Pochettino officially announced as new head coach as USMNT draw with New Zealand | Morning Footy

mind to it. Well said. And yeah, just a day of remembrance for sure. Yeah. And with that we will shift our focus over to Mauricio Pochettino. Last night the news became official that he will be the new head coach of the US men's national team. It has been brought across the finish line and Pochettino, he threw it on the gram, the start of an exciting new journey and one I'm very proud to be a part of. Let's make it one to remember for all. Here's a look at the statement from Matt Crocker on Mauricio Pochettino and his hiring. Crocker saying Mauricio is a serial winner with a deep passion for player development and a proven ability to build cohesive and competitive teams. His track record speaks for itself, and I am confident that he is the right choice to harness the immense potential within our talented squad. With this news, we've got so many friends joining us on the show today. Tony Meola will be one of them. Paul Tenorio, who has been all over the story from the jump with The Athletic, will also be joining us later on in the show. But guys, we're finally here. We're finally here and can talk about this in the context of it being made official. Alexis, now that we have more information, what has kind of been your big takeaway from what we've learned? I think you have to give credit to U.S. soccer. They set. They set the, you know, the standard very high. They used the term serial winner. You saw it in Matt Crocker's first sentence. Serial winner. They wanted to go out and find someone that's going to move this entire program forward. And I think they got that guy. It wasn't easy to get him. Obviously, they needed help from you know, as a 500 and 1C3, you can get investments. They got investments from Ken Griffin. As we learned in the article, which we'll talk to him about later. They needed the help of Emma Hayes to, you know, shore. It up. And it looked like it was very difficult. You know, with transfer and Chelsea and the transfer window and Chelsea everything but they got it done. They got the deal over the line. And I think that's the most important thing. Now begins the real conversation, which is how fast can he start. How fast can he make an impact and what will that impact be? And Nico, looking at this hiring now in the context of the disappointing draw from the United States against New Zealand yesterday, just how dire was the need for a guy like Mauricio Pochettino to come in? It was extremely necessary and I don't think we can just take the context of the draw and the loss to Canada, take into context the performance at Copa America. Take into context how this team, since the start of the second cycle of Berhalter, has been in a downward trajectory. So getting a guy that has coached at the elite level that understands European football culture, that understands South American football culture, that has lived it both as a manager and a player, that's somebody who understands how to get the most out of these players, Matt Crocker said. Harnessing the potential. But also what I think is necessary is understanding the limitations of certain players and making that stronger. Collectively That's where coaches Mun. One of his most important items on the docket to check will to be make this team give it an identity, make them play well, and give it a lot of purpose. Yesterday, Christen Pulisic, in his postgame comments to TNT, looked dejected. Like devoid of all of this. Like all of this hope. It just it almost looked like a moment of despair, knowing. All right, we're over the line. The old era is done, and this guy is the necessary manager to usher in that new era. And it starts today, and it's got to start fast. Mike. Yeah. Runway is short to 2026, I think before we can even get to the tactical elements of what brings the biggest thing that we've taken away from the U.S. men's national team right now, the biggest thing that we've lamented during this window has been the character flaws of this side and the character flaws. They go back prior to Copa America. They go back to that Colombia match, where there was a feel good factor. It was okay, we are the kings of Concacaf and we're getting a dose of reality that maybe we're not as good as we think we are when we don't try. You have to try in professional football, you have to try for your national team. And so for Michelle Pochettino, would have always loved about his teams. Is he's a transformational manager. Every team that he's managed, every team that he's gotten a hold of, he's taken players who a lot of them, some of them we didn't know much about, and he's made them household names in every league. He's been a part of. So I'm looking forward to seeing which players he can take to that next level with this group and a lot of his teams especially. I specifically look at Southampton and Spurs. I think what happened at PSG was a little bit of an exception because they were superstars. He had different homework to take care of at PSG than he did at Southampton and at Spurs. Man, those Spurs teams ran their off. If you just go back like the first immediate example that we have is the second half of the New Zealand game, where the tempo was brought up. That should be the standard. Every single game, that energy, that intensity that the U.S. brought to the table. And that's like the bare minimum, right? Hopefully, I believe I'm not going to say Portia's going to do it because I'm not reading into the future, but from what we've seen, the sample size that patch has given us is that his team's run and if the United States can go back to being the fittest, the fastest, the hardest working team, they don't necessarily need to be the strongest teams. And here's the total sprints from the 2004 to 2015 Premier League. That is. Tottenham team was at the very top of, but it's not only this, it's the Southampton. It's there's so many factors that point towards Portuguese. Teams are hard working teams and the United States needs to become a hard working team again. I think one of the things we've talked about, especially over these last two matches, but really we've been talking about it since the beginning of Copa America, maybe even the end of the last World Cup is the lack of intensity, the lack of desire that we've seen. Yeah. And those days are gone. As of that announcement of Mauricio Pochettino. Those days are gone. The yesterday's match will probably be the last time we see listless go on because changes will be made. The expectations have been risen, the bar has been risen. And what I love about a hire like Mauricio Pochettino is that he is not weighed down by the history of U.S. soccer. He is not weighed down by the expectations that were set before. He brings in a higher level of expectations. I wonder, are we is he taking over a Southampton? Is he taking over at Tottenham or is he taking over PSG? I don't think we're a PSG, we're somewhere between Southampton levels right now. Southampton, I would say we're more Tottenham, but yes, Southampton before the pots effect because you look at just the body language right now, this team is not in a good place. And Nico, what you talk about with Christen Pulisic, it's between the ears with this group right now. And you saw different spurts within this match and not as much with Canada. But when this group I want to take you back to the Brazil match right before Copa America, the difference between Colombia and Brazil was this team. They play with a chip on their shoulder. They have that belief that they can play against anyone. What goes on after the feel good factor is I think this group, they tend to go on social media. They tend to believe the hype a bit and they tend to, as we as pundits. Hey, we were giving them some of the hype, but I think with a manager like Mauricio Pochettino that hype you have to earn it. It's not going to be free. It's not just the hype though. Guys It's the millions and millions of dollars that these players are earning too. There's a comfort level that is more inherent with a lot of these young players. Now, that wasn't necessarily the case a decade, two decades ago, but these guys who were fighting to just get soccer on the map, right. If you go back decades and decades ago, those players on the national team needed the national team to take that next step. And not necessarily the guys now need the national team to take the next step in their career. And I think that that's an argument for where we're at nowadays with with U.S. soccer and maybe what the crest means. So I don't know if it's that they go on social media and believe the hype. I think it's more of a comfortability thing, knowing that they're good and that they play in Europe, that they're going to get the call up and I think what coach brings to the table is that organizational factor. Get everybody on the same page from a belief perspective, from a directional perspective, from an order perspective. Look at what he did at Chelsea. Chelsea was a Chelsea was all over the place and towards the end of the season, I would say that the second semester, from January onward, he gave Chelsea a penalty. It was the penalty. But but even hold on, remember they were playing well, they were playing well. But how he handled that, how he handled that and everyone got in line after that. Right. But that was huge. I think that was very representational. But even before that, Chelsea were already trending on the right track. Yeah. And he gave them order, balance more of an identity a little bit more purpose. It wasn't perfect. They still finished, what, ninth on the table to eighth. They qualified for conference League six six okay. Six. Even better. Okay. Whatever So yeah. So I think all of what we're talking about points at one thing with this national team, and it goes back to character flaws with this side. The word entitlement comes to mind with this group. And that entitlement was something that was fostered by Gregg Berhalter, where you give freebies for players who really aren't playing, they're not getting minutes for their club and said, okay, national team is a place where you can come to, you can get your minutes that will change under Mauricio Pochettino and that entitlement that we saw from Chelsea players. When you point back to that moment with the penalty, I think that was a turning point for them and Chelsea was one of the sides since that moment on. After the new Year, they had some of the highest point totals in the entire Premier League. That's why they finished sixth. Yeah. And to piggyback on that, I think that's exactly I've heard I've seen this on on social media. I've heard some people say this, that he's going to make the team better. He's going to make the team better tactically. He's not going to make the players better individually. What he's going to do is raise the level of expectation for each of those players. Those players need to get better at their clubs. Those players need to be playing week in and week out at their clubs, not using U.S, the U.S. men's national team, as a reprieve from bad club form. Because all I'm going to get my minutes here. Those days are done. He's he's going to raise the level of expectation for the players even at their club form. Mostly, mostly I agree. The thing is that Puig has a year and a half essentially, right. This contract goes through the world Cup, so there's not that much time for everybody to move and everybody to everyone to be starting and playing and getting maximum amount of minutes. I think if you say that everybody needs to be getting minutes, it's a realistic someone on a national team like the United States, it was France, it was Argentina, I get it, but it's the United States. Someone is going to fall out of the depth chart. Sure, on on a team. And I think you can have a balance of that. There's a player like Gio Reyna. Gio Reyna is in a. Gio Reyna is in a bad situation right now. He should be playing right. He should be pushing for a move. Windows closed. It's not like he's not going to use Gio Reyna now and through Nations League maybe not. But Pepi for example I think Pepi is a good example. He ran his off yesterday. Yeah. His movement was sensational yesterday and even though he didn't score, look, technically he did. I don't know why the goal was to this moment. I don't know why that goal was chalked off, but Pepe's a guy. He's like, okay, he's not playing and he might get some Champions League minutes here or there. Talk about making a player better, maximizing his potential despite his club situation. I think Pochettino is a guy that's going to have to learn how to deal with these things, because I think it's unrealistic to ask that every it would be ideal if everybody's playing. And of course everybody wants that for sure. But there is going to be a moment where, all right, does Ricardo Pepi, do we force him to take a step back from a PSV and go play? Where was he playing before Groningen, before Groningen, before, and Augsburg before that? To be chasing the ball? Or is he good in a setup at PSV? I think maybe he doesn't make the move, but that's what you'll have to deal with if you're the manager of the United States and maximizing everybody in each situation that they're in. Obviously, I wanted you to get your piece out. What I'm what I'm trying to say is languishing in being a backup, languishing in things aren't going my way. Oh, but I'm happier when I get to the men's national team. That's what we saw over the last few years, right? Those days are gone. A phone call with Mauricio Pochettino is not going to be like, hey buddy, you know when you get here, we'll work on some of those things. It's let's go. What are you doing at your club to make that change? Maybe you're not going to get those. Maybe you're not going to get that start. But what are you doing to affect that change? He's going to raise the level of expectation even for the players at their clubs. And I think that's super important because everyone needs to be working at a very high rate in order for the team and the squad that we have to perform at a level that I think would make this country proud in this World Cup, what is really going to be excited about what I'm excited about is to say, with a manager like patches, everyone's singing off of different hymn sheets right now for the US men's national team, whether they go from club level and they come here, the expectation of okay, I'm not playing for my club, but when I come from the national team, I should be the main man because I play in Europe. Well, that's going to go away. Hopefully that goes away because right now earn your spot once again. Exactly. Competition that is what I'm excited to see most who really wants to be the number nine for the US men's National team, Flo Balogun. The assist aside, we're going to get more into that. I'm not too convinced though, with Flo, Ricardo, Pepi, he showed me more of that. Is it Hodgy? Right? A lot of those answers are going to be answered with the manager like a lot of that. What is going to do? Return prestige and shine back to the crest, which felt a little bit dim in the last couple of years, something that Emma Hayes said that stood out to me. One of her many quotes leading up to the Olympics and after was that she didn't want the jersey, the U.S. jersey to strangle her or any of the team. Far from it. Put that on and feel stronger. Feel more unified as a result of wearing the U.S. jersey. And I think one thing that Mauricio Pochettino will have to do not comparing the positions that the U.S. women are in compared to the U.S. men, but women are, of course. Yeah, but either way, that's PSG. They needed they needed a spark. And the U.S. men need a spark to get them to just meet the standard. And Emma Hayes brought that. The fact that she was also involved, having that Chelsea connection with Pochettino and helping however big of a role she played in getting this, materialized. I'm excited for those two to collaborate, which is what she said in her video congratulating patch. So what you're saying? Emma Hayes, 2024 I just, I like that you've got two managers who have experience with