Two years and one World Cup down, Mauricio Pochettino is still assessing

Two years and one World Cup later, former US manager Mauricio Pochettino is back to assessing his tenure. The USMNT’s first squad for the upcoming 2030 World Cup cycle appears to be heavily reliant on youth, which has injected intrigue into the four-game window. Pochettino, who took the podium shortly after the USMNT’s 4-1 elimination at the last-16 stage of this summer’s World Cup, was once asked if he considered his time in charge a success.

His response, filled with typical platitudes, did, however, reveal a glimmer of truth. He stated that he and his staff had finally gotten a better understanding of the player pool. At the time, this statement seemed peculiar. Pochettino had been appointed with the aim of winning the game he'd just lost, and with only a brief two and a half years to achieve this, his primary objective had never been to evaluate the player pool.

Instead, it had been to maximize results with the resources at hand, a task he accomplished with varying degrees of success. Now, in the wake of arguably the most disappointing result in US men's soccer history, it appears that Pochettino's time was indeed a fact-finding mission.