U.S. SOCCER NATIONAL TRAINING CENTER (Fayetteville, Ga.) <\/strong>\u2014 Mauricio Pochettino tells the story often.<\/p>\n Long before he became the manager of some of global soccer\u2019s biggest brand-name clubs \u2014 and before he agreed to lead the United States men\u2019s team at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on home soil \u2014 the now 54-year-old was a rugged central defender with Argentina\u2019s all-planet squad.<\/p>\n Not only is La Albiceleste capable of winning any World Cup it enters, fans in the f\u00fatbol-crazy South American nation expect <\/i>them to. It\u2019s the same for the coaches and players: anything less than hoisting the trophy is failure.<\/p>\n As a player at the 2002 World Cup, Pochettino & Co. had every reason to believe that they\u2019d win the grandest prize in sports, having entered the tournament in Japan and South Korea on a 17-game unbeaten run that included a 1-0 win over heavyweights Germany in their send-off match.<\/p>\n “And we arrived to the World Cup and ciao<\/i>: out in the group stage,” Pochettino told me during a roundtable with reporters at the team’s training facility outside of Atlanta ahead of the USA\u2019s final two preparation matches, starting with Sunday\u2019s clash vs. Senegal in Charlotte.<\/p>\n Optimism that this USA squad is capable of making a deep run at this summer\u2019s World Cup took a hit back in March, when Pochettino\u2019s side was thoroughly outclassed by Belgium and Portugal, two of Europe\u2019s most powerful teams.<\/p>\n Winning one or both of these upcoming exhibitions \u2014 the U.S. meets four-time World Cup champ Germany next Saturday in Chicago in their final test match \u2014 would go a long way toward making fans and players alike believe that the Americans are capable of doing something special over the next seven weeks.<\/p>\n Still, vigorous debate remains over how much these warm-up games matter. Or to Pochettino\u2019s point, if they matter much at all.<\/p>\n “I\u2019m kind of torn,” heart-and-soul midfielder Tyler Adams admitted ahead of the Senegal game. “Winning is contagious, and I’ve always said that. Like, once you go out and you’re able to compete and win, no matter how you win, you feel confident.”<\/p>\n Christian Pulisic and the USA doing some pre-World Cup training. (Photo by John Dorton\/USSF\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n It\u2019s a fair point. At the same time, these are the final chances to try out different tactics and players. The games don\u2019t flow the same way, as teams can make up to 11 substitutions in non-official matches compared to five in World Cup contests. Then there\u2019s the threat of injury. Players will leave it all on the field for their countries on the biggest stage. In the games just before, often they\u2019re trying, even subconsciously, to avoid injury on the eve of achieving a life-long dream.<\/p>\n “The objective is to compete well, but not taking risks and of course being safe,” Pochettino said on Saturday.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a difficult balance to strike for world-class athletes who usually only know one speed.<\/p>\n “All of us as players, even when we play, five against five in training, we want to win,” defender Joe Scally said on Friday. “Your job is to win, to get your team over the line. So yeah, of course we want to win these games. It’s important, and it’ll give us momentum going into the tournament.”<\/p>\n \u00a0Senegal will be a stern test for the Stars and Stripes. (Photo by Ulrik Pedersen\/NurPhoto via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY U.S. SOCCER NATIONAL TRAINING CENTER (Fayetteville, Ga.) \u2014 Mauricio Pochettino tells the story often. Long before he became the manager of some of global soccer\u2019s biggest brand-name clubs \u2014 and before he agreed to lead the United States men\u2019s team at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on home soil \u2014 the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}