"He's told us that we're American, we don't take s---," Sebastian Berhalter said this week. Coming from the son of Pochettino's predecessor, that quote lands harder than most.
The USMNT's 4-1 demolition of Paraguay at SoFi Stadium — watched by a record 27.5 million viewers in the US — didn't come from nowhere. It came from 18 months of Mauricio Pochettino methodically dismantling a comfort zone and rebuilding something with actual teeth. Paraguay's coach Gustavo Alfaro admitted afterward that the US had "dominated us tactically, technically and physically." That's not a fluke. That's a cultural shift made visible.
What Pochettino actually walked into
Those close to the Argentine describe the squad he inherited in September 2024 — less than four months after leaving Chelsea — as a "holiday camp." Players taking caps for granted, no urgency, no edge. The kind of environment that produces decent qualifying results and flat tournament exits.
The reset was deliberate and slow. At a camp in Austin, the players walked into a meeting room to find "Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast" scrawled in red marker on a poster. Pochettino had only heard the phrase for the first time over breakfast with Chick-fil-A chairman Dan Cathy a few months earlier, but it had clearly stuck. His read: no amount of tactical sophistication means anything without the right mentality underneath it.
To build competition and find the right blend, he handed caps to 61 players from 16 different leagues across 12 countries before settling on his 26-man World Cup squad. That kind of open casting process sends an unmistakable message — no one is safe, no one is guaranteed anything. Even Christian Pulisic, outstanding against Paraguay before going off at half-time with a calf injury, earned his place rather than assumed it.
Pulisic's fitness is the main anxiety heading into Friday's match against Australia in Seattle. If he misses it, the US lose their most dangerous creative threat against a Socceroos side motivated by pundit Mike Grella's dismissal of the tie as a "lay-up." Both teams won their openers, so a round of 32 berth is the prize. The odds on a wide-open US win shorten significantly with Pulisic; without him, Australia's chance of causing problems grows considerably.
The Bielsa lesson he never forgot
Pochettino was in the Argentina squad at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, under Marcelo Bielsa, when a talented side crashed out in the group stage. Bielsa ran a sealed military camp — no time off, no families, players ground down physically and mentally before the tournament even mattered. Argentina went home early.
The contrast at the Great Park Sports Complex in Irvine couldn't be sharper. Players' children play duck, duck, goose on the grass. Antonee Robinson's family chat with Weston McKennie's mother. Sergiño Dest's father watches training from under a tree. Brenden Aaronson, who was terrified to ask for time off to attend his own wedding last month, got the manager's blessing without hesitation.
After the Paraguay win, there was a barbecue. Tyler Adams watched the New York Knicks win their first NBA Championship in 53 years on a day off near the cliffs of Laguna Beach. Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA blasted through the hotel speakers.
None of this is soft. It's calculated. The trade-off, as Pochettino makes clear, is that players run through walls when it matters. The Paraguay result suggests they're delivering on that end of the deal.
Two chaplains are on-site for holistic and spiritual support. About half the squad take part. There's a full concierge service for families. The support staff — all of them — got pulled into a pre-session motivational huddle. The assistant kit man joined the rondos. Every detail is intentional.
Reports of Pochettino's representatives speaking to AC Milan about their vacant head coach role caused some friction inside US Soccer, given the investment involved — his salary runs north of £4 million annually, partly supplemented by hedge fund managers Kenneth C Griffin and Scott Goodwin. But anyone wondering how committed he actually is should recall the image of him in tears in the dressing room after the Gold Cup final defeat to Mexico last summer. That's not a man thinking about the exit.
"Why not us?" is his answer whenever anyone asks if the US can win the World Cup. He changed the team motto from "One Nation, One Team" to "Never Chase Reality." Tim Weah put it simply: "We have that bit of edge that we didn't have before."
They do. Whether it's enough to go deep in a home World Cup is still an open question — but the Paraguay performance was the clearest evidence yet that Pochettino has actually changed something real, not just the language around it.
