Los Angeles Stadium (INGLEWOOD, Calif.) \u2014 <\/strong>Sitting at the dais the day before his first match in charge at a World Cup, United States national team boss Mauricio Pochettino went back to the beginning of his tenure at the helm of the tournament co-hosts.<\/p>\n Pochettino said back in September 2024 at his introductory press conference in a Manhattan skyscraper that he believed \u2014 and that his players would have to believe, too \u2014 that the Stars and Stripes could win the World Cup.<\/p>\n Just eight nations have in the almost 100-year history of the planet\u2019s marquee spotting event, including Pochettino\u2019s native Argentina. Yet his own lone experience as a player at soccer\u2019s quadrennial party ended in heartbreak: a stunning group stage elimination in 2002 \u2014 the same year a plucky and nails-tough American squad shocked Planet F\u00fatbol by reaching the quarterfinals in a memorable run that included a group-stage win over Portugal and a round-of-16 victory over Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to the experts, neither of those things was supposed to occur. The lesson? At the World Cup, anything can happen.<\/p>\n So when Pochettino was asked ahead of the U.S.’s tournament opener on Friday against Paraguay what would constitute success for his team in the weeks to come, his answer wasn\u2019t at all surprising.<\/p>\n “For me, [being] successful is [to] win,” Pochettino said. “It’s win tomorrow, and win after [that.] If we don’t arrive to the final, and we don’t win the World Cup, [how can we] talk about \u2018successful?\u2019 I don’t know.”<\/p>\n Pochettino wouldn\u2019t have taken the job if he didn\u2019t believe he could do what most \u2014 including most Americans, probably \u2014 believe is impossible this summer. After walking away from Chelsea in 2024 as one of Europe\u2019s best-regarded coaches, he wouldn\u2019t have turned down more lucrative offers to take on the challenge of making a deep run with a country that he\u2019s long admired from afar, one he frequently notes aspires to be the best in anything it tries to do.<\/p>\n Mauricio Pochettino’s mantra? Just win, baby. (Photo by John Dorton\/USSF\/Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n At his core, “Poch” is a dreamer. He\u2019s the reason behind the U.S. motto changing from “One Nation, One Team” during the 2022 World Cup cycle to the “Never Chase Reality.” The 54-year-old doesn\u2019t want to be realistic about the Americans’ chances on home soil. Instead, he wants to bend reality to his will by convincing his players anything is possible. After all, the future isn’t written yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n He cried when he watched the Disney movie “Miracle” that chronicled the greatest upset in the history of American and perhaps global sports: when the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team \u2014 with a roster filled with amateur college kids \u2014 upset the grizzled and fully professional four-time defending gold medalists Soviet Union at that year\u2019s Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York.<\/p>\n Pochettino saw a kindred spirit in Herb Brooks, the no-nonsense taskmaster of that group and borrowing his famous quote about assembling the “right” players as opposed to the “best.”<\/p>\n No way is he about to back down on the eve of this World Cup.<\/p>\n “When we signed here, it was because we wanted to come here and to be involved in that unique event, but with the possibility to compete well and believing in winning.”<\/p>\n It is now Christian Pulisic’s time to shine at the World Cup. (Photo by John Byrum\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY Los Angeles Stadium (INGLEWOOD, Calif.) \u2014 Sitting at the dais the day before his first match in charge at a World Cup, United States national team boss Mauricio Pochettino went back to the beginning of his tenure at the helm of the tournament co-hosts. Pochettino said back in September 2024 at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4591","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\/4591","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=4591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}