MARIETTA, Ga. — On Sunday afternoon, a day after his team took a 5-2 loss to Belgium, U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino watched Colombia and France battle it out in an exhibition in Landover, Md.
The ferocity and pace of France’s 3-1 win made an impression on him. There was nothing in the game that made it feel like it was a no-stakes “friendly.”
“Do you think that the coach of Colombia, losing the game, is going to complain about some players?” Pochettino asked. “They played like this was the final of the World Cup. And France, when they saw the intensity and the aggression of Colombia said: ‘If we don’t play as intense, they will kill us.’ That is intensity.”
After Colombia-France, Pochettino caught highlights of Argentine club Racing’s Copa Argentina clash with third-division side San Martín de Formoso, which featured several hard tackles, a few scraps and a red card. Finally, he caught his former club Newell’s Old Boys’ 2-0 loss to Acassuso in the same tournament.
“In these games, if you don’t have aggression and intensity and everything, you can’t play there,” Pochettino said.
That it was the intensity level that stood out across Pochettino’s soccer viewing was the problem.
An equivalent vigor was lacking from the U.S. against Belgium. It felt inexcusable with the World Cup just two months away. And that wasn’t just perception. U.S. Soccer’s data showed that the Americans were not as aggressive defensively almost across the board compared to previous camps, Pochettino noted.
“One of the things that worried us most when we compared the last two matches — Uruguay and Paraguay — with Belgium (it) was what I mentioned before: the lack of intensity,” he said. “Where? In both boxes, box to box. The numbers — how much we dropped in our ability to be aggressive, in that intensity when recovering the ball, in not allowing the opponent to transition — if you compare it to Paraguay or Uruguay, we’re at about half. We’ve given the opponent far too much space.”
Pochettino praised his team’s ability to be dangerous in the attack. “We have good players,” he said. But it’s the defensive aggression that gives the team the balance and “solidity” it needs to compete, he added.
Asked what might have been lacking against Belgium, U.S. captain Tim Ream said that, “in some moments, it’s a decision.”
“It’s just an overall effort,” he said. “It’s not that guys don’t want to do it; it’s sometimes, ‘Oh, we’ve just made an effort.’ And now it’s about making another one. It’s about making not just the first, (but) the second, the third, the fourth. And sometimes that doesn’t happen. And that’s just something that is a non-negotiable, really. And it’s something that we were doing really well in the fall, last year. And it’s something we have to get back to.”
I had a similar viewing experience to Pochettino on Sunday, only rather than the games the U.S. coach took in, I caught a preview of CBS’s new documentary series on former U.S. forward Clint Dempsey, You Don’t Know Where I’m From, Dawg.
The five-part series chronicles Dempsey’s rise out of Nacogdoches, Texas, to become a U.S. Soccer Hall of Famer who would score goals at three World Cups, tie for the USMNT’s all-time lead in goals and become Fulham’s all-time leading Premier League goalscorer. It honed in, unsurprisingly, on Dempsey’s famous drive and his constant need to prove himself.
“Make them f***king play you,” Dempsey said on Sunday night, summing up the mentality that drove him to the top.
Clint Dempsey scored against the USA’s next opponent, Portugal, back at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. (Elsa / Getty Images)
Dempsey invented slights and enemies to push himself to the next level. He took every snub and used it as motivation. It’s what made him one of the greatest players in U.S. history. Coming out of the documentary, it felt like it should be required viewing for this U.S. team. Not just because of how much Dempsey’s story and path to success might remind them of the drive needed to achieve greatness, but because the clips of the U.S. team’s successes at previous World Cups were rooted in the very same qualities as Dempsey’s own story.
The U.S. has always been a team that has to prove itself. This team too often feels like it lacks that mentality.
As another U.S. great, Landon Donovan, told The Athletic on Monday: “It’s not that they don’t care, but maybe they don’t have enough pride,” he said. “Maybe that’s the way I need to say it. … I would have been mortified to be losing in a home game three months before the World Cup with 70,000 people there. I would have been unbelievably embarrassed losing 4-1 and 5-1, forget it. I probably would have got sent off.
“I’m just trying to figure out why is nobody yelling at each other? Why is nobody getting a yellow card? Why is nobody stopping (Jérémy) Doku after he’s terrorized us for 70 minutes? Why is this not happening? I can’t figure it out. I don’t know if it’s generational or if it’s this team in particular, but that just doesn’t happen. And it blows my mind.”
It’s why Pochettino said he wants his players to watch the types of games he took in on Sunday. To see the level of aggression, desire and drive that is necessary for teams to reach their best levels. Not for nine out of 10 recovery runs, or for 60 minutes out of 90, but for every single run and every single minute.
It was a long day in goal for Matt Turner, who conceded five against Belgium in Saturday’s friendly. (David J. Griffin / Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)
The Argentine coach knocked on the table in front of him at Monday’s press conference as he thought about how to describe why it’s such an important part of any team’s identity — and especially so for this team.
It’s clear that the U.S. still hasn’t developed the necessary habits, the ability to push constantly, that will be needed to beat the best teams in the world. And if the U.S. players don’t do it against Belgium and Portugal in this window, what makes them think it’ll come naturally once the World Cup kicks off?
“There’s still time to realize that we need to compete like the (Colombia) game against France,” Pochettino said.
Tuesday against Portugal will show whether they’ve taken on that lesson. Because as special as these players might – and still can – be, the key to success might be to show just how much they’re the same as the U.S. teams that came before them. To prove that while they might be able to play their way into bigger conversations, they can also fight their way to results.
