World Cup Day 16: Congratulations on Your Loss

Last night in Los Angeles, the USMNT conceded in the final moments of it's final group stage game via a hectic Turkish push for a winner that included plenty of bad defending and Christian Pulisic getting nutmegged. What was going to be an encouraging 2-2 draw suddenly became a deflating 3-2 loss to close out the first part of the American 2026 World Cup.

Türkiye launched into rapturous celebrations. The Americans shuffled off the field. For the Turks, that moment was the best they could get out of the World Cup; for the USMNT, it was a footnote in a run that will continue next week in the Round of 32 and hopefully beyond.

I watched the game, felt the same push-pull of rational thought and frustration everyone with a working brain and a USMNT fan's heart felt, and tried to process.

Sebastian Berhalter: Not a 6, but very good at set piece service and ball-striking.

Weston McKennie: Just...good.

Gio Reyna: Maddeningly close to do something incredible every time he touches the ball but still not someone I trust.

I'll spare you a thought on other eight backups who started a dead rubber in front of famous names like Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, James Cameron, and...Nadia Comaneci.

Two wins, six points, first place, a date with Bosnia & Herzegovina in the Round of 32: These the prizes collected by to the USMNT during the group phase of World Cup 2026. Mauricio Pochettino would like you to focus on that haul and not on the result of the Americans' final group stage game against Türkiye, thank you very much.

Here's the link to Pochettino's entire 15-minute post game press conference. FIFA doesn't allow for embeds, so you'll have to watch it on YouTube proper. It's good refernce for the rest of this newsletter at the very least, and if you're like me, you'll find the whole thing fascinating.

I spent some of today's episode of Morning Kickaround discussing Poch's general mood and some of his specific responses to questions posed by respected soccer journos like Doug McIntyre, Tom Bogert, and Henry Bushnell. You can watch the show back here.

From the beginning of his comments, Pochettino seemed ready for a fight. McIntyre started with a fairly innocuous question, dressed in the context of the lineups's lack of World Cup for a game that meant nothing to the USMNT's position in the group table.

McIntyre's question:

"Mauricio, only three of the players in your lineup tonight—three of the 11—had ever started a World Cup game in their career. I know you would have preferred not to lose the match, especially the way it happened at the end, but what do you make of the way the team fought back in the second half?"

You've heard a question like that posed to a coach a million times before, both in soccer and in other sports. McIntyre purposefully framed his question to give Pochettino and opportunity to talk about the depth of his team. I wouldn't call it a "softball" exactly but neither is it challenging Pochettino directly.

The USMNT boss went hard on the curtness, taking exception with the idea that the team only "fought back" in the second half. Pochettino is an expressive person on the dais and even before McIntyre finished his question, his face took on a puzzled look that promised a less-than-accomodating response.

"I think the effort was 97 minutes, no? I think we competed during 97 minutes, not only in the second half."

That's the sum total of the answer.

Watching the video is worth it to see how Pochettino ends his response with a gesture that seems to say "I don't know what else to say because your question is terrible" in what probably reads to most of us as a dismissive manner. It's the gesture you see in the still attached at the top of this newsletter.

I have a visceral response to that gesture because I've seen it many times before. My wife, a native Spanish speaker, uses it during arguments. She'd say it's not meant to be dismissive or sarcastic, but I bet you can appreciate why it's necessary for her to explain.

So, Pochettino took issue with the posture of the gathered media from question one.

When asked about "expectations" and "pressure" (things that came up both in Spanish and in English) he referenced Germany's loss to Ecuador in that team's final group stage match as a means to contextualize the USMNT loss to Türkiye. Germany made a single change from its second match and lost to Ecuador; the USMNT made nine changes (for a team that was really Weston McKennie and 10 backups) and played Türkiye level for 96-plus minutes.

I can understand why Pochettino would prefer to cast the group stage effort as a massive success rather than pick apart the negatives from a game that meant nothing in the grand scheme of the tournament experience. His problem, and it's not a new one, is that the way he presents that desire in press conferences feels like condescension.

I've had to work through my own reactions to this version of Pochettino because it can feel like he's talking down to American soccer. He certainly has a negative view of a lot of elements of American soccer and sports culture and hasn't been shy about expressing those views in foreign outlets.

And yet, Pochettino also presents as a man enraptured by some parts of what makes America America and can be found waxing poetic about Herb Brooks and the 1980 US hockey team as portrayed in the movie Miracle or invoking the wisdom of Kevin Costner's character Crash Davis from Bull Durham when deciding what to wear on the sidelines during USMNT World Cup matches.

The man is an enigma, made more difficult to parse because of the cultural differences between the American sports media's approach to covering the USMNT and what Pochettino clearly expects from the people (regardless of their occupation) following their national team during the World Cup.

Nothing crystallizes that disconnect better than when—seven minutes into the press conference (as published by FIFA on YouTube)—Alexander Abnos asks Pochettino what lessons the team can takeaway from the loss to Türkiye and the USMNT bosses response was:

"At the moment no one congratulates us to finish first in a very difficult group, by the way. And now I answer your question...I congratulate the players, and the fans to finish first in a very difficult group."

This is not new. At least in the context of international soccer, Pochettino clearly finds it confounding that the American media aren't more outwardly and obviously boostering the team in these moments. For the better part of two years, these tensions have been on display.

Don't expect anything to change, though. The press corps following the USMNT are, in almost every case, born and bred American journalists whose principles of objective coverage is sacrosanct. I feel for those friends of mine who have to deal with Pochettino's obtrusiveness on this issue.

At the same time, I'm not sure those same journalists should read Pochettino's churlish attitudes about post-game questions as material to the fortunes of the team or the excitement around it.

Two different writers from The Athletic, Tom Bogert and Henry Bushnell, filed stories centering Pochettino's press conference attitude.

Bushnell's item included this passage:

Pochettino, before answering one of those questions, complained: “No one congratulated us for finishing first in a very difficult group… I congratulate the players, staff and fans.”

He did the one thing capable of derailing the mood. He got snippy, his mannerisms combative, sometimes in response to ridiculous questions, sometimes in response to innocuous ones.

Bogert's piece included nearly every bothered comment Pochettino made, up to and including one calling reporters' questions "weird."

Turkey scored the game-winning goal in the eighth minute of stoppage time with the last kick of the game. Pochettino pointed out on numerous occasions in the press conference how the team had already wrapped up first place in the group, making the outcome here inconsequential.

“I’m happy, maybe I’m not showing because your questions are a little bit weird,” Pochettino told the media minutes before his departure. “But I’m happy, the players are happy because we are first. I’m confused, maybe the vibes are like we go home tonight and Turkey stays (in the World Cup), no?”

I'd never ask reporters to play the rah rah role because that's not the job they were hired to do. No reporter asked any question that was out-of-bounds after a game the USMNT lost and it's up to Pochettino to learn how to spin questions he deems "weird" into ways to talk up the success of his team.

By neither should we inflate the importance of an impertinent coach from a very different national team culture expressing his frustrations into a bigger issue.

This lesson might be even more important for all of us considering that US Soccer has already made an offer to Pochettino for him to stay on for another cycle and take the USMNT into the 2030 World Cup.

PROGRAMMING NOTES

Tonight! 5-8 PM ET! Me on the radio with Nate Bukaty talking World Cup! Get SiriusXM and join us on channel 157!

See you tomorrow.