‘That is football’: Mauricio Pochettino lauds Guatemala fans, challenges U.S. soccer culture after Gold Cup win

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ST. LOUIS — The question was about chance creation. But Mauricio Pochettino wanted to talk about soccer culture.

He was speaking after his U.S. men’s national team beat Guatemala 2-1 here in a Gold Cup semifinal. But of all the things he witnessed Wednesday, what apparently impressed Pochettino the most was “the fans of Guatemala … Unbelievable,” he said.

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And then he spoke for two minutes and 40 seconds straight, from the heart, about what he hoped U.S. soccer would learn from the experience. From the passion that filled Energizer Park immediately when gates opened at 4:30 p.m. From the chants that rang and the flags that rippled and “the energy that translates” to the field, as Pochettino said. It inspired Guatemalan players, who on paper were overmatched, but on Wednesday put a mighty scare into the USMNT.

After they came up just short, “I saw a player of Guatemala crying,” Pochettino said.

He congratulated that player, then used him as an example 20 minutes later.

“That,” he said, “is the way that we need to feel.”

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“And our fans need to feel the same,” he continued. “It’s not to come here to enjoy all the spectacle, and if you lose, nothing happens. … Things happen.”

Pochettino is from Argentina. “In Argentina, it’s not the same if we lose. The consequences are massive,” he explained. They’re significant as well in Spain, France and England, where he spent 30 years as a player and coach before taking charge of the USMNT last fall. “Win or lose, it’s not the same. It’s not the same. It’s a lot of consequence,” he reiterated at his postmatch press conference.

His stateside move, in this sense, has clearly been a culture shock. He has inherited players who, he seemingly feels, do not have the same level of life-or-death desire that gets ingrained in kids throughout South and Central America.

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In many countries, “you play [to] survive. You play for food. You play for pride,” Pochettino said. “You play for many things. It’s not to go and enjoy, and go home, and laugh, and that’s it.

“The moment that we — now, this roster — start to live in this way, I think we have big room to improve.”

He hasn’t explicitly said that his players go home and laugh after wins. But many grew up in a country, the U.S., where soccer is not played to survive, to escape poverty, to change a family’s life; it typically begins as a recreational pursuit, often in middle-class suburbs. It becomes something more as talented kids join academies, and then turn pro, of course; there is a level of “desperation,” though — a word Pochettino has used — that is socially ingrained elsewhere but not here.

And it’s reinforced, if not mandated, by fans. Fans who demand everything by giving everything. Fans who buzz around a stadium at 10 a.m., then fill it at 6 p.m., and stand for 90 minutes, and chant: “Sí se puede!” Yes we can!

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“I think the fans gave to you, to Guatemala, an unbelievable energy,” Pochettino said.

Veteran defender Tim Ream agreed: “It spurred them on to push and fight.”

“That is football,” Pochettino said, and then he repeated the line twice more. “That is football. That is football.”

That “connection between the fans and the team,” he said, “that is the connection that we [would] like to see in the World Cup. That connection that makes you fly.”

In his time atop the USMNT, instead, he has seen several half-empty stadiums. And even when full, the environments are relatively laid-back, inorganic or tame. The apathy surrounding the team has likely opened his eyes, and sometimes seems difficult for him to fathom.

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What he hadn’t yet experienced, though, until Wednesday, was a true road game at home.

“It was like [playing] in Guatemala,” Pochettino said.

“It was an atmosphere that we didn’t expect,” he added. And it clearly had an impact on the game.

“You can’t understate what a partisan crowd can do to young minds, guys who haven’t experienced it,” Ream said. “Sometimes, the pressure comes, the fans feel like they’re on top of you, the noise is deafening, and you kinda lose it a little bit.”

As a few players pointed out, Pochettino should have expected it. It’s a reality in the United States, where there are millions of people with ties to soccer-mad countries in Latin America.

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“We’re a country full of immigrants. It was kind of expected for tonight,” defender Chris Richards said. “It’s beautiful to see how much respect they have, but also how much support they have.”

When told that Pochettino was surprised, Richards said: “I think Mauricio kinda being a little bit newer to the U.S., I think he wasn’t quite ready for it.”

Ream indicated that some younger players were taken aback, too. He and others called it an ideal “learning experience” for Sunday’s final against Mexico in Houston. “This game tonight would be like a little brother to the U.S.-Mexico game,” Richards said. They’ll go into Sunday better equipped, mentally.

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Pochettino, though, wasn’t thinking about how his team would handle that atmosphere. He was dreaming of replicating Guatemala’s passion, and its impact on players, in the team that he coaches.

“If you see the big teams or countries [play games], it’s not playing,” Pochettino said. “Today, do you think that was a sport, two teams playing, and doing a spectacle? No. You play for something more. You play for emotion. You play [to], be happy, be sad.”

That is what he wants here. It’s a dynamic, of course, that takes decades to develop, and might never develop in a nation of unmatched wealth and unparalleled opportunity in other sports and fields. But how can it start?

“I think winning helps. But I also think guys like [midfielder] Diego Luna help. I also think guys like [midfielder] Malik Tillman help,” Ream said. And “fighting and togetherness” help. “Doing that fosters that connection with the fans — with the diehards, with the casuals, with everybody. And as long as we continue to do that, that culture grows. The feelings grow. And the connections grow.”

This news was originally published on this post .