A stodgy homegrown coach dismissed after a long tenure turned stale, replaced with an alluring foreign star who made his name among the elite of Europe? We’ve been here before.
The appointment of Mauricio Pochettino as the new US men’s head coach is exciting, bold and appears close to a best-case scenario given the middling status of the USMNT in world football and the shiny résumé of a tactician who’s successfully managed in the English Premier League, La Liga and Ligue 1.
The same was true when US Soccer persuaded Jürgen Klinsmann to replace Bob Bradley in the summer of 2011. Back then, Klinsmann was a warm-to-hot property, his reputation a touch chilled by a gruelling spell at a top European club – in his case, Bayern Munich.
Bradley was a serious-minded New Jersey-born coach hired in his mid-40s after impressing in MLS. He oversaw some mixed but mostly promising results in Concacaf competitions before leading the US to a round-of-16 World Cup exit after a creditable group-stage draw with England.
Bradley’s chief sins were a conservative playing style, excessive loyalty to underperforming regulars and unsophisticated tactics. After more than 70 fixtures in charge across more than four years, about two-thirds of them victories, a feeling took root that the squad was stagnating and needed a fresh voice.
Industrious but never knowingly charismatic, Bradley’s personality and background as a domestic coach meant he was cut little slack by Eurosnobs who longed for a more illustrious and magnetic figure to take charge of a roster that increasingly sourced its key players from leading leagues overseas.
As for Gregg Berhalter? See above, word for word. Not that the parallel is exact given the context. In 2011 the big worry was that the US were falling too far behind their regional rival, Mexico. Now the issue, after the group stage exit in this summer’s Copa América that cost Berhalter his job, is that the US don’t look capable of progressing deep into tournaments because they can’t raise their game against the world’s best. Whether that is explained by the quality of the players or the standard of Pochettino’s predecessor … well, we’re about to find out.
The mission 13 years ago was an overhaul of the program, with the former Germany and Bayern player and manager demanding full control as he sought to transform the identity of American soccer, intending to marry European rigor and proficiency with a feelgood positivity seemingly inspired by his adopted home in southern California.
The team’s personality remains gauzy: under Berhalter the side’s displays were sometimes splashy like the top nations, sometimes resilient like the Americans of yore, but rarely both. Today, though, as Klinsmann wanted, the USMNT’s center of gravity is Europe and most of the players belong to leading clubs.
Since Berhalter has laid a foundation by nurturing young talents such as Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and Tim Weah towards their prime, Pochettino’s task is clear and basic: get us, any which way, into the quarter-finals – and preferably the semis – of the World Cup we’re co-hosting in less than two years. Only this will deliver mainstream attention, global respect, huge television viewing figures 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 contests and friendlies against varied opposition. Pochettino has no World Cup qualifying campaign to battle-harden his charges and a schedule dense with Nations League and Gold Cup games against familiar Concacaf foes.
Like Pochettino, Klinsmann was quirky, personable and popular (at least at the start of his reign). This iteration of the USMNT doesn’t need a friend, though: one plausible explanation for the Copa América failure is that a predictable lineup had become too settled under Berhalter and lacked the requisite feverish desire.
And Klinsmann had guided Germany to the semi-finals of the 2006 World Cup. In swapping Berhalter with Pochettino, US Soccer is replacing a man with no elite club-level managerial pedigree but who, by the time of his exit in July, had taken charge of 74 international games, with one with ample knowledge of upscale leagues but no track record of managing a country.
Still, it’s obvious that the squad will know Pochettino’s work and afford him immediate respect. It’s trickier to predict how a coach with a reputation for driving players hard as he installs a high-intensity pressing style will adapt to the realities of international football, with a limited number of training sessions for players who, given the primacy of the club game and the long-distance flights, will not want to risk injury or fatigue.
The Klinsmann era picked up bad vibrations and collapsed into rancor. He was sacked in 2016. There must also be a danger that Pochettino’s spell will be a chemistry experiment with the wrong elements as he tries to adapt to the different rhythms of the international game 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 every day, to a few sessions every couple of months with lesser lights.
On the other hand, Pochettino has a longer history of sustained success than Klinsmann and may thrive away from the internal politics and high-pressure, low-patience work environments at his past two clubs, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea. An absence of conflicts over transfer policy should come as a relief given the differences of opinion among club hierarchy that pockmarked his brief period at Stamford Bridge. Given the near-universal acclaim that has greeted his appointment, the former Argentina defender should appreciate working for a team and fanbase that’s genuinely excited that he took the role. That wasn’t the case at Chelsea given his past with their London rivals, Tottenham.
Other notable club coaches who took their first national team jobs with foreign countries include Roberto Martínez, a Spaniard who went from Everton to Belgium in 2016, and Sven-Göran Eriksson, the trophy-laden Swedish coach who switched from Lazio to England in 2001. Fabio Capello, a brilliant club manager in Spain and his native Italy, was a leaden leader with England and Russia.
Martínez and Eriksson looked like gambles at the time but worked out, up to a point. They improved on the results of their predecessors but departed with the sense that they had failed to squeeze the maximum out of an unusually talented generation of players; that, ultimately, they underachieved. And, given the importance of the European Championship, they had more major tournament opportunities than will Pochettino; no one will be too surprised or ecstatic if the US win the Nations League and Gold Cup.
As at PSG, Pochettino’s tenure will be defined by a knockout tournament. In Paris, that was the Uefa Champions League, which he failed to win. With the US, it’s the World Cup. Pochettino incrementally improved Espanyol, Southampton, Tottenham and Chelsea and was duly rewarded with rising league positions. World Cups are far more helter-skelter, much less of a meritocracy.
For all the stardust Pochettino may sprinkle on the squad, for all his pedigree and promise, whether he betters Berhalter’s outcome at Qatar 2022 could come down to luck, or a split-second moment: a soft or hard draw, a penalty missed or scored, a chance grabbed or spurned.
Ultimately, though, after the Copa collapse, hiring Pochettino seems less risky than persevering with Berhalter. As with Klinsmann, it’s a statement of ambition and a jolt to the system. Whatever happens in the long run, it’s what the US need now.
