Pochettino taking inspiration from Scaloni’s Argentina ahead of first game in charge of USA | OneFootball

New USA national team manager Mauricio Pochettino has said that he hopes to fill stadiums and entertain the American public in the upcoming international break.

Pochettino will soon make his highly anticipated debut as the USMNT’s manager, facing Panama in Texas on 12 October, just over a month after his appointment was announced.

His most managerial stint came at Chelsea, where he spent one season before departing in the summer, and the Argentinian is hoping to bring plenty of excitement to the USA fans.

He said: “Soccer needs to be an exciting game for the USA citizen, I think they need to enjoy every time they go to the stadium. We have amazing players, but they need to believe.

“Some pundits were talking that we need to create an exciting way to play, and we need to enjoy defending because we need to be a team that does not concede too many goals if we want to achieve the objective of preparing the team for the World Cup [in 2026].”

He expects his team to be disciplined both in and out of possession and said that he will employ a similar flexible 4-3-3 formation to that which he employed at Chelsea.

He said: “We love to dominate the games, and of course to have the possession and to have the ball because this is the best way to defend and if we want to win we need to play closer to the opposite goal.

“We are going to be very demanding when we lose the ball, we need to be desperate to recover as soon as possible and we need to work as a team, we need to show that we are a real team.”

He pointed to Lionel Scaloni’s Argentina outfit as an example of the teamwork and work ethic he expects from his new squad. With victory at the 2026 World Cup already identified as a target, Pochettino may look to emulate Scaloni’s winning formula.

“Other teams that win titles, you can see Argentina winning the Copa America or the World Cup, when they have the ball they play very well but when they don’t have the ball they work like a team, they are very principled.

“We need to enjoy trying to recover the ball, and be very strong defensively. We need to be very competitive. It is not just to play nice football, it is to be competitive.”

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