IRVINE, Calif. — It took an Argentine coach to deliver that most American sentiment to the U.S. men’s national team.
And if they want to truly break through at this one-time-only chance on home soil, to have the sort of run that can genuinely change how soccer is viewed in America, then the mindset Mauricio Pochettino has tried to instill in his group must be internalized.
“I think one is, we’re American. We don’t take s–t,” midfielder Sebastian Berhalter said Tuesday when asked how Pochettino had changed the team’s mindset. “That’s something he really put in.
“Even though he’s Argentinian, he has that mindset of, ‘Look, this is what we do. This is who we are. This is what America’s about.’ Even from an outside perspective, he showed us Americans what we’re about. He really drills that into us.”
What could be more American than that? It’s Billy Joel ending a concert, the Tkachuk brothers tossing down the gloves.
What could be less American soccer? With all respect to Clint Dempsey, Jermaine Jones and every other guy who brought grit and toughness over the years, the USMNT has always been defined more by what it isn’t — a team that comes into a World Cup expecting to win it — than what it is.
That’s what can change at this World Cup. That’s what Pochettino has been trying to change since he took the job.
“Our future and philosophy, we are coming from different countries, I think, to settle and establish the new way to see things here,” Pochettino said a couple days after the USMNT started camp last month. “I think it was necessary and was the priority, because if we want to play all these countries — Brazil, Argentina — I think we need to see the sport in a different way than we were seeing.”
The 4-1 win over Paraguay that opened the World Cup marked the biggest, boldest step in the right direction the USMNT has taken yet. The Americans were protagonists. They dominated the ball, never looked out of control. They played to their talent level, which is not only high on the scale of past American teams, but ranks well within the context of the 48 teams at this tournament. Their confidence was shown to a stadium packed with support and the world watching, not blurted to a microphone.
Pochettino’s tactics seem to have clicked into place, and that’s a huge reason to believe the USMNT can do something special at this World Cup. All the other stuff, though, where as recently as last summer, the manager seemed like he was pushing a boulder up a hill, will have just as big a role to play.
“I think we were super aggressive with how we played, how we pressed, and did other things,” Tim Weah said. “So it’s the buildup of all the games. And it’s been great to see and the mentality that coach Poch and his staff have brought to this team, that has been wonderful.”
You can’t deny what that night meant. But for it to truly matter, the USMNT needs to do it again and again and again over the next month. It needs to bring that mindset against everyone, including if it eventually faces one of the nations to which its footballing prowess is so often unfavorably compared.
Certainly it must deliver against Australia on Friday in Seattle, a team whose physicality prompted a halftime outburst from Pochettino back in October and which was already badly underestimated by Turkey before handing it a 2-0 defeat.
This USMNT hasn’t made the mistake of Turkish captain Hakan Çalhanoglu, who declared his team would “dominate” the Socceroos “because we have more qualities and a more talented team.” They’ve sounded all the right notes, though they’d likely prefer if the commentariat — indeed, Mike Grella’s disrespect for the Socceroos has made him more relevant to the Sydney Morning Herald than he’s ever been stateside — would get on the same page.
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Berhalter praised Australia’s defensive effort against Turkey; Weah said their youth and hunger remind him of the USMNT. The lesson here isn’t to talk trash. It’s not to let anyone back you in a corner, to never settle for lowering your own bar into something that seems more reachable.
We don’t know the extent to which that message has sunk in. We may not, truly, until the U.S. plays a game as a prohibitive underdog, or at least until it gets punched in the mouth. What we do know is that they’re talking like it has. And at least at this early stage, they’re playing like it has.
“Poch has said many times, why not us?” Folarin Balogun said Friday night. “We have to believe. You can’t do anything if you don’t believe in yourself.”