‘Here to work’: How USMNT trains under new coach Mauricio Pochettino

Pochettino’s brutal training sessions aren’t surprising. He has always prioritized physical fitness. When he coached Southampton in 2013, Pochettino put his players through intense running regiments on days they were used to being off.

“I just couldn’t cope,” said striker Rickie Lambert in 2017 of Pochettino’s sessions at Southampton, per footballinsider247. “We could come in on Monday after 90 minutes on Saturday and do 12 horseshoe runs [laps of the field.]

“I had the bottle to go into his room, pull him to one side very respectfully, and I said, ‘Mauricio, listen, we understand what you’re trying to do, but you’re pushing us too much on a Monday, you just need to calm it down, we’re not used to it.’

“Mauricio was dead polite, said, ‘Yes, that’s fine, I understand,’ we shook hands and I went back to the lads, made up, thinking ‘I just sorted it for you, boys.’

“Next Monday, we came in and not only did we do 12, we did 24 runs. I was running around laughing, almost crying. I knew what he was doing.”

All that training had a purpose: Pochettino’s Southampton side ran more than anyone else in the Premier League that season. The team’s high-intensity style earned it a better-than-expected eighth-place finish in the league.

Pochettino’s Southampton played free-flowing, high-pressing soccer when its opponents were weak. When they were strong, it played hard-charging, aggressive formations dedicated to winning the ball back at all costs. Pochettino’s fitness regimen enabled Southampton to excel at both styles.

Pochettino appears to have found a willing group with the USMNT. Many grew up leveraging similar stamina-building training programs as multi-sport youth athletes in the United States.

“Pochettino knows that we’ve got a short period of time,” Robinson said, per SI.com. “It definitely feels like camp’s going to be a period where we’ll have time to enjoy it, but we’re going to work hard and really build toward success.”

That should be encouraging news for USMNT followers, with many worrying the team was stagnating under former coach Gregg Berhalter.

“In the last two games [against Canada and New Zealand], the team played but didn’t compete,” Pochettino said, per CNN’s Glen Levy and Don Riddell. “That is the key: We need to compete better. We have very talented players, but they need to understand we need to compete better.”

Veteran USMNT defender Tim Ream agrees. 

“The message is that Pochettino wants to win,” he said. “He has his principles, he has his ideas, but at the end of the day it’s about winning.”Ream and his teammates will put that message to the test. 

Four months ago, Panama beat the USMNT and ended Berhalter’s era. Flipping the result will be a perfect way to open Pochettino’s.