U.S. men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino has defended both his player selection and the team’s performance after a 2-0 loss to South Korea on Saturday, which marked his seventh loss in 17 games since taking the job less than a year ago.
Pochettino described the USMNT as “better than South Korea” in the friendly after outshooting the opponents 17-5 but the team once again looked disjointed, raising concerns about team chemistry with just nine months to go and roughly 10 friendly games left on the schedule until the World Cup. Many of those questions on Saturday were focused on defense, with Tristan Blackmon failing to impress in his debut while mainstay Chris Richards was on the bench. Pochettino said post-match that Richards arrived to camp with a small “issue” that limited him to a substitute appearance but on Monday, he accused critics of lacking common sense with their remarks.
“The important thing is to apply the common sense. If people want to sometimes talk about bullshit, they can talk about bullshit,” he said in his pre-match remarks before a friendly against Japan. “It’s a friendly game and we take a risk and maybe we create the big problem because we maybe want to play with him.”
Pochettino also used Malik Tillman, the Concacaf Gold Cup breakout who joined Bayer Leverkusen over the summer, as an example. Tillman picked up an injury during preseason that kept him out of Leverkusen’s opening match of the Bundesliga season, though he played 61 minutes the following week, just before the international break began.
“It’s a risk to call him and I think we all agree that’s a player that [is] good for us, of course, but which is the benefit – to bring [him] here and maybe set [him] back because he’s not ready or rather to provide him the two weeks, working really well in the team and start again and after to build his condition with regular playing?,” Pochettino said. “Then, October, if he’s doing well, you can call him. But if you call and take a risk and it’s a setback and [he’s] injured and maybe it’s one, two, three months with no play, it’s a big risk for the World Cup.”
Fitness concerns, he said, were to be expected this month since the international break lands just two or three weeks into the European season.
“It’s always difficult because players are moving, changing their clubs, they start playing, they start not playing, came from no preseason, another [with] a short preseason,” he said. “I think that is the most difficult. September camp is always the most difficult because sometimes players are not settled at their clubs.”
The head coach also argued that now is the perfect time to hand opportunities to inexperienced players like Blackmon.
“Also, we need to understand, too, that we need to have quite [a] roster and players that we need to know and give the possibility to play,” he said, “because if we only work with a few players but the moment after [they] arrive [on] the roster and some guys arrives with injuries and cannot play, cannot be in the roster. [At] the World Cup, it’s not a moment to make tests or to give the possibility to get experience. That is why you cannot be surprised.”
Pochettino also insisted that his effort to expand the player pool will create a necessary competitive environment for all involved ahead of the World Cup.
“Of course I want to win, but also, we need to think in the process and to give the possibility to players to perform and put in a very difficult situation, the coaching staff,” he said, “because Tillman needs to know there’s another guy in behind pushing, okay?”
Pochettino also said he is more positive about the USMNT’s performance against South Korea with a few days to reflect, insisting the team is on the right track after March’s losses in the Concacaf Nations League Finals served as an opportunity to correct course.
“I think it was a big wake-up call after March,” Pochettino said. “All that happened helped a little bit, to realize that the most important thing is the national team, is the federation and this is more important than any single name. … We have a plan. We are not [worried]. We are not [worried] about nothing. We stick with the plan. We are with the players. We are a very, very strong group now, people working in the federation, everyone.”
Pochettino also declared that the concerns, at this point, are only external and that overly harsh criticism hinders the players’ progress.
“It’s only when people talk, [they] need to think a little bit that always, there can be another way to assess and to analyze the thing. It’s not only being negative … To be critic[al] is one thing because I like the [criticism] when you say things that are right but when it’s [criticism] for [criticism], I think it’s not damaging me. [You] are damaging your country and damaging your players that, in the end, we need to be all in behind them to provide the best platform to perform.”
