A stiff, local coach who was fired after a long period and replaced by an attractive foreign star who made a name for himself among Europe’s elite? We’ve seen this before.
The appointment of Mauricio Pochettino as the new coach of the United States men’s national team is exciting, daring and seems like a good scenario, given the mediocre status of the U.S. national team in world soccer and the glittering resume of a tactician who has successfully coached in the English Premier League, La Liga and Ligue 1.
The same was true when US Soccer signed Jurgen Klinsmann to replace Bob Bradley in the summer of 2011. At the time, Klinsmann was a hot property, his reputation somewhat tarnished by a gruelling stint at a top European club – in his case, Bayern Munich.
Bradley was a serious coach from New Jersey who was hired in his mid-40s after impressing in MLS. He saw some mixed but mostly promising results in Concacaf competition before leading the U.S. to a World Cup round of 16 appearance after a creditable group-stage draw with England.
Bradley’s greatest sins were a conservative playing style, excessive loyalty to underperforming regulars, and ill-considered tactics. After more than 70 games in more than four years, about two-thirds of them victories, there was a sense that the team was stagnating and needed a fresh voice.
Bradley was industrious but never overtly charismatic. His personality and background as a national coach ensured that he was not thwarted by the Eurosnobs, who were longing for a more illustrious and attractive figure to lead a squad that increasingly included key players from the major leagues abroad.
And as for Gregg Berhalter? See above, word for word. Not that the parallel is exact given the context. In 2011, the big concern was that the US was falling too far behind its regional rival Mexico. Now, after Berhalter’s job-losing Copa América group stage exit this summer, the problem is that the US can’t seem to get far in tournaments because they can’t improve their game against the best players in the world. Whether that’s due to the quality of the players or the calibre of Pochettino’s predecessor… well, we’re about to find out.
The mission 13 years ago was a major overhaul of the program, with the former Germany and Bayern player and manager taking full control in his attempt to transform the identity of American soccer, combining European rigor and skill with a positive vibe apparently inspired by his adopted home of Southern California.
The team’s personality remains vague: Under Berhalter, the team’s performances have sometimes been as dazzling as the top nations, sometimes as resilient as the Americans of old, but rarely both. Today, however, the USMNT’s center of gravity, as Klinsmann wanted, is in Europe, and most of its players belong to leading clubs.
With Berhalter having laid the foundation by nurturing young talents like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Tim Weah to their peak, Pochettino’s mandate is clear and simple: get us, by any means necessary, into the quarter-finals – and preferably the semi-finals – of the World Cup we are co-hosting in less than two years. Only this will bring mainstream attention, global respect, huge television ratings and serious sponsorship dollars.
Klinsmann, however, had three years to prepare for the 2014 World Cup and a calendar that allowed for a useful mix of regional matches and friendlies against different opponents. Pochettino has no World Cup qualifying campaign to toughen his charges and a schedule full of Nations League and Gold Cup matches against familiar Concacaf opponents.
Like Pochettino, Klinsmann was quirky, likable and popular (at least at the start of his reign). This iteration of the USMNT, however, needs no friend: one plausible explanation for the Copa América failure is that a predictable lineup had become too settled under Berhalter, lacking the requisite feverish desire.
And Klinsmann had led Germany to the semifinals of the 2006 World Cup. In replacing Berhalter with Pochettino, US Soccer is replacing a man without an elite club-level managerial pedigree, but who, when he left in July, had overseen 74 international matches, with someone with extensive knowledge of the major leagues but no track record of managing a country.
However, it is clear that the squad will be familiar with Pochettino’s work and will immediately respect him. It is more difficult to predict how a coach with a reputation for pushing players hard while installing a high-intensity pressure that adapts to the reality of international football, with a limited number of training sessions for players who, given the priority of the club game and long-haul flights, do not want to risk injury or fatigue.
after newsletter promotion
The Klinsmann era got bad vibes and fell into resentment. He was sacked in 2016. There must also be a danger that Pochettino’s tenure will become a chemistry experiment with the wrong elements, as he tries to adapt to the different rhythms of international play in a new country. From the UEFA Champions League to the Concacaf Nations League. From working with Harry Kane, Cole Palmer, Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé on a daily basis, to a few sessions every few months in lower lights.
On the other hand, Pochettino has a longer history of sustained success than Klinsmann and can thrive outside the internal politics and high-pressure, impatient working environments at his last two clubs, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea. The lack of conflict over transfer policy should come as a relief, given the divisions within the club hierarchy that marked his brief spell at Stamford Bridge. Given the near-universal plaudits his appointment has received, the former Argentina defender should be pleased to be working for a team and a fanbase that are genuinely excited about him taking on the role. That wasn’t the case at Chelsea, given his past at their London rivals, Tottenham.
Other notable club managers who got their first national team job abroad include Roberto Martínez, a Spaniard who moved to Belgium from Everton in 2016, and Sven-Göran Eriksson, the decorated Swedish manager who moved to England from Lazio in 2001. Fabio Capello, a brilliant club manager in Spain and his native Italy, was a leading light with England and Russia.
Martínez and Eriksson seemed like a gamble at the time, but it worked to a certain extent. They improved on the results of their predecessors, but left with the feeling that they had failed to get the most out of an unusually talented generation of players; that they had ultimately underperformed. And given the importance of the European Championship, they had a better chance of winning major tournaments than Pochettino; no one will be too surprised or delighted if the US wins the Nations League and the Gold Cup.
Like PSG, Pochettino’s tenure will be defined by a knockout tournament. In Paris, it was the UEFA Champions League, which he did not win. In the US, it is the World Cup. Pochettino improved Espanyol, Southampton, Tottenham and Chelsea incrementally and was rewarded with increased league positions. World Cups are much more chaotic, much less a meritocracy.
Pochettino may sprinkle so much stardust over the squad, and despite his reputation and promise, whether he does better than Berhalter in Qatar 2022 will depend on luck or a split second: an easy or a hard draw, a penalty missed or scored, a chance taken or squandered.
Ultimately, however, after the collapse of the Copa, hiring Pochettino seems less risky than continuing with Berhalter. As with Klinsmann, it is a statement of ambition and a shock to the system. Whatever happens in the long term, it is what the US needs now.