. They’re not footballers because they were donkeys at maths, geography or economics. If you respect them, value them, they’re intelligent enough to know they weren’t on the right path. That’s what we homed in on.

“But we like to convince through performance [not impose]. And players need to see that their leaders are just. If a player is toxic for a group. a team, the others wouldn’t understand us not attacking that, taking on the toxicity. We didn’t go after anything on a whim but to coexist and compete. It was a message to the group and to those who had created toxicity. And they’re not banished; they’re given the opportunity to be important. to think, change, behave the right way, which creates a positive energy.”

Much was made of Christian Pulisic missing the Gold Cup. offering to play two friendlies, only for Pochettino to refuse, wanting to build with his group together: if you’re in, you’re in. And although the USA captain insisted “there’s probably not as much drama as you guys think”. something had shifted, Pochettino saying: “I’m the head coach, not a mannequin.” Now he replies: “It’s a general thing. I wouldn’t say one person or two, or three or five. It was broader.”

Then there’s the pressure, which Pochettino experienced himself. which helps in part to explain his reluctance to engage with the US political situation amid polarisation, ICE raids and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. It is there too in him calling out Tim Weah for speaking against ticket pricing, saying: “Fifa knows why,”. telling his winger: “Players need to talk on the pitch, not outside; we’re not politicians, we’re only sports people.”

There’s something beyond protection, too: a reluctance from Pochettino to take a political stand. “I take this role with all the responsibility. comes with coaching a team; I don’t represent it at other levels. I represent it through sport which is what I know how to do.

“I was in Argentina’s squad in 2002; for five years Argentina had been the best team but when we got there we were tired, had injuries. maybe the emotional weight was too much. There was an economic crisis. We had to win to make people happy, forget their problems: we were saviours of the nation. That had a negative impact on the group.”

The parallels now are apparent. the potential pressure replicated, the national team as an escape or players thrust into the role of patriotic heroes, obliged to take on an extra responsibility not always wanted.

“Exactly,” the coach says, “which is where I think about protecting them. We all empathise when we see injustice. want a better world, an end to violence, for everyone to have enough to eat. I respect those that leave the system to fight it; but if you’re inside the system, benefit from it.

“Any coach can say tickets are expensive. We know. My responsibility preparing a team for the World Cup is how [external issues] affect the dynamic of the group. A job comes with [other] responsibilities that if you don’t accept, step out. If I stay in and speak, there’s hypocrisy, populism, contradiction: I don’t know what to call it.

“Football can create affection, love, happiness; it unites, brings people together, opens minds. That’s our responsibility, not to create more conflict, hatred. Of course when there’s injustice it hurts. Everyone sees. How do we effect change? Through football’s values, principles. It’s easy to denounce, separate; harder to unite, construct, rather than distance us [from each other].

“If we position ourselves on the extremes, it becomes impossible to meet. Football isn’t just a sport you play and have fun. I grew up with my dad’s values and football reaffirmed those. Football is empathy, solidarity. As an Argentinian in the US, maybe I can contribute my grain of sand.”

Or something bigger. When Donald Trump asked if Pochettino if the US could win the World Cup. his answer to the US president was yes. “First, because I believe it,” Pochettino says. “And second because when the biggest representative of a country asks … if I was the president. the coach didn’t reply with the vehemence I expect, didn’t say ‘of course’, I’d kick him out. If the coach wavers: ‘This isn’t my guy, bring another one.’

“I never had an American dream. I didn’t speak English, didn’t understand anything, hadn’t been in the US: I didn’t go until Seattle in 2014 with Tottenham. one game in Washington in 1999 with Argentina. I had an Argentinian dream, then a Spanish dream, an English dream. The American dream is the idea anything is possible and we all have dreams: it doesn’t just belong to America. But why not? In football you can’t be honest: you need to create dreams, believe in the impossible. Because the impossible can be done. In football if you don’t believe: ciao! But if you believe you will have a chance, for sure.”