Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Panama marked the start of the Mauricio Pochettino era, as the USMNT beat Panama 2-0 and began (again) its march toward the 2026 World Cup on home soil.
[ RECAP: USMNT 2-0 Panama: USA perfect in the Pochettino era ]
Pochettino’s long-awaited debut was full of plenty of positives as things went off without a hitch against a seriously overmatched Panama side that went a round further than the USMNT at Copa America this summer.
[ MORE: Player ratings from Pochettino’s USMNT debut ]
Very little can be gleaned tactically or from Pochettino’s team selection as a number of key players (including Tyler Adams, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Timothy Weah, Folarin Balogun, Giovanni Reyna, Chris Richards, Sergino Dest) are out injured, but there were more than just a couple reasons for USMNT fans to get excited again. Here’s what stood out most…
Intensity and hunger at the heart of everything Pochettino does
You didn’t have to watch Saturday’s game to know this, all you had to do was watch the way his Tottenham teams played to know the USMNT would play with the intensity and hunger that had been missing since… let’s be honest, probably the 2022 World Cup. NBC’s Nicholas Mendola wrote something earlier this week that I thought was spot on:
Going back a lot further than the current group of players, the USMNT has always been a hungry group of underdogs who almost always punched above their weight and expectations, only now they’re actually expected to do something. It’s not the first time someone drank their own Kool-Aid and it certainly won’t be the last, which makes Pochettino not only the best possible hire for U.S. Soccer, but also a perfect fit to fix what ails them. Reality checks will be delivered if/when necessary.
Reverse engineering confidence for out-of-favor club players
With as many as nine potential starters missing this international window due to injuries, a number of depth players not only got the first crack at impressing the new boss but they also got an opportunity to play upwards of 65 minutes for the first time in quite some time in some cases. While we typically think of form in the sense of club carrying over to country, Pochettino said this week that he hoped to boost the club prospects of a number of players who have recently found themselves out in the cold.
Yunus Musah is one such player with just 147 minutes of club ball to his name this season, and all he did was score a goal and cause trouble for the left side of Panama’s defense. Musah’s greatest asset is his dribbling ability and a low center of gravity — not too dissimilar from Mousa Dembele, who at his peak ran the entire show for Pochettino’s best Tottenham teams. The brilliance of Dembele was that he did one thing so well, it didn’t matter how much he left to desire in other areas. Musah has the potential to be that kind of influence for the USMNT. Perhaps Saturday’s performance (and another strong one against Mexico on Tuesday) is the first step of a long path back to relevance at AC Milan.
The first goal of the Mauricio Pochettino era belongs to Yunus Musah!
— U.S. Soccer Men's National Team (@USMNT) October 13, 2024
His first for the #USMNT!! pic.twitter.com/bMd6ANOJhf
Elsewhere, goalkeeper Matt Turner hasn’t played a competitive club minute this season after Nottingham Forest loaned him to Crystal Palace. Though he typically started in the final days of Gregg Berhalter’s reign, Turner did anything but impress upon his various club managers that he could help the cause. On Saturday, he got the call and turned in one of his most assured performances in recent memory, highlighted by an incredible double-save shortly after Musah made it 1-0.
Speaking of a player not needing an injection of confidence but getting one anyway, Christian Pulisic was called “one of the best attacking players in the world” by his new national team coach this week. And this is true based on what Pulisic, as one of the Yanks’ few full-time starters in Europe, has done for AC Milan this season — more on Pulisic:
A fanbase has been re-energized and united
People want to be excited about the national team. The bar you must clear to pack an MLS stadium when the USMNT comes to town is so incredibly low, yet U.S. Soccer has so consistently failed and plunged the fanbase deeper and deeper into apathy in recent months and years. Things had perhaps already reached their natural end with Berhalter after the last World Cup, so it didn’t take long for anyone still backing Berhalter to jump ship and simply stop paying attention until the inevitable coaching change occurred. When was the last time you had fun following and supporting the USMNT? You’ll have to think about it for way too long, I promise.
Whether or not Pochettino actually delivers on expectations remains to be seen, but there is at least a consensus among fans again that everyone likes the coach and supports the team with no reservations. And that is perhaps the biggest win of the night.
