US Men Set to play international window with an interim coach while we wait for Pachitino to finally be announced officially. Interesting that we are missing a bunch of starters for this week’s games — pointing to the US not really worrying about this series of games – including a huge match up with Canadian big mouth coach who predicted a 2-1 victory for the mounties this weekend. I for one and happy to see Barca’s Kochen in camp – would love to see the youngster get a shot to grab the top slot soon. With Horvath and Turner screwing up their English opportunities – it might well be time to determine who’s next and moving on. Is Kochen perhaps better than Gaga Slovenia? Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see this week.

The 24-player USMNT roster for Sat Sept 7 vs Canada 4 pm & Tues Sept 10 7 pm on TBS & HBO Max

GOALKEEPERS (4): Ethan Horvath (Cardiff City), Diego Kochen (FC Barcelona II), Patrick Schulte (Columbus Crew), Matt Turner (Crystal Palace)

DEFENDERS (8): Auston Trusty (Celtic FC), Marlon Fossey (Standard Liege), Kristoffer Lund (Palermo), Mark McKenzie (Tolouse), Tim Ream (Charlotte FC), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace), Joe Scally (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Caleb Wiley (Strasbourg)

MIDFIELDERS (6): Johnny Cardoso (Real Betis), Luca de la Torre (Celta Vigo), Aidan Morris (Middlesbrough), Yunus Musah (AC Milan), Gio Reyna (Borussia Dortmund), Malik Tillman (PSV Eindhoven)

FORWARDS (6): Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United), Folarin Balogun (Monaco), Ricardo Pepi (PSV Eindhoven), Christian Pulisic (AC Milan), Josh Sargent (Norwich City), Haji Wright (Coventry City)

vs Canada — Saturday, Sept. 7 — Children’s Mercy Park, Kansas City, Kansas – 4pm ET
vs New Zealand — Tuesday, Sept. 10 — TQL Stadium, Cincinnati, Ohio – 7pm ET

To show how excited I am — I am not even considering going to Cincy Tues night — I have been to every other US Men’s or Ladies game that has ever been played in Cincy. If it was vs Canada I would be going. Oh well.

TV SCHEDULE

Sat, Sept 5

12 noon FS1 England vs Ireland

2:45 pm FS2 Netherlands vs Bosnia

How will USMNT lineup versus Canada? U.S. roster for friendlies

NBC Sports Wed, Sep 4, 2024, 8:31 AM EDT·4 min read

The United States men’s national team, still awaiting the unveiling of expected new boss Mauricio Pochettino, is set for a pair of home friendlies this month versus Canada and New Zealand.

The first USMNT matches since the team’s Copa America flameout, a stunning group stage flop that cost Gregg Berhalter his second stint as coach, will see new names and a few big absences.

Fulham’s Antonee Robinson is being given a month off after playing with an injury for some time, while Bournemouth‘s Tyler Adams is dealing with an injury setback and Weston McKennie is allowed to stay with Juventus to get more training time after a truncated preseason.

[ MORE: USMNT in 2024 — Schedule, results ]

McKennie’s club teammate Timothy Weah is also injured and won’t get a chance to test the USMNT waters after his poor red card in Copa America, while Sergino Dest remains out of action with his long-term injury.Also not in the fold? Cameron Carter-Vickers, Miles Robinson, Gaga Slonina, Lennard Maloney, and Kevin Paredes. That will lead to some interesting lineups. In charge is Mikey Varas, the well-respected San Francisco native who led the U.S. U-20 team after stints with the FC Dallas and Sacramento Republic set-ups.Will Varas choose to go full-strength twice? If not, will he rotate stars in and out or choose a star-heavy lineup once and a new-face heavy team the second time? If so, it would make sense that Christian Pulisic and the big names start against Canada and are on the bench to start versus New Zealand.Let’s see how the USMNT might look after peering at the full squad by position below.

USMNT roster for friendlies vs Canada, New Zealand

Goalkeepers: Ethan Horvath (Cardiff City), Diego Kochen (FC Barcelona II), Patrick Schulte (Columbus Crew), Matt Turner (Crystal Palace)

Defenders: Auston Trusty (Celtic), Marlon Fossey (Standard Liege), Kristoffer Lund (Palermo), Mark McKenzie (Tolouse), Tim Ream (Charlotte FC), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace), Joe Scally (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Caleb Wiley (Strasbourg)

Midfielders:: Johnny Cardoso (Real Betis), Luca de la Torre (Celta Vigo), Aidan Morris (Middlesbrough), Yunus Musah (AC Milan), Gio Reyna (Borussia Dortmund), Malik Tillman (PSV Eindhoven/)

Forwards: Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United), Folarin Balogun (Monaco), Ricardo Pepi (PSV Eindhoven), Christian Pulisic (AC Milan), Josh Sargent (Norwich City), Haji Wright (Coventry City)

USMNT new faces cheat sheet: Who are Diego Kochen, Marlon Fossey, and Aidan Morris?

For those who might be unfamiliar with some of the few-capped or uncapped players in the team….

Marlon Fossey: The Standard Liege right back will turn 26 during camp and has not represented the U.S. since 2017 with the U-20s. The Los Angeles-born Fossey was in the Fulham set-up from 2009-22, taking loans to Shrewsbury Town and Bolton Wanderers before transferring to Standard Liege in 2022. He’s a regular start for Standard, going 90 minutes in all six of their 2024-25 matches.

Diego Kochen: The 18-year-old is a dual national (Peru), and has represented the U.S. and u-17 and u-19 levels. He’s on Barcelona’s second team but was on the bench for 26 La Liga matches last season.

Aidan Morris: The 22-year-old made his debut at the 2023 Gold Cup and all three of his other caps came in international friendlies (two in off-window January games). He came up with Columbus Crew and is impressing in his first season with Middlesbrough in England‘s Championship, where he’s chewing up minutes at defensive mid.

How will USMNT lineup versus Canada? Best XI

Let’s start by establishing parameters here: Given the absences mentioned above, the Yanks are shy their pretty nailed-on starters at right back, left back, right wing, holding mid, and box-to-box center mid.

With a pretty versatile set of forwards, Gio Reyna or Malik Tillman could play right wing or in the hold. Yunus Musah is also quite versatile and could play in a wide position to allow Luca de la Torre to play, but this seems most likely.

Another note: Matt Turner’s inclusion despite a recent loan move does seem like a chance to get him live action, though there could be a notion to rotate there, too.

Matt Turner

Joe Scally — Chris Richards — Tim Ream — Kristoffer Lund

Johnny Cardoso — Yunus Musah

Giovanni Reyna — Malik Tillman — Christian Pulisic

Folarin Balogun

How will USMNT lineup versus Canada? Experimental

Matt Turner

Marlon Fossey — Chris Richards — Tim Ream — Caleb Wiley

Yunus Musah — Luca de la Torre

Brenden Aaronson — Giovanni Reyna — Christian Pulisic

Ricardo Pepi

Alex Morgan announces retirement from soccer

She will play her final match on Sunday.

By Donald Wine II@blazindw  Sep 5, 2024, 9:22am PDT  

A legend is leaving the game. Today, Alex Morgan announced that she will be retiring from soccer in a heartfelt message posted on social media. She will play her final match on Sunday when the San Diego Wave host the North Carolina Courage.

Alex Morgan is one of the most decorated and heralded players in U.S. Soccer history. Nicknamed “Baby Horse” early on, she joined the national team in 2010 and had 224 caps for the United States Women’s National Team, ninth-most all time. She finishes fifth in USWNT history with 123 goals, and 9th in all-time assists with 53. The USWNT was 177W-15L-32D in matches where she was on the field. More brilliantly, the USWNT never lost (76W-0L-10D) in the 86 matches where Alex Morgan scored.

She was a winner on all levels, winning the 2011 WPS title with the Western New York Flash and winning a NWSL title with the Portland Thorns in 2013. She won the Divsion 1 Féminine, the French Cup, and the Women’s Champions League in her lone season with Lyon, and she won the 2023 NWSL Shield and 2024 NWSL Challenge Cup with the San Diego Wave. On the international level, her winning began in her youth as she was a member of the USWNT U-20 squad that won the U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2008. On the senior national team, she won the 2015 and 2019 Women’s World Cup, a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics, a bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics, 3 Concacaf Women’s Championships, 2 Concacaf Olympic qualifying tournaments, 3 Algarve Cups, 6 SheBelieves Cups, and the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup.

Morgan also announced that she is pregnant with her second child, and she will play in her final match on Sunday.

“I grew up on this team, it was so much more than soccer,” said Morgan in a statement released by U.S. Soccer. “It was the friendships and the unwavering respect and support among each other, the relentless push for global investment in women’s sports, and the pivotal moments of success both on and off the field. I am so incredibly honored to have borrowed the crest for more than 15 years. I learned so much about myself in that time and so much of that is a credit to my teammates and our fans. I feel immense pride in where this team is headed, and I will forever be a fan of the USWNT. My desire for success may have always driven me, but what I got in return was more than I could have ever asked and hoped for.”

It is unclear when there will be a celebration of her career at a USWNT match. The USWNT are next in action in three home matches in late October, and it’s assumed that one of them will be that celebration. For now, fans can tune in or attend the match on Sunday to salute one of the great players in U.S. Soccer history.

USA vs. Canada, 2024 Friendly: What to watch for

The USMNT waits for the new manager.

By Brendan Joseph  Sep 6, 2024, 6:30am PDT  

The United States Men’s National Team is embarking on the first international window of the post-Gregg Berhalter era without a permanent manager in the technical area. Despite the maelstrom of rumors linking Mauricio Pochettino to the open position, Mikey Varas will serve in an interim role for the two friendlies and named a 24-player training camp roster. The first match is against rivals Canada, which enjoyed the breakout summer performance at the Copa América that was originally predicted for their two North American Football Union foes.

Ranked as the 40^th best team in the world by FIFA, Les Rouges (The Reds) have become more of a rival over the past decade, particularly as the program’s talent base has improved. The two sides last faced off in the quarterfinal round of the 2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup, with the USMNT claiming a shootout victory, 2-2 (3-2). Despite that match being a little over a year ago, there have been sea changes as both programs experienced managerial switches and drastic shifts in form. As the series continues, Canada should continue to notch impressive results and provide further dramatic chapters in the climb toward regional supremacy.

Latest Form

USA

L (0-1) – Uruguay – Copa América Group C

L (1-2) – Panama – Copa América Group C

W (2-0) – Bolivia – Copa América Group C

D (1-1) – Brazil – Friendly

L (1-5) – Colombia – Friendly

Canada

L (2-2 [3-4]) – Uruguay – Copa América Third Place

L (0-2) – Argentina – Copa América Semifinal

W (1-1 [4-3]) – Venezuela – Copa América Quarterfinal

D (0-0) – Chile – Copa América Group A

W (1-0) – Peru – Copa América Group A

What To Watch For

Whose tactics are these? There is a constant drumbeat of Pochettino stories with the assumption that his appointment is mere days from being announced. While Varas is in control of the squad and calling the shots for this camp, perhaps there will be a few lineup choices or tactical tweaks that seem suspiciously similar to the Argentine’s proclivities. The World Cup is less than two years away, and every match counts, whether he is officially leading the program or not.

Who steps up? There are quite a few notable absences, including but not limited to Weston McKennie, Antonee Robinson, Tyler Adams, Timothy Weah, and Sergiño Dest. There will be opportunities for multiple players to step up during the window and carve out a place in the squad. Johnny Cardoso is drawing a slew of transfer interest due to his “exceptional skills, versatility, impressive work effort,” although he is yet to have his true breakout performance with the USMNT. His success at the club level will eventually translate, as a player of his quality cannot be contained for very long.

Handling the press. Canada is going to push the opposing defensive line and force turnovers in advantageous areas, tactics that would have thrived against Berhalter’s attempts at playing out of back. Will there be more of a focus on verticality and Route One soccer in order to bypass the dangerous areas? Certain USMNT players are a better fit for the old style, while others might benefit from run-and-gun or bunker-and-counter gameplans. The rumored upcoming manager (whose sides also employ a front-foot counter-press) could leave some regulars out in the cold.

Lineup Prediction

Varas is missing several key contributors to the squad, but friendlies are typically an opportunity for experimentation and providing a shot to less-used players. However, in this interim period, there are unlikely to be drastic formational or tactical alterations.

Despite struggles at the club level, Matt Turner remains the presumed number-one goalkeeper until a challenger wrests the position from his gloves. Tim Ream is likely being saved for the New Zealand friendly, and Kristoffer Lund gets his chance to shine with multiple fullback absences. While Mark McKenzie failed to grab more of a role following his two starts at the 2021 CONCACAF Nations League Finals, he should be a heavy favorite to form the centre-back partnership with Chris Richards at the upcoming World Cup. The openings in the midfield offer opportunities for several players to make their mark, jockeying for every chance to prove their value, with ball-playing under pressure and line-splitting at a priority against high-pressing tactics. Haji Wright steps into the lineup at winger for the injured Gio Reyna, and Folarin Balogun retains his spot after two finishes at the Copa América.

Prediction

Both sides attempt to dominate the game, and, while there are some fireworks, proceedings end in a 1-1 draw.

What are your predicti

USMNT watchlist: With key starters out injured, here’s who could rise to the occasion

By Jeff Rueter Sep 6, 2024

---

With the benefit of hindsight, 2024 will be remembered as a year of needed transition for the U.S. men’s national team. This September provides the first chance to move on from the team’s failure at the Copa America.Although the program has moved on from former head coach Gregg Berhalter, this reunion comes under interim leadership. Mikey Varas will oversee a squad of mainstays and fresh faces as U.S. Soccer works to finalize a contract with Mauricio Pochettino.

This summer also saw several crucial United States internationals fail to improve their club situations before the transfer window closed. From players unable to secure upward moves to others still toiling in bench roles, it’s worth questioning the overall caliber of the pool’s top end. However, these four players (and others) have landed on Varas’ squad thanks to strong consistent play at the club level. Against Canada and New Zealand, they’ll hope to bolster their cases for greater inclusion in the months and years ahead.

---

Patrick Schulte, goalkeeper, Columbus Crew

Among the most frustrating situations in the recent transfer window, Matt Turner failed to find a move away from Nottingham Forest that would result in consistent starts. Instead, he’s gone from third or fourth on that club’s depth chart to backing up Dean Henderson at Crystal Palace. It’s a far from ideal scenario for the 30-year-old, who hasn’t been a regular starter since February and may again struggle to maintain form between international windows.From a USMNT perspective, there haven’t been obvious and viable alternatives for the position since Turner was dropped last winter.Columbus Crew’s Patrick Schulte could challenge Turner for starts based on form and potential alike. The 23-year-old parlayed a clutch turn during the Crew’s run to winning MLS Cup 2023 into a starting spot at this summer’s Olympics, backstopping the United States U-23s to a quarterfinal showing.Schulte leads all MLS goalkeepers — not just domestic options — with a +33.7 per cent goal prevention rate, far ahead of the league’s average this season of 6.7 per cent. For comparison’s sake, that approaches Turner in 2019 (+38.3 per cent) and 2020 (+35.6% per cent), and is ahead of Turner’s rate of +15.7 per cent when he won goalkeeper of the year in 2021.Schulte is also used to playing out from the back under Wilfried Nancy, while his 46.1 per cent completion rate when passing at least 35 yards ranks 5th this season. (Turner had a 42.2 per cent rate with New England from 2019 through 2022.)

Many will focus on Diego Kochen’s presence on the roster, as the FC Barcelona II teenager makes his first senior international squad. Don’t overlook Schulte, though — he could pose a threat to Turner’s spot atop the depth chart between now and the 2026 World Cup.

Auston Trusty, center back, Celtic FC

While the USMNT pool has plenty of options at center back, few have cemented places in the first-choice squad. Tim Ream started all three games at the Copa America, but the veteran is a month shy of his 37th birthday and a succession plan is long overdue. Beyond Ream and Chris Richards, other alternatives have been unconvincing since the 2022 World Cup.

When Auston Trusty first moved from the Colorado Rapids to Arsenal, it elicited memes of staying within the Stan Kroenke family conglomerate. However, the move has done wonders for the 26-year-old. A loan spell at Birmingham City and a year with Sheffield United earned him a summer move to Celtic. Although he hasn’t yet debuted for the three-time reigning Premiership champion, he’ll slot in next to Cameron Carter-Vickers as the duo hopes to bolster their USMNT chances in tandem.

Although Sheffield United were relegated from the Premier League, Trusty logged 32 appearances and 2,573 minutes in the world’s stoutest circuit. Playing for a perennial title favorite should allow him to showcase his abilities under far less duress, especially the left-footed defender’s passing acumen that often shone brightly during his time in MLS.It’s a congested position, but one lacking viable prospects — so much so that Olympic men’s coach Marko Mitrovic used two of his three over-23 slots on central defenders for the Paris Games. That doesn’t bode well for the program’s mid-to-long-term future, but it keeps the door open for Trusty, Carter-Vickers and others to keep making their case.

Marlon Fossey, right-back, Standard Liege

Long among the program’s deepest positions, the USMNT is worryingly thin at right-back. That much was laid bare this summer, as Sergino Dest’s ACL tear left Berhalter with a scarcity of alternatives ahead of the Copa America. Joe Scally struggled mightily throughout the tournament but is still in line to top the depth chart until Dest returns. With DeAndre Yedlin and Shaq Moore rotated in and out over the past two years, Bryan Reynolds still playing at Westerlo and Reggie Cannon’s career in limbo amid a contract kerfuffle, the door is open for alternatives.Enter Marlon Fossey, something of a post-hype sleeper, to borrow fantasy football parlance. A promising member of Fulham’s ranks from 2009 until 2022, the 25-year-old has spent the last two seasons enjoying regular starts with Standard de Liège. Fossey has logged 3,850 Pro League minutes for the Belgian club in just over two seasons and has played all 540 minutes of their campaign this season.

The Los Angeles-born right back is a capable ball carrier, with his 2.72 progressive carries per 90 minutes ranking in the 80th percentile of all full-backs in FBref’s Men’s Next 14 Competitions. He has increased his crossing volume since moving to Belgium, sending in an average of 2.7 crosses per 90 minutes since the start of 2023-24. FBref assesses his most comparable full-back peer to be… Kristoffer Lund, who broke into the senior squad late in Berhalter’s tenure and is also part of this September’s roster.It’s unclear how high to set expectations for Fossey, as he plays for a lower-half club in a competition beneath Europe’s highest standard. Still, his move into the senior national team has been long-awaited, and he has rounded out his game considerably over the past two years. With Dest expected to not return until 2025, Fossey could have a few chances to impress and stick around the USMNT.

Aidan Morris, center midfielder, Middlesbrough

Central midfield has been an area of strength for the program since the dawn of Berhalter’s tenure. However, that once-unimpeachable stature has looked increasingly unstable following the 2022 World Cup.It’s far easier to say “MMA” than to keep all three of Weston McKennie, Yunus Musah and Tyler Adams on the field at once. In particular, Adams has struggled to stay fit since his final months with Leeds in 2023. Although Johnny Cardoso has become the team’s backup defensive midfielder, there’s still a scarcity of obvious alternatives in more advanced roles — especially as Malik Tillman and Gio Reyna look more at home when playing close to the forward line than in the heart of the park.With Adams and McKennie unavailable for this camp, Varas will have the freedom to construct a midfield from scratch. Aidan Morris will likely see meaningful time, and it’s wholly deserved in his current form. Morris had a storied if brief tenure with the Columbus Crew, rising from the academy in time to start in their 2020 MLS Cup triumph before becoming a first-choice option in ensuing seasons. Morris again won MLS Cup in 2023, this time as a central cog in Nancy’s eye-catching juggernaut.

Morris made a $4million (£3m) move to Middlesbrough this summer, instantly working into Michael Carrick’s teamsheet for the new Championship campaign. He hasn’t struggled with the transition whatsoever, even as his distributive role in two similar possession-based systems has changed.

Morris continues to do a lot of the short-distance engine room distribution that made his partnership with Darlington Nagbe so remarkable in MLS. What he has yet to tap into since moving to England is his knack for slinging long diagonals toward the flank — a ball that Christian Pulisic and Tim Weah long for with the USMNT.Morris is the only midfielder at this camp who wasn’t a regular under Berhalter, the first of a rising wave of options from the youth ranks. While his transfer ruled him out for the Olympics, that tournament reinforced that Tanner Tessmann and Gianluca Busio are ready for senior team looks. That doesn’t factor for many other options like Jack McGlynn, Benja Cremaschi, Cole Bassett or Daniel Edelman.If Morris can impress in this camp and retain his form in England, he should have an inside track to stick around for a look under Pochettino.(Top photos: John Dorton / Getty Images)

Who is Mikey Varas, USMNT’s ‘attentive’ and ‘methodical’ interim coach?

By Greg O’KeeffeSep 5, 2024 The Athletic

---

They might be waiting for the alluring promise of the Mauricio Pochettino era to begin, but the USMNT cannot afford to lose focus over the next week.

The next seven days bring two friendly fixtures, which allow the team to draw a line under their regressive Copa America campaign and recapture the imagination of supporters following that bumpy summer.But while the appointment of the former Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea boss may be the biggest driver in that regard, the catalyst can also come via convincing performances against CONCACAF rivals Canada on Saturday, then New Zealand next Wednesday.That’s where Mikey Varas comes in. An assistant coach under Gregg Berhalter, who paid for that disappointing Copa campaign with his job, Varas is interim manager for the fixtures in Kansas City and Cincinnati.But what can fans expect from the low-profile former FC Dallas assistant manager?Luchi Gonzalez has known 41-year-old Varas for a decade and their paths have crossed repeatedly in the game. The ex-San Jose Earthquakes coach rates him so highly that when he was in charge of FC Dallas in 2018, he wasted little time in bringing Varas, then the club’s academy manager, onto his first-team staff.“The game is his life and I had the pleasure of living it with him,” says Gonzalez, who parted company with the Quakes in June after joining ahead of the 2023 season.“Mikey is one of the most talented soccer minds in the country. At Dallas, the academy teams were flying under him, the national youth teams (Varas was the U.S. Under-20 coach before assisting Berhalter) flew under him and I have no doubt he’ll make an impact with the senior team in these games.”

Luchi Gonzalez had Varas as part of his coaching staff at FC Dallas (Omar Vega/Getty Images)

Gonzalez says Varas is a deep thinker who he trusted with a variety of roles but particularly excelled in training methods and innovation.“We did our A License coaching badge together in 2013 and became close,” he explains. “We have similar philosophies about the game and player development.“So when I was made head coach at Dallas, it was obvious for me to bring him onto my staff. We were all new in that environment and at that level of competition, but for the three years we worked together, we qualified for the playoffs in two of them.“He really helped us step up our training methodology, in technical and tactical terms, and he did great work with our attacking set pieces as well.”Peter Luccin, the former Atletico Madrid midfielder and now FC Dallas’s interim head coach, worked with Varas as an assistant to Gonzalez at Toyota Stadium.“Mikey is firm in what he believes in but also an open-minded guy at the same time,” says the Frenchman, who also played for PSG and Marseille before moving into coaching in MLS.“He is attentive and methodical. We all 100 per cent thought he was going to go on to big things in his coaching career.”Luccin describes his friend as a patriot who will be incredibly proud to steer the national team through these September games, but says he is also an intense competitor who will demand full commitment from his temporary charges, even if there are no points to be played for.“He would play in our staff five-a-side games and take them very seriously,” he recalls. “He’d be extremely competitive. That’s how Mikey is.“He was a good-quality midfielder as a player and very technically gifted with both feet, but as a coach, it’s his work with young players that has caught the eye a lot. He excelled in that early in his career (one of Varas’ early roles was as Sacramento Republic’s under-14s coach in 2016). That is maybe what has been in the federation’s thinking in making him interim manager.

Varas will guide the USMNT during friendlies against Canada and New Zealand (Marcio Machado/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)

“As you can see from his roster, he is prepared to give young players a chance. I’m sure they asked him to do that and he is the right guy for this moment.”Varas, according to Luccin, enjoys spending time with his family when he is not traveling to watch games. He is looking forward to watching his friend’s big moment on Saturday.“I’d be watching these games anyway but of course with extra interest now,” he says. “It’s huge for Mikey and he deserves it. He will get to work with these unbelievable players at the top level and the exposure will be great.”The two spoke briefly when Varas’ appointment was announced and Luccin’s advice was simple. “I told him to enjoy it,” he says, “to smile and enjoy the moment while pushing the players like I know he will.“He has a winning mentality and I don’t know what will come next for him after this, but I know it will be a bright future.”

When life gives Mauricio Pochettino lemons, he believes the good times are coming

USWNT won Olympic gold without Alex Morgan, but her impact extends beyond on-field wins

Steph Yang Sep 5, 2024

Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article to reflect Alex Morgan’s retirement announcement on Sept. 5, 2024. The story was first published on Aug. 1, 2024.

Alex Morgan was inescapable this summer, but not because she went to the Olympics. Whether it’s Coca-Cola commercials or Reese’s Instagram ads, she was on every screen and every device. Sponsors made these deals expecting Morgan to be on the U.S. women’s national team roster for the Paris Games. But when head coach Emma Hayes announced her team in June, the unthinkable happened: no Morgan.

Advertisement

It was a surprise and yet it wasn’t.Morgan has played for the United States in every major tournament they’ve participated in since 2011. She has won the World Cup twice, worn Olympic gold and bronze medals, and with 123 goals, is eighth on the women’s all-time international goals scored list. She is also on the downslope of her career, having long ago left behind the “baby horse” moniker fondly bestowed on her by senior teammates and becoming the senior teammate herself. “Putting a squad together, you’re always going to disappoint someone,” said Hayes during a podcast taping for “The Women’s Game” with Sam Mewis. “I think when it comes to Alex, first of all, there’s no easy way to give someone crap news…. The human piece for me is around the delivery of that (news). But also accepting that no matter the situation, there’s always gonna be somebody who doesn’t like the decision.”

Emotionally, it’s always jarring to see a great generational player sunsetted by a coach. The name “Alex Morgan” has been synonymous with the USWNT for over a decade. But logistically and tactically, there was certainly an argument for leaving the 35-year-old Morgan and taking a newer generation of scoring talent, one that is still bolstered by veteran presence from Crystal Dunn, Lindsey Horan, Lynn Williams and Rose Lavelle.

As the USWNT captured gold against Brazil, there was no question of needing another veteran. Hayes’ preferred starting front three of Sophia Smith, Mallory Swanson, and Trinity Rodman dazzled, with rookie Croix Bethune waiting in the wings.

The end of Morgan’s time with the U.S. was writing on the wall when Hayes first left her off the W Gold Cup roster in February. Morgan was only called in after Chelsea forward Mia Fishel tore her ACL in training. It’s hard not to assign symbolism to the image of Morgan in a differently-numbered jersey, sporting a No 7 in place of her iconic No 13 due to CONCACAF rules about wearing the same number as the player you replace. After 14 years in the No 13 jersey, the number is almost as much a part of her brand as her actual play on the field.

Advertisement

https://633e4eaff12b02b17613628e287de448.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Morgan scored two goals in that tournament, one of them a penalty. It was her first goal in 10 international games, covering more than a year. On Thursday, she announced she was retiring from the sport and expecting her second child. Her final game will take place on Sunday against North Carolina Courage in the NWSL.

Her on-field role has increasingly become as much about the damage she can absorb as she pulls attention away from other players as it is about scoring. That defensive attention is a hallmark of the respect she has still accorded, the danger she still presents in front of goal. But it’s no longer consistent, varied or efficient enough to justify a spot on the toughest international roster to make, at least not in Hayes’ mind.

---

Still, in the face of declining stats, there was always the argument for Morgan’s presence as a veteran and a leader. She was, until recently, co-captain with Lindsey Horan, someone whose voice carried authority with both teammates and fans. When midfielder Korbin Albert’s anti-LGBTQ social media posts began circulating widely, Morgan was out in front of the cameras with Horan at her side, reading a prepared team statement about maintaining a respectful space and speaking internally to Albert. It was unquestionably a captain’s job, intercepting scrutiny on behalf of the team, the kind of thankless task that comes with the armband.

Horan has taken leadership lessons from Morgan, too, while she’s still learning on the job as the new, and only, team captain.

“Experiencing a World Cup with Alex was crucial for that experience,” Horan said in New York before leaving for France.

Horan credits Morgan for helping her take on the role of captain (Brad Smith, Getty Images)

Before Horan, Morgan and Megan Rapinoe were co-captains. The two arranged team dinners before camps so the players could bond and have a night out.

“There are things that exist (that) leaders and veterans on this team have been doing for many years and it’s kind of been passed down,” said defender Naomi Girma, who said that in this iteration of the USWNT, Emily Sonnett and Lavelle arranged the latest team dinner in New York. “Everyone is so special in their own way, so there’s never going to be another one of an Alex or Pinoe.”

Advertisement

Sonnet, who was on the 2019 and 2023 World Cup teams with Morgan and Rapinoe, said the players often do things they think the two former leaders would have done.

“Alex is an incredible leader and she’s been on this team for so many years,” said Sonnett. “Leaders like Lindsey, Mal (Swanson), Rose, they’re definitely remembering things that Alex, Pinoe, who aren’t on this roster, what they would be doing because we’ve just been around them for so many years.”

Alongside her teammates, Morgan was part of historic collective bargaining agreement negotiations that helped pave the way for the USWNT as it exists today, with not just better money and working conditions, but also benefits like parental leave and short-term disability.

She’s spoken up about LGBTQ+ rights, including supporting trans children in sports, and followed Rapinoe in 2020 in kneeling during the national anthem to protest anti-Black police brutality and racism. When she was on loan at Tottenham Hotspur in 2020, she saw the women’s senior team training at an inferior facility and convinced the club to allow the women to use the same new training facility as the men. When Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir sued her own club Lyon for withholding her salary when she got pregnant, Morgan again advocated for the standards clubs should provide for parents.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=TheAthletic&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1616163099287093249&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Fathletic%2F5675577%2F2024%2F09%2F05%2Fuswnt-olympics-alex-morgan-not-on-team%2F&sessionId=de0357a5097393d9e57501f310c9d79290b9ad38&siteScreenName=TheAthletic&theme=light&widgetsVersion=2615f7e52b7e0%3A1702314776716&width=550px

And she feels compelled to speak up as one of, if not the most visible, players wherever she goes, publicly stating she was disappointed to hear about allegations of harassment against Wave president Jill Ellis, writing on X: “It’s important to me that we are creating that environment for both players AND staff throughout the entire organization.”

Morgan’s advocacy for various causes could have backfired in terms of her marketability. But it hasn’t. She is as potent a brand as ever, landing on Forbes’ highest-paid female athletes list in 2023 with endorsements estimated around $7million. In 2021, she founded TOGETHXR, a media and commerce company, alongside Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel and Sue Bird. Her hustle is admirable to the point of pathos. During one scene in Netflix’s “Under Pressure” documentary, she comforts daughter Charlie while Charlie cries for attention in the midst of Morgan opening a soccer store — a reminder of Morgan, the mother.

But the reality of being a woman in professional soccer is that no one, not even Morgan, is going to make enough money to retire without careful, calculated investment and branding. Similarly high-profile men’s players can set themselves up nearly off pure performance. Any man knocking in the kinds of numbers that Morgan has produced in her career will make millions from his salary alone, let alone endorsements.

Morgan has advocated for parental rights at club and national level (Brad Smith, Getty Images)

But Morgan has had to cash in on her clutch, once-in-a-lifetime talent while also leveraging her privileges: she is white, straight and femme-presenting. That makes her a more palatable brand to both businesses and audiences in a country that has a well-documented history of racism, misogyny, and transphobia towards athletes outside of a stereotypical presentation of femininity, athletes like Rapinoe, Serena Williams, Katie Ledecky, Brittney Griner, Simone Biles, and Sha’Carri Richardson. The space Morgan is afforded to speak out and speak up is accordingly bigger compared to Dunn or even Rapinoe, whose outspokenness has incurred criticism that she has weathered through her own unique levels of “not giving a f***.”

Morgan has admirably walked the line between performance and brand, outspokenness and marketability. She’s presented herself as player, mom and advocate while also guarding her private self.

With someone as famous as Morgan, who partially built her reputation on being a role model, and partially was assigned the responsibility through social expectation of women in sports, there is a natural desire to want to know that authentic, private self. One aspect of her smart marketing has been to give enough of a glimpse into that private life — like the aforementioned scene with Charlie — while maintaining a fairly strict boundary between herself and the public.

Her social media posts about her family are warm and personable but don’t give away any more than Morgan wants to give away. She’s funny and charming on camera and doesn’t mind speaking candidly on social justice topics, but these moments are curated, usually with time to plan ahead. You won’t see the minutiae of her day, the gossip she shares with friends or disagreements with family. Like any athlete, Morgan has a right to privacy and to decide how and when she wants to dole out any piece of herself. And her ability to pick the right how and when has served her well.

---

Who’s next?

Walking down the street and asking someone to name a women’s soccer player, you might get a mix of Morgan, Mia Hamm, Marta, perhaps Wambach.

In this next era of women’s soccer, is it even harder to climb to generational megastar who carries “only name I know” status? While the women’s game is growing ever more popular, it’s also becoming more competitive and therefore more difficult to separate yourself from the pack. Racking up Morgan-level stats feels harder to reach, although certainly not impossible.

There are a few American contenders for the crown, based on the performance-personality axes of measurement that Morgan has played so well: that front three of Rodman, Smith, and Swanson.

Swanson, Smith and Rodman have emerged as a scoring trio at the Paris Games. (Photo by Brad Smith, Getty Images).

The trio has already built a strong fanbase, both individually and as a group, over the past few years and will only gain more leverage should they find the ultimate success at the Olympics this summer. American audiences love gold medals, sometimes to the point of extreme valorization, and U.S. Soccer has already scheduled its first post-Olympic friendlies in October against Iceland, no doubt hoping to parade a team of winners.

GO DEEPER

England Women announce USWNT, Germany friendlies

While Morgan’s time on the field is coming to an end, her impact off it is not. She’s still here. Still speaking up. Still feeling responsibility in situations that call for a voice of leadership. The example she sets is the standard many players follow for success.

There is an Alex-Morgan-shaped hole in the USWNT, but it’s also being filled by all types of players in all kinds of ways. Morgan, who fought so hard for the USWNT to be treated with respect, to be set up to win in any circumstances, is in some ways the architect of her own absence. This is a team that can exist without Morgan and that’s ultimately for the good.

(Top photo: Brad Smith/Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)

USMNT Player Tracker: Trusty’s Celtic switch, Morris settling at Boro and Tillman thriving

By Greg O’Keeffe Sep 2, 2024

---

A Glasgow reunion, learning from Premier League heroes and dramatic Lyon debuts all play a part in this week’s USMNT Player Tracker.Throughout the season, we will be bringing you updates on the USMNT players plying their trade in various leagues around Europe. With a World Cup on home soil on the horizon, we’re keeping tabs on how they perform every weekend.

---

Issue of the weekend

It was an intriguing summer transfer window in various key areas for USMNT players across Europe.

Auston Trusty’s switch from Sheffield United to Celtic means the Scottish defending champions can now field two U.S. internationals in central defence. Trusty will link up with Cameron Carter-Vickers and have the potential to form a club partnership that may boost both players’ chances of more regular appearances for their country.Carter-Vickers was a regular for Brendan Rodgers’ side last season and formed part of the USMNT roster at Copa America, even if he only appeared for 45 minutes in the defeat by Panama.

Carter-Vickers holds off Rangers’ Cyriel Dessers (Ross MacDonald/SNS Group via Getty Images)

But Celtic’s swoop for his compatriot will give both a shot at playing together in the Champions League and getting the type of top-level experience that might push them forward in the thinking of incoming USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino.It can only be a positive for the Argentine as he starts to formulate his vision for the team’s future ahead of the World Cup.It is a plus, too, for 26-year-old Trusty who sounded thrilled as the five-year deal was announced on transfer deadline day. “I feel ecstatic — it’s just such a historic and amazing club, and it’s a club I’ve known about since I was a little kid,” said the defender, who was an unused substitute as Celtic thrashed Rangers 3-0 on Sunday.“Growing up in Philadelphia, football wasn’t such a popular sport but I knew Celtic, I knew who Celtic were. It’s a dream come true to join this club and such a massive organisation.“The manager told me to be the best that I can be, that’s off the pitch, as a team-mate and everything on the pitch. He said that he believes in me and believes in everything I can do, it’s up to me and he’ll provide me with an environment where I can thrive.

Trusty warms up ahead of the Old Firm (Ross MacDonald/SNS Group via Getty Images)

“I’m looking forward to meeting all the guys as well. From what I’ve heard it’s a great environment around the club, too, so I’m looking forward to it.”Trusty, who last featured for the national team in the final of the CONCACAF Nations League Finals last year, was also included in interim USMNT coach Mikey Varas’ squad for the friendlies against Canada and New Zealand this month.

---

Player of the weekend

Aidan Morris has hit the ground running in England, transferring the form that saw him win a Major League Soccer Cup with Columbus Crew last season into his new environment.

The 22-year-old signed for Middlesbrough in June, meaning he plays under former England and Manchester United star Michael Carrick, now the highly-rated coach of the Teesside club.

Morris, himself a promising central midfielder, has not looked back so far, starting all four of his new team’s EFL Championship games to date and excelling in their 2-0 win at Cardiff City on Saturday.

Morris celebrates his side’s second goal (Jacob King/PA Images via Getty Images)

A boyhood Manchester United fan, Morris has admitted he admired his new boss and, in turn, Carrick certainly values the Floridian’s all-action style. Speaking last month, Carrick said: “It’s why we bought him. We obviously like him a lot. We’ve watched him for a while, and we like his style and the way he plays the game. We feel that it suits us and that the way we play suits him.“We’ll be patient with him. It’s a change of country, a whole new way of life for him, and he’s still young for how much experience he’s got as well. We’ll help him settle in — we’re doing that now — and look after him.”

Morris, also included in Varas’ USMNT roster for this month’s friendlies against Canada and New Zealand, provided a typically combative and mature performance in Wales, making more ball recoveries (seven) than any other midfielder and recording an impressive 97 per cent passing accuracy in his role as part of a two-man engine room behind three more attacking players.

Quote of the weekend

“What a game! Amazing support from our fans. Never give up! Happy to make my debut and to be the first American to ever play for this club.”

Tanner Tessmann, who joined French top-flight club Lyon from Serie A side Venezia in the window, made his debut from the bench on Friday in a memorable win against Strasbourg, where his compatriot Caleb Wiley is on loan from Chelsea.

Tessmann came on in the closing stages at the Stade Velodrome as his new team came from behind to win 4-3 after earlier trailing by two goals. For his part, Wiley, who also came off the bench, provided an assist with a smart pass to set up team-mate Emanuel Emegha.

How did other U.S. players get on?

Name: Antonee Robinson
Club: Fulham
Position: Left-back

Retaining Robinson, who has been monitored by a clutch of big clubs, must count as a summer success for Fulham boss Marco Silva, and the defender underlined his worth with the assist for Adama Traore’s goal as the west London club drew 1-1 with Ipswich in the Premier League on Saturday. The Fulham defender is resting up after undergoing two minor surgeries over the summer and will not be available for the USMNT this month.

Name: Malik Tillman
Club: PSV
Position: Midfielder

Another win and another eye-catching display from Tillman as PSV’s title defence continues serenely. This time, he provided an assist as Peter Bosz’s team ran out 3-0 winners against Go Ahead Eagles and made it 12 points from four games.

Tillman celebrates with Joey Veerman (Broer van den Boom/BSR Agency/Getty Images)

Name: Mark McKenzie
Club: Toulouse
Position: Defender

The 25-year-old, who is playing on the left side of a back three, started his second consecutive game for the Ligue 1 club on Saturday as they lost 3-1 at home to Marseille. He signed from Belgian side Genk last month.

Name: Johnny Cardoso
Club: Real Betis
Position: Midfield

It was a tough test for the midfielder as his Betis side lost 2-0 at Real Madrid thanks to a Kylian Mbappe brace. Cardoso started on the bench but was subbed on after 57 minutes and won five of his seven ground duels.

Name: Christian Pulisic
Club: AC Milan
Position: Midfield

Pulisic grabbed an assist as Milan drew 2-2 at Lazio in Serie A. After scoring last time out, he sent in an inch-perfect corner for team-mate Strahinja Pavlovic to score with a header.

Name: Gabriel Slonina
Club: Barnsley (on loan from Chelsea)
Position: Goalkeeper

It was a first clean sheet for Slonina at his new loan club in England’s third tier, League One, as Barnsley beat Crawley Town 3-0 — and a third straight start, too. Slonina only had to make one save, such was the visitors’ dominance, but the win moved them up to seventh in the early table.

---

What’s coming up?

We have entered an international break but, after a fortnight’s respite, the games resume thick and fast. Lennard Maloney will hope to feature for Heidenheim as they face Gio Reyna’s Borussia Dortmund on September 13 (2:30pm, ESPN+).

Staying in Germany, Joe Scally’s Borussia Monchengladbach face Stuttgart the following day (9:30am, ESPN +).

Later that morning, Chris Richards and Crystal Palace are in action against Leicester City (10am, Peacock Premium) and, on the same channel at the same time, Robinson’s Fulham take on West Ham.

(Top photos: Getty Images)

Sorry soccer fans – work, reffing and the full summer of soccer has me worn out and behind this weekend. European leagues are kicking off and to be honest I am not ready. Up to 4 games a day during the Euros and Copa followed by 2 a day during the Olympics and I need a break. I will have full updates and predictions next week on the Euro Leagues and American’s playing abroad. The opening weekend schedule and some predictions are of course in the stories below along with some great saves and Ref calls. d

Huge congrats to the US Women – I don’t think anyone expected this group with new coach Emma Hayes to bring home the Gold Medal after just a few games on the job – but they did with the huge 1-0 win over Brazil and Marta. I will say again – the world has not passed us by – US Women despite pay for play and all the things wrong with US soccer are still some of the best in the world – but you have to have coaching. And lets me real the last guy was not a decent coach – Emma might be the best in the world and she turned this thing around quick. Our players don’t suck – they simply need to be coached properly – put in the right formations and coached up. Wow – how good can we be by World Cup time in 3 Years – it will be fun to see. As for the final itself wow what a goal by Swanson off the pass from but the final saves by GK Alyssa Naeher were legendary. Two late saves in the final and the semi’s to cement herself as the best ever USWNT GK in my book. Great Save by Naeher.

As for the men – WOW – Pochettino- honestly — I did not think we would get a coach of this caliber to coach our national team. After Klopp (which was never gonna happen) I really thought Pochettino was the next best option. I thought sure we were gonna get stuck with Henri or Southgate from overseas. This is a huge hire — listen he won with Tottenham – got by with less, learned to win with what he had and dang near won a Champions League title with not that impressive a team. He won with Southampton, then Totttenham and then PSG – no he never won the title – but his teams over achieved. Which is what we need the US Men to do now. Huge get for US soccer and GM Matt Crocker !! WOW!!

Congrats to our Carmel FC Players who made their High School teams.  Especially our current and former CFC goalkeepers – CHS Girls Lily Bose, Eli Diehl, Mary Grace Knapp, Boys Griffin Rothenburg, Timothy Paciorek Avon, Cooper Cass Noblesville.

Sat 8/14

12:30 pm NBC West Ham United vs Aston Villa

12:30 pm CBSSN Genoa vs Inter Milan

2:45 pm Para+, Fox Desp AC Milan (Pulisic, Musah) vs Torino

3:30 pm ABC Valencia vs Barcelona

6 pm MLS Apple Columbus Crew vs NYCFC Campeones Cup

8 pm MLS Apple Seattle Sounders vs LAFC Cup

10 pm Univision America vs Colorado Rapids

Sun 8/18

11:30 am NBC Chelsea vs Man City

2:30 pm CBSSN Hellas Verona vs Napoli

US Men –

US Women Win the Gold Medal

US Wins the Gold

USWNT’s Olympic gold medal win restores respect on world stage  Jeff Kassouf

 USWNT targets World Cup glory after taking gold

USWNT edges Brazil to win 1st gold since 2012   
‘Welcome back’: LeBron James, Patrick Mahomes lead reaction to USWNT Olympic win  ESPN Staff

Who is new USWNT coach Emma Hayes? Her story from those who know her best Jeff Kassouf

‘I don’t care, I want a drink’: Hayes’ best quotes in USWNT’s run to Olympic final Sam Borden

USWNT returns to #1 in FIFA world rankings  By Donald Wine II

Great Save by Naeher

Golden moment: The USWNT is back on top of the world

San Diego Wave hire USMNT legend Landon Donovan as interim head coach

EPL Is Back

Premier League: Predictions as the 2024-25 season begins

 The 🤖 AI vs Humans: Predicting the results of Premier League Matchday 1

Premier League’s biggest stars show off their goal celebrations 🤫

20 clubs.
20 stadiums.
20 unique atmospheres.

Enjoy a look at all of this season's Premier League grounds from above. 👀 pic.twitter.com/isxkN5SneN

— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) August 14, 2024

MLS

🔮 Previewing every Leagues Cup quarter-final showdown

Free agent Marco Reus completes MLS move
🎥 Columbus sucker-punch Miami with rapid Leagues Cup comeback

Reffing

Bad Decision Does Not Mean you’re a Bad Ref

Yellow or Red

Become a Licensed High School Ref

Become a Licensed Ref with Indiana Soccer – must be over 13

GoalKeeping

Thibaut Courtois makes the earliest possible claim for save of season

Top Saves of the Euros

Great Save by US GK Naeher in Gold Medal Win

Chelsea and USMNT goalkeeper Gabriel Slonina joins Barnsley on loan

Saturday American’s Abroad

AC Milan v Torino

Christian Pulisic missed AC Milan’s final tune up match midweek, but is reportedly set to start the season as the team kick off their season against Torino on Saturday afternoon. Pulisic played over 3,500 minutes last season, scoring 15 goals and adding 11 assists for AC Milan as they finished a distant second to Inter in the Serie A title race. Yunus Musah also played over 2,000 minutes, and indications are that he is looking at an increased role in the midfield this season. Torino finished in ninth place last season, and the two clubs split their matchups, with each winning easily at home.

• Joe Scally and Borussia Mönchengladbach face Erzgebirge Aue at 7a on ESPN+. Erzgebirge are a third tier side, presumably lead by the Swedish Chef.
• Brenden Aaronson and Leeds United will face West Bromwich Albion at 7:30a on Paramount+. Daryl Dike remains sidelined for West Brom following his Achilles injury in February.
• Jordan Pefok, who has returned to Union Berlin following his loan spell with Borussia Mönchengladbach, will face fourth tier Greifswalder at 9:30a in dfb Pokal action.
• It looks like we won’t be seeing much of Matt Turner this season as he is reportedly now third in line at Nottingham Forest. Forest face AFC Bournemouth, who are without Tyler Adams for the start of the season following back surgery. The match will be at 10a on Peacock.
• Josh Sargent and Norwich City face Blackburn Rovers at 10a on Paramount+. Norwich lost their opener to Oxford United last weekend, while Burnley defeated Luton Town 4-1.
• Gio Reyna has returned to Borussia Dortmund and apparently is set to stay for this season following his unsuccessful loan spell at Nottingham Forest. Dortmund will have their first match under new manager Nuri Sahin as they face fourth division Phönix Lübeck at noon on ESPN+.
• Folarin Balogun will look to start his season on a high note as Monaco face Saint Etienne at 3p on beIN Sports.

Sunday American’s Abroad

Lazio v Venezia – 2:45p on Paramount+

Gianluca Busio and Venezia finished last season by winning the promotion playoff after finishing third place in Serie B. They will start their Serie A campaign against a Lazio side that finished in seventh place last season. Not with the team to start their campaign is Tanner Tessmann, who also played a significant role in achieving promotion but whose agent has seemingly botched the summer transfer process as several clubs, including Inter Milan, were reportedly close to a deal for the American only to have it collapse at the last minute. Currently there is no deal in place for Tessmann to move elsewhere, but leadership at Venezia have moved on and are not planning for him to play a role with the side this season.

• PSV started their season off with a 5-1 win against RKC Waalwijk, including a goal from Malik Tillman last weekend. Ricardo Pepi came off the bench in the match, while Richie Ledezma started the match at right back. PSV face Heracles at 6:15a on ESPN+.
• Chris Richards and Crystal Palace kick off their season against Brentford at 9a in a match that can be seen on the USA Network. Palace finished in 10th place last season, but have lost a number of pieces this summer and it will be interesting to see how they transition.
• Mark McKenzie is reportedly set to join Toulouse of France’s Ligue 1 on a permanent basis, though it looks unlikely to happen in time for him to join the side as they get set to start their season against Nantes at 11a on beIN Sports.

=======RackZ BAR BQ ====Save 20% ===========

Looking for a good summer meal?  Try out the Best BarBQ in Town right across the street (131st) from Northview Church on the corner of Hazelldell & 131st. RackZ BBQ

Save 20% on your order 

(mention the ole ballcoach) 

Check out the BarBQ Ribs, pulled Pork and Chicken, Brisket and more.  Sweet, Tangy or Spicy sauce. Mention you heard about it from the Ole Ballcoach — and Ryan will give you 20% off your next meal. https://www.rackzbbqindy.com/ Call ahead at 317-688-7290  M-Th 11-8 pm, 11-9 Fri/Sat, 12-8 pm on Sunday.  Pick some up after practice – Its good eatin! You won’t be disappointed and tell ’em the Ole Ballcoach Sent You!  

======================RackZ BAR BQ ====Save 20% ======================

Who is Mauricio Pochettino? Is this a coup for the USMNT? Will it help them at 2026 World Cup?Jack Pitt-Brooke The Athletic

Aug 15, 2024

The U.S. men’s national soccer team received a huge boost on Thursday morning when Mauricio Pochettino agreed to become their next head coach.The Athletic revealed that Pochettino, who had been a top target for the opening, had come to a deal with U.S. Soccer, the sport’s governing body. Pochettino has never managed at international level, but he is a very well-respected name in the club game.This is a big-name arrival ahead of a men’s World Cup that the U.S. will co-host with neighbours Canada and Mexico in 2026, staging the bulk of the games including all matches from the quarter-finals onwards. But just who is Pochettino? How much of a coup is this? What is his style of play?Here, The Athletic’s Jack Pitt-Brooke answers everything you need to know about the 52-year-old Argentinian.

---

So, who exactly is Mauricio Pochettino?

Mauricio Pochettino is considered one of the best managers in European football.

As a player, he was a very competitive centre-back, leaving his native Argentina at age 22 to play for Barcelona-based Espanyol in Spain, before brief spells in France with Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Bordeaux, then returning to Espanyol to finish his playing career. He played for Argentina at the 2002 World Cup, and won 20 caps overall.

Pochettino, left, playing for Espanyol (Luis Bagu/Getty Images)

Pochettino also started his coaching career at Espanyol, in 2009, earning a reputation for playing brave high-pressing football with young players, turning the fortunes of the team around and saving them from relegation to Spain’s second division. His next job was at Southampton in England’s Premier League in 2013, where he took the team to new heights with his energetic style of play. Then he stepped up to Tottenham Hotspur the following year, where he oversaw their greatest sustained run of the modern era, finishing third, second and third in the Premier League in successive seasons, as well as getting to the final of the 2018-19 Champions League.

GO DEEPER

Tottenham’s Ajax miracle: the stories you’ve never heard before

Since then, Pochettino has managed PSG, winning a French Cup and a Ligue 1 title, and then spent last season as Chelsea head coach, where he guided them to sixth place in the Premier League, enough to qualify for European football in the coming campaign, and into the Carabao Cup final.

---

How much of a coup is this for the USMNT?

It is huge to land one of the best coaches from the club game to manage the men’s national team.

The closest comparison might be Jurgen Klinsmann, the former Germany striker who coached the USMNT from 2011 to 2016, but Pochettino comes to the job with far more of a track record in European club football management than he did. Klinsmann had only had one disappointing season at Bayern Munich (2008-09) before he got the United States job, as well as taking hosts Germany to the semi-finals of the 2006 World Cup.

Advertisement

https://105d0e40098130542cb3737da3bf9253.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Pochettino, by contrast, has been one of the most impressive coaches in the European club game for the past 15 years.

What he did at Tottenham remains one of the best-sustained spells of management in recent years, even if it did not end up with them winning any trophies.

---

Why would Pochettino take an international job?

Pochettino has always been a romantic with a love for the game’s history.

He knows the World Cup is the pinnacle of the game. He remembers as a boy watching Argentina win the 1978 (as hosts) and 1986 World Cups, the latter of which made Diego Maradona his hero for life. He is hugely proud of playing in the 2002 World Cup, even if he is remembered by some for giving away the deciding penalty in a 1-0 group-stage loss against England — he still has a photo of that dubious ‘foul’ he committed on Michael Owen, signed by the England striker, up on a wall at home.

Pochettino ‘fouling’ Owen at the 2002 World Cup (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

He told me in an interview in 2022 how much the World Cup means to him. “You don’t think about anything, you don’t think about money, you think only to deliver your best, and to make the people happy,” Pochettino said. “Because you know very well your country is behind you. The feeling is completely different from other competitions. That is why the players feel so different.”

Pochettino told me he would “of course” want to manage in a World Cup one day, and not necessarily with Argentina, saying: “You never know what happens. I am open to everything.”

---

What about club football?

Since being sacked by Tottenham in November 2019 after they began that season poorly, Pochettino has worked for two of the highest profile and wealthiest clubs in Europe, PSG and Chelsea.

In Paris, he got to manage Neymar, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe, one of the highest-quality front lines ever assembled at club level. Ultimately, he performed in line with most PSG coaches, both before and after him, and was released at the end of the 2021-22 season.

Advertisement

https://105d0e40098130542cb3737da3bf9253.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

He was brought in at Chelsea last summer to impose a new style of football onto their oversized squad and after a tough start, he got there in the end, setting them up for a great finish to the season (they won their final five matches, scoring 14 goals) and winning over fans who had doubted him at the beginning because of his connections to London rivals Tottenham. In the end, he left Chelsea in June with his reputation improved.

But both of these were difficult experiences at points, with plenty of internal politics to manage. European club football is in a strange place right now, with not many clubs offering their managers/head coaches the chance to build something.

That would be part of the attraction of taking a very different challenge with the USMNT.

---

What kind of football does he play?

Throughout his managerial career, Pochettino has tried to get his teams playing a brave, aggressive, high-pressing style.

It is a positional game, focused on maintaining a good structure in and out of possession, so the players are in the right places to win the ball back quickly — ideally within three seconds — whenever his team lose it. He wants his sides to dominate the ball and defend high up the pitch.

Pochettino’s Tottenham mastered this style of football, taking the north London club to new heights.

At their best, a Pochettino team are physically relentless, powerful and dominant, not giving the opposition any room to breathe. With PSG, it was not always possible to play exactly like this because of the big-name personnel up front who did not always want to press from the front. But in the second half of last season, Chelsea started to look like a Pochettino team, and the wins followed.

---

Are those methods suited to international football?

Fitness work is hugely important to Pochettino and his coaching staff but the nature of the international game is that coaches do not get to work with their players for that long. It is harder for them to improve their players as individuals, something that Pochettino has always been big on, during those short periods together before they return to their clubs.

Pochettino with his players at PSG (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

One thing that has always been important to him has been bringing through young players, right from the time he was starting at Espanyol and then Southampton.

When he was discussed not so long ago as a potential England manager, the point was made how many of their current squad owe their career to their development under Pochettino: Luke Shaw (Southampton), Harry Kane, Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier (Tottenham), Conor Gallagher and Cole Palmer (Chelsea). He will hope to develop a similar generation of youngsters now he has the USMNT job.

---

How will he deal with the scrutiny that comes with this role?

Pochettino is used to the media spotlight, especially after those spells at PSG and Chelsea. But international football is different. There will be less day-to-day attention than his days at those clubs, certainly, but there will be times when Pochettino has the eyes of hundreds of millions of Americans on him. The U.S. public are unlikely to be forgiving if they feel the team are not heading in the right direction as that 2026 World Cup looms larger.t that is also part of the attraction, given what a huge event it will be in two years’ time. Coaching that team in their home World Cup, in front of 70,000 people for their opening group-stage match at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on June 12, 2026 will be the equivalent of standing in front of the eyes of the whole world.

---

Does it matter he’s not an American?

The team had non-American coaches before, and not just Klinsmann. There was Bora Milutinovic, from Serbia, in the early 1990s, the last time the U.S. staged the World Cup. Men from Poland, Greece, the UK and more have also had the job. There is no reason that nationality should be a barrier to Pochettino in the role. He has worked for three different Premier League clubs and while he initially had an interpreter at Southampton, his English is now certainly good enough to work in the States.

The most important thing will be to demonstrate a commitment to U.S. soccer, and a deep knowledge of all the players at his disposal, whether they play in MLS, Europe or elsewhere. This will mean lots of hard work, and air miles, getting to know them all.

---

How much does this improve USMNT’s chances at the 2026 World Cup?

It is hard to know how proven club managers will fare in the international game. They are effectively two different formats of the same sport.

Antonio Conte, a serial title winner at club level, improved Italy but could only get them to the quarter-finals of Euro 2016. Luis Enrique had a great European Championship with Spain in 2021, reaching the semis, but they were knocked out of the following year’s World Cup in the round of 16 by Morocco. Hansi Flick won the treble with Bayern in 2020 but could not even get Germany out of the group in Qatar.

Making predictions about international tournaments is almost impossible, given how fine the margins are between success and failure at that level. But we can say Pochettino will bring fresh ideas, energy and proven methods to the U.S. job, as well as a sense of confidence and optimism the whole country can feed on.(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

Premier League predictions for 2024-25 – title race, relegation, Golden Boot and City’s charges

The Athletic UK Staff Aug 14, 2024

Follow live coverage of Manchester United vs Fulham in the Premier League season opener today

Is this the season Mikel Arteta’s obsessive methods take Arsenal to the top? Will Arne Slot sink or swim as Jurgen Klopp’s successor at Liverpool? Can an off-field revolution at Manchester United transform their fortunes on the pitch? Or will Manchester City simply make it five titles in a row?

Also, what are Chelsea doing?

Yes, that’s right, the Premier League returns this weekend and The Athletic will be with you for every kick, goal, VAR review and ‘Inside the sacking of Manager X’ long-read between here and when the music stops on Sunday, May 25.

• Want to stay up to date with the best news and features as the PL season kicks off? Sign up (for free) to The Athletic FC newsletter

To get you in the mood for the next nine months, six of our writers here predict who will shine, who will sink, the signings to look out for, what a possible resolution to City’s 115 charges relating to their finances means and much more. Plus, we reveal our predicted final 2024-25 Premier League table.

Let us know your predictions in the comments section.

---

Will City win their fifth title in a row? And if not, why not?

Jack Pitt-Brooke: Nothing lasts forever. At some point, Manchester City will not win the league. You could make a case that this will be the year the run ends. City were less convincing last year and the team is starting to look old. Kevin De Bruyne, Ederson, Kyle Walker, Bernardo Silva, John Stones… these are not young players any more. Arsenal have far more players coming into their peak-age period than City do. There was only a two-point gap at the top of the table when last season ended. All it will take is for City to dip a bit and Arsenal will be there.

And yet the power of City’s muscle memory is something else. No one else can put together winning runs in the spring like they do. Look at Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Celtic domestically in recent times. When winning becomes that habitual, it retains a momentum of its own. You will not make much money betting against it.

Carl Anka: Betting against Pep Guardiola’s City is a fool’s errand. The team looks finely built for the here and now, and they have a manager who is constantly innovating, forcing the rest of the league to play catch-up. 

That said — *dons clown make-up* — this might be the season Arsenal win the league again. They took 2023-24 to the final day, and the squad is approaching a critical mass of talent that makes them formidable in several ways. They should win at least one of the next three titles, so why not this one?

Jacob Whitehead: City have the best squad, but winning five titles in a row is unprecedented in English football. Arsenal are ravenous — they came close last season and have improved more than City in time since. City are facing 115 charges of breaking financial fair play rules and a decision could come towards the end of the season. Will that provide a distraction? And could a punishment even take the title away from them?

The first of how many trophies for Erling Haaland and Pep Guardiola this season? (Michael Regan – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)

Nick Miller: Saying City won’t win the league is like that scene (that has become a meme) from sitcom Arrested Development, where Tobias Funke says, when asked if an open marriage would work, “No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might… but it might work for us.” With that in mind, I am saying they will win it again, because I don’t quite think anyone else is ready to be better than them. Arsenal will be the closest but not quite good enough. 

Caoimhe O’Neill: City will win five Premier League titles in a row. Their quiet summer isn’t fooling me. Even with 115 charges looming overhead, Guardiola will parade his way to a fifth league title in England and then walk away. It won’t be another procession — at least not until April, when any remaining challenger(s), probably Arsenal, will fall away. I hope I’m wrong. One team winning it over and over again is boring. Unless you support that team, of course.

https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/uncertainty-at-man-city-pep-alvarez-and-looming-charges/id1488521447?i=1000664843445&itsct=podcast_box_player&itscg=30200&ls=1&theme=auto

Mark Carey: This will be the season that Arsenal top the table. It would be foolish to say that City will not win five titles in a row simply because it is unprecedented. For too long, Guardiola has shown that historical records are there to be swatted away with the nonchalance of a man in the conversation for the greatest manager of all time.

City have put in some relentless winning runs to come from behind in recent seasons. It might be one odd bounce of a ball or a referee’s decision, but those fine margins might swing the other way this time. Just three or four points dropped by City could mean Arsenal do not need to improve upon their tally from last season (89) to overcome Guardiola’s side. Matching it may suffice.

---

The top five, in order, will be…

Pitt-Brooke: Manchester City first, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United.

Anka: Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Manchester United (note: I have given a different answer to this question every day for the past two weeks). 

Whitehead: Arsenal, Manchester City, Tottenham, Liverpool, Manchester United.

Miller: Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Newcastle United.

O’Neill: Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester United.

Carey: Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester United.

https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/premier-league-season-preview-can-man-city-be-toppled/id1267958765?i=1000665163072&itsct=podcast_box_player&itscg=30200&ls=1&theme=auto

---

The bottom three will be…

Pitt-Brooke: Leicester City, Nottingham Forest, Southampton. I have a probably irrational sense that Ipswich Town will scramble together enough points to stay up. Maybe just because I don’t want to wait another 22 years for them to be back in the top flight.

Anka: Southampton, Forest, Ipswich. And this campaign’s relegation battle will go right down to the wire.

Whitehead: Leicester, Southampton, Ipswich. All three promoted teams to go back down, again.

Miller: Leicester, Southampton and Ipswich — the first two will be cut adrift from pretty early on, but Ipswich will be in among a gaggle of other clubs who have panicked and sacked managers, got points deductions or are just not quite good enough… but they will drop too on the last day… just. 

O’Neill: Forest, Southampton, Ipswich.

Carey: Forest, Southampton, Leicester. Ipswich to carry on their soaring momentum in recent years to secure Premier League status for 2025-26.

---

Our predicted Premier League table

The Athletic writers tip Manchester City for another title win

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
Man City	57%	43%
Arsenal	43%	57%
Liverpool			74%	17%	9%
Tottenham			13%	48%	13%	13%	9%	4%
Newcastle				13%	39%	13%	22%	9%	4%
Man Utd			9%	4%	17%	43%	22%	4%
Chelsea				9%	13%	9%	30%	30%	4%	4%
Aston Villa			4%	9%	9%	22%	9%	43%		4%
West Ham							9%		39%	9%	13%	17%	13%
Brighton									35%	26%	13%	13%	4%		9%
Crystal Palace								4%	13%	30%	17%	17%	4%	13%
Fulham										9%	22%	9%	17%	9%	17%	17%
Wolves										9%	17%	22%	13%	17%	13%	4%		4%
Everton											9%	17%	22%	13%	17%	13%	4%		4%
Bournemouth								4%	4%	9%	13%	4%	22%	17%	9%	9%	4%	4%
Forest													4%	9%	9%	22%	13%	22%	22%
Ipswich																13%	26%	17%	22%	22%
Brentford													4%	17%	26%	9%	30%	9%		4%
Leicester														4%			22%	30%	22%	22%
Southampton																4%		13%	30%	52%

---

The new manager who will make the biggest impact is….

Pitt-Brooke: I am fascinated to see how Julen Lopetegui gets on at West Ham United. He is replacing the best manager of their modern era, David Moyes but he has a talented, stable squad and a fanbase ready to be enthused by a new brand of football. He is clearly a good manager who has done well in his previous jobs.

Perhaps he will be their next Manuel Pellegrini, coming in with a plan to change the style but failing to get any real grip on the club. Or maybe if everything clicks and the players and fans buy into his ideas, he could be the next Slaven Bilic — a West Ham manager able to conduct and channel the club’s emotional energy the right way.

Anka: Arne Slot shouldn’t have to make too many adjustments to keep Liverpool at the front of the non-City/Arsenal pack, so let’s talk about Lopetegui. His Wolverhampton Wanderers side in 2022-23 weren’t the flashiest (and there were some worrying performances away from home) but there’s a solidity to his methods that should guard against any post-Moyes implosion.

West Ham have used the transfer market to address the major weakness in their squad and should be more entertaining this season. Providing Niclas Fullkrug can avoid the yips that seem to befall every West Ham striker who isn’t Michail Antonio, Lopetegui should steer the side towards Conference League qualification.

Whitehead: At Brighton & Hove Albion last season, Roberto De Zerbi’s tactical nous was still evident but the vibes had been lost. That means I’m very excited to see Fabian Hurzeler — St Pauli were one of the best stories of last year as they won Bundesliga promotion, and the German’s innovation was a huge part of that. Brighton knew what they were doing when they hired a 31-year-old.

Hurzeler of Brighton is the Premier League’s youngest manager at age 31 (Masashi Hara/Getty Images)

Miller: Kieran McKenna’s agent has been the performer of the summer, leveraging apparent interest from the big boys into a bumper new contract for the Ipswich manager, but there is a reason those big boys were keen. His reputation is sky-high after successive promotions in his first crack at senior football and pound-for-pound he’s probably been the best manager in the country over the past two seasons, but the Premier League beast can swallow young and bushy-tailed managers whole. I’d love him to succeed.

O’Neill: I’m going with McKenna, too. Everyone loves rooting for an underdog and after a season of covering Luton Town in the 2023-24 Premier League, I am battle-hardened and so ready for Ipswich to succeed where Luton failed (even if I did just say they’ll be relegated). McKenna reminds me of Luton counterpart Rob Edwards in a lot of ways and his side will be a refreshing addition to the top flight, just like Luton.

His team will play brave and fun football — that may be their undoing or we could see their most famous fan, Ed Sheeran, in the dressing room singing tunes after an opening weekend home win over Liverpool.

---

When music and football collide

• ‘Goosebump moments’, Greasy Chip Butties & Ange’s Angels – clubs’ victory soundtracks
• How Ed Sheeran reignited his Ipswich love to help their Premier League promotion
• Dortmund’s Adele dressing-room anthem and the power of team singalongs: ‘It is a legal stimulant’
• From Taylor Swift to Beyonce: How pop music took over football stadiums

---

Carey: If we are still counting Oliver Glasner as new, I am intrigued to see how Crystal Palace fare in the Austrian’s first full season. The loss of Michael Olise — sold to Bayern Munich — was big, but I like the signings of Ismaila Sarr and Daichi Kamada, who offer different skill sets in attack. If Palace can keep hold of their other talents through the spine of their team — Marc Guehi, Eberechi Eze and Jean-Philippe Mateta — they could surprise a few people. Palace had the fifth-best record in the Premier League last season from the point Glasner joined them in February. If they can have a similar one across a full campaign, it will be down to the transformative work of the 49-year-old.

---

The new manager who will struggle most is….

Pitt-Brooke: No prizes for originality here but it has to be Enzo Maresca. It took Mauricio Pochettino more than half a season to get his arms around Chelsea and he came into the job with years of managerial experience. Maresca has only had one full season of senior management, winning the Championship with Leicester last season, as he walks into one of the most difficult jobs in the English game. He has to manage an oversized and unbalanced squad, work within Chelsea’s unique structure, convince his players of his new style of play and start getting results quickly. Perhaps he will become the next Arteta, but he will need to be given the tools to do the job.

Anka: There was a point last season when Leicester fans cheered their players for punting the ball long rather than slowly building from the back, as per Maresca’s instructions. The Italian is a fine manager, but his adherence to a preferred tactical plan means there could be a spell at Chelsea where things have to get worse before they get better. Their squad is so big that he should eventually figure things out, but there’s potential for a big skid partway through the season. 

https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chelsea-new-manager-same-problems/id1488521447?i=1000664740907&itsct=podcast_box_player&itscg=30200&ls=1&theme=auto

Whitehead: Steve Cooper faces a tough task. This Leicester squad lacks outstanding individual talent, and they may find themselves facing a points deduction. The loss of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to Chelsea is big — he is an established Premier League performer and was a central figure in the squad dynamic.

Miller: I say this with a heavy heart, because I have a houseplant named after him, but Cooper has been given the ultimate hospital-pass at Leicester. Then again, he joined Nottingham Forest when they were absolute no-hopers early in the 2021-22 Championship and got them promoted eight months later, so who knows what miracles he will perform 20-odd miles up the road?

Elsewhere, people already seem to have memory-holed how bad Manchester United looked for long spells last season. I’d be surprised if Erik ten Hag makes it to May as their manager. 

O’Neill: Slot is a name not many people will think of but hear me out. He has to pick up where Jurgen Klopp left off after one of Liverpool’s most successful periods in their history. It is not going to be straightforward. That’s not to say I’m expecting him to struggle the most of any manager, there are plenty who will struggle more, but Slot’s testing moments will be highly publicised. Imagine the panic stations if Liverpool have a couple of bad results, for example. The pressure on him will be gargantuan as he tries to get a team built by his predecessor clicking for him.

Carey: Chelsea’s pre-season has already experienced some teething problems, and history tells us that managers at Stamford Bridge are rarely afforded a long time to get things right. Maresca arrives with clear ideas based on positional principles and a methodical way of working the ball through the thirds. Whether Chelsea can implement that style consistently and effectively is where the question lies. If it goes well, it could go very well — but we said that for Mauricio Pochettino, Graham Potter and Thomas Tuchel, didn’t we?

---

The new signing who most intrigues me is….

Pitt-Brooke: Fullkrug. You can have all your false nines, your inverted wingers, half-spaces, hybrid pressing and the rest. But there is nothing else in football — or life — quite like getting it launched up to the big man.

Fullkrug has proven in recent years for Werder Bremen and Borussia Dortmund, and for Germany in their past two tournaments, why he is the world’s greatest exponent of that traditional style (with all due respect to Wout Weghorst, Aleksandar Mitrovic, Martin Adam and the rest). With a few long diagonals, floated crosses or whipped set pieces, Fullkrug could become West Ham’s new Andy Carroll, if not their new Ilan. And in doing so, he will say to the world: Big Man Summer is for life.

Anka: Brighton have picked up two of the players who made Arne Slot’s Feyenoord side so impressive. Mats Wieffer is a highly intelligent midfielder who can offer multiple solutions to several on-field conundrums. But it’s Yankuba Minteh who is the great variable. During his 2023-24 season on loan at Feyenoord from Newcastle, Slot asked Minteh to get chalk at his boots and run at defenders. He was rather good at it, too. Can he step up to the Premier League, or will he get lost in the ‘Antony swamp’?

Whitehead: Emile Smith Rowe. After being short of opportunities at Arsenal, this is a chance for him to be a Premier League side’s main man. Fulham need to replace Joao Palhinha in midfield, however, if Smith Rowe is to be put in the best place to shine. I’m also excited to see if Fullkrug can turn Big Man Summer into Big Man Winter — there’s a lot to love about the German striker.

Miller: I like the look of Samuel Iling-Junior at Aston Villa, Fullkrug to West Ham is terrific fun and Joshua Zirkee to Manchester United could go either way. But it must be Dewsbury-Hall to Chelsea. These signings to very specifically fit with a new manager often end in tears, particularly if things don’t go well from the start.

Fullkrug – a big man for all seasons? (Stefan Matzke – sampics/Getty Images)

O’Neill: Arsenal’s new centre-back Riccardo Calafiori. Mostly because he looks like a throwback of an Italian footballer from the 1990s with his long hair held back in an elasticated headband. The 22-year-old signed from Bologna certainly has the style, and it will be interesting to see how he gets on in north London.

Carey: City have picked up fearless dribbler Savinho from one sister club, France’s Troyes, after shining on loan last season at another, Girona in Spain, in a move that could see Pep Guardiola double down on pacy wingers on both flanks if he switched him to a right-sided attacking role. For context, no La Liga player attempted more take-ons than the Brazilian in 2023-24, which shows how direct his style of play is. We already know about Jeremy Doku going ‘meep-meep’ on the left side last season — if he and Savinho played on either wing, there could be a whole new world of fun in Guardiola’s attack over the months ahead.

---

The player who will finish second to Erling Haaland in the Golden Boot race is…

Pitt-Brooke: Tottenham have finally replaced Harry Kane by signing Dominic Solanke, and he could be set up for a bumper first season. Coach Ange Postecoglou is all about creating high-quality chances for the centre-forward with low cutbacks from wide positions, but it never felt Richarlison had those Sergio Aguero-type instincts you need in the box. Solanke got 19 league goals for Bournemouth last season — more than Richarlison has scored in a single campaign — and if he can continue that form for Spurs and stay fit, then he can get well into the 20s this time.

Anka: Ollie Watkins of Aston Villa.

Whitehead: Newcastle’s Alexander Isak has looked incredibly sharp in pre-season after a summer off, as Sweden didn’t qualify for the Euros. He was third last year (21 goals to Haaland’s 27) and would have been even closer to the Norwegian if not for injuries that kept him out of at least six matches.

Miller: Solanke. If not, this is Darwin Nunez’s year — I can feel it. The Liverpool striker might take a billion shots, but he’ll score many, many goals.

O’Neill: Cole Palmer again, the same as last season. He will score every penalty he takes and continue to be Chelsea’s guiding light, especially in games that finish 3-3, 4-4 and 5-5.

Carey: Mohamed Salah. The Egyptian has had a full pre-season, a hair transplant, and has a new style to adapt to under Arne Slot — he looks hungry for more goals. Slot’s style could be perfect for him to arrive in those dangerous areas. Salah doesn’t need reminding where the goal is, but this season could see more opportunities for him to finish and that is a scary prospect for opposition defenders.

GO DEEPER

Ten Premier League players to re-watch in 2024-25

---

Manchester City’s charges finally being heard this season means…

Pitt-Brooke: There may eventually come a moment when Guardiola wishes deep-down that he was on a beach in Ibiza or Sardinia — or off playing golf with Jurgen Klopp somewhere — rather than fielding constant questions about it.

Anka: Jose Mourinho is going to say something bizarre/hilarious/petty that will be quoted for the next five years. 

Whitehead: European Super League plans may be being resurrected in north-west England by May.

Miller: We won’t actually hear the verdict until next season.

O’Neill: Guardiola’s touchline behaviour will intensify in the build-up to it.

Carey: We can finally, hopefully, stop talking about this narrative hanging over the Premier League.

---

By May, we’ll all be saying….

Pitt-Brooke: If Manchester United can just add one more member of the 2018-19 Ajax team, they could really make it work. Worth a cheeky bid for David Neres? What’s Lasse Schone up to?

Anka: “I can’t believe Pep has signed another contract extension. I will never trust a bald manager again.”

Whitehead: I didn’t realise Mikel Arteta knew how to smile. 

Is this the season for Arteta and Arsenal? (Stefan Matzke – sampics/Getty Images)

Miller: Ah, well. Nevertheless. 

O’Neill: Next season will be our season.

Carey: So, everyone looking forward to the Club World Cup?

---

I really hope that this is the season….

Pitt-Brooke: We get full abolition of the video assistant referee system. Do not demand anything less.

Anka: More strikers remember that they’re allowed to chip the goalkeeper. 

Whitehead: We remember for the football rather than legal disputes. Will not happen. 

Miller: There’s a collective recognition that sometimes referees get things wrong, as we all do from time to time, and there’s not much point in complaining about it. 

O’Neill: More fans think before they chant.

Carey: Owners elect to stick with their manager for a full season rather than roll the dice.

GO DEEPER

Build-ups, line-breaks and counter-pressing: How Premier League sides may evolve next

(Top photos: Getty Images. design: Dan Goldfarb. Graphic: John Bradford and Mark Carey)

What we learned from Emma Hayes’ victorious USWNT at the Paris Olympics

By Jeff Rueter Aug 11, 2024

---

For the first time since 2012, the United States are the gold medalists in women’s Olympic soccer. A well-played ball from Korbin Albert to Mallory Swanson made all the difference, with Emma Hayes’ side overcoming an inspired Brazil 1-0 in the final.

Making the gold medal match is an achievement in its own right. Nobody knew what to expect from the USWNT at this tournament. The logistics of Hayes’ Chelsea departure meant she had just 360 friendly minutes to get her new team ready for the Games. That truncated ramp-up could have left the team ill-prepared to contend.

Advertisement

https://f1decb3c29c2d2ba221884ab95f1e422.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Instead, the players rallied behind their new boss. They reminded the world they’re able to score in bunches, to the dismay of Zambia and Germany. They showed impressive tactical nous amidst the crash-course implementation of Hayes’ ideology, neutralizing a previously terrific Japan and again using in-game adjustments to best Brazil. And, as any great team must in a major tournament, they found ways to win ugly: first against Australia, then in the semifinal against a more composed version of Germany.

There was no single method for success this summer, which is very much in line with Hayes’ whole vibe. Rather than coaching from a strict structure that forces opponents to adjust to her team’s tried-and-true approach like many modern coaches, Hayes studies an opponent to modify her approach — guided by principles and areas of emphasis rather than a team shape carved in stone — and use her team’s strengths in unique ways.

https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/3fGYj4p6mdxSz9lCPKWAgl?utm_source=generator

For those reasons and the small sample size of one tournament, any attempt to compile the definitive dossier of Hayes’ tactical ideology is a fool’s errand. That said, Hayes has undeniably passed her first test. One would expect her to only improve on this performance as she spends more than two months on the job and further builds the team around her principles. World, be warned.

(Claudio Villa/Getty Images)

---

Prominent principles

A few clear tenets of Hayes’ vision emerged across the entire tournament and seem likely to stick around based on these six performances. Let’s dig into those before looking at a few areas we might expect to see evolution in the months and years to come.

The USWNT in possession

Although this tournament was marked by changes and reinventions, eight of Hayes’ first-choice lineup — all but Tierna Davidson, Sam Coffey and Mallory Swanson —  were regularly involved in last summer’s World Cup. Under Vlatko Andonovski, the United States held a narrow advantage with a possession rate of 52.9 per cent but often didn’t seem to know what to do with the ball. It led to some sloppy forced passes and frustrating turnovers at the edge of the final third, giving opponents plenty of time to set up sequences of their own as play changed hands.

Advertisement

https://f1decb3c29c2d2ba221884ab95f1e422.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Confident in her players’ collective abilities on the ball, Hayes’ version doubles down on controlling play. Their 65 per cent possession rate trailed only hypnotic defending World Cup champion Spain this summer, with rates ranging from 42.9 per cent in the final against Brazil to 78.1 per cent in the opening blowout against Zambia.

Alyssa Naeher’s utilization in build-up has been more radical than any other player’s. In the World Cup, exactly 50 per cent of her passes traveled 35 yards or further. This summer, that clip dropped to 29.5 per cent through the semifinal — the second-lowest rate of any goalkeeper in these Olympics, behind France’s Pauline Peyraud-Magnin. That change alone goes a long way toward ensuring your team keeps the ball, relying less on winning aerial duels or lobs that can fail to find a friendly target.

The reverse played out in the final: the one time the United States failed to win the possession battle, Naeher’s launch rate skyrocketed to 100 per cent (yes —each of her 27 passes went over 35 yards) and the United States held just under 43 per cent of the ball.

The gold medalists were patient in build-up, directing 34 per cent of all passes forward — down from last summer’s rate of 37.6 per cent. Rather than overly relying upon risk/reward passes, the USWNT was far more comfortable with recirculation. Critically, Hayes has quickly remedied the attacking struggles that held the United States back last summer.

We’re not done talking about Triple Espresso yet

It’s hard to overstate the importance of Swanson’s return. Her interplay with Sophia Smith is the smoothest of any left-sided option, as both players (and, often, in tandem with Trinity Rodman) weave in and out of open lanes to unsettle a defense before they even see the ball. Swanson has also provided a far greater threat while shooting and creating than Alex Morgan managed last year, while Smith looks far more at home as a striker than shunted to the wing (as she was last summer).

Meanwhile, Rodman was perhaps the attack’s heartbeat. No player came close to matching her industry in terms of entering the box.

“Put your best players in their best spots and let them cook” isn’t exactly worthy of a master’s thesis, but it works wonders in a major tournament. No team at these Olympics exceeded the USWNT’s rate of four big chances per game, nearly double the field’s average of 2.4. The United States’ shots came from an average of 15.1 yards out — third-nearest of any team, evidence of well-worked sequences setting up golden opportunities.

Advertisement

https://f1decb3c29c2d2ba221884ab95f1e422.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Unsurprisingly, that big-chance generation helped the United States rack up expected goals, an advanced metric that measures the likelihood of a chance leading to a goal based on historical data. In total, their 12.8 chances created per game trailed only Spain (16.7; they were still very good this summer) and considerably ahead of the tournament’s average of 10.5. The USWNT averaged 2.2 expected goals per game, also well above the Olympic average of 1.6.

Having great attackers is a good start toward consistently scoring, but talent only gets you so far. The forward line looked rejuvenated after years of relatively lean output by the program’s lofty standard, especially in 2023, and helped actualize the at-times frustrating potential from Hayes’ first four friendlies.

Trinity Rodman, Mallory Swanson and Sophia Smith pose with their gold medals (Brad Smith/ISI/Getty Images)

A modified defense that still gets results

For all the faults that emerged during the USWNT’s brief stay at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, few could be found in terms of defending.

Andonovski’s defense was one of the tournament’s best. Only the Netherlands and Brazil exceeded the United States’ average of 7.4 high turnovers per 90 minutes last summer, giving ample opportunities to start short-field counters (albeit, ones upon which they failed to capitalize). Their pressing was incredibly proactive, with their 7.1 PPDA (that is, passes allowed per defensive action made) registering well below the tournament average of 9.97.

Once again, it’s worth reiterating two crucial differences between a World Cup and the Olympics. Rather than carrying 23 players on the roster, Hayes has only had 18 (save for four alternates to bring in whenever players have gotten hurt). Olympic matches take place every three days, whereas the USWNT played every five days last summer.

Either as a result of that format or in line with her vision for the team, the USWNT has relaxed a bit against the ball. Their 4.0 high turnovers per 90 are well below last year’s rate, fifth among the 12 competitors. Their PPDA of 11.5 also looks far more languid, yet it’s in line with the tournament average of 12.05.

Naomi Girma (Daniela Porcelli/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Only time will tell if this approach follows them home from France. However, the end result was still a staunch defense, allowing just 11.3 shots per 90 (tournament average was 14.4) with an average xG of 0.08 per shot faced (average was 0.11). Having world-class defenders like Naomi Girma will help no matter a coach’s approach, but the focus on energy conservation and retaining defensive shape hasn’t made the United States more vulnerable.

---

Areas to refine

Fouls and dead balls

Although there’s no specific term for a fear of a whistle’s blow, it nestles into general phonophobia — a fear of loud sounds. Throughout the tournament, the United States was less effective after the referee stopped play.

Heading into Saturday’s final, the United States ranked third by averaging 8.5 set plays per 90 minutes, 20 per cent more than the tournament average. However, it took them an average of 25.5 set pieces to yield a goal. 16.7 per cent of their goals came from set pieces — the lowest rate of any team that converted at least one dead-ball situation this summer.

Advertisement

https://f1decb3c29c2d2ba221884ab95f1e422.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Corner kicks also proved difficult to convert. Only 9.7 per cent of their corners were converted into shots, far below the average of 20.5 per cent. Considering the United States averaged the second-most corners of any team (5.5), it added up to a lot of wasted opportunities that could have given some breathing room in their closer contests — roughly one shot per every two games.

Out of possession, the United States played to keep the ball rolling. On average, a team fouled an opponent shortly after committing a turnover 4.6 per cent of the time. The United States checked in at a 1.3 per cent rate of these tactical fouls, making them the only team to register a rate below 3.3 per cent. Their 5.2 fouls committed per game was well below the average of 9.2. While that does keep players from risking seeing a card and limits conceded set pieces, it also allows opponents to sustain momentum on the ball.

There’s no one best practice to win a game using the referee’s whistle as an asset, but it’s a bit of gamesmanship that’ll likely evolve in the coming years.

A miasmic midfield

In the ‘pros’ category, we touched on the team’s patience and willingness to embrace recirculation sequences. A typical sequence of build-up often looked something like this: Naeher prodded the ball to one of her center backs, who then shunted it wide to their nearest full back. That full back would check their corresponding winger’s run and either launch it beyond the defender — either lobbed to wide areas, or on the ground in the half-space — or pass it back to the center back to switch play to the other side.

Ideally, that full back could also consider the central channel and get the ball to a midfielder to operate in the middle of the field. Too often, that option is not presenting itself if Coffey is not in the right spot every time. Why? For all of the players who are seeing improvement in Hayes’ early days, the same can’t be said for Lindsey Horan, the team’s captain and a rare remaining holdover of the 2019 world champions.

Horan has been a mainstay of United States lineups since injuries so cruelly curtailed Sam Mewis’ career. Converted from being a striker to a midfielder during Jill Ellis’ tenure, Horan played as a box-to-box midfielder under Andonovski. Her reading of a game allowed her to operate as the team’s main possessive hub last summer, trusting her to judge whether the team should progress into the final third or hold onto the ball by sending it backwards.

(Julian Finney/Getty Images)

This summer, Horan’s role has changed slightly. When the team is out of possession, she plays level with Coffey at the midfield’s base. In possession, she scurries to play on the same line as Rose Lavelle, serving as an auxiliary striker to complement Lavelle’s playmaking. In theory, Horan should be able to crash the box later than Smith to offer an aerial threat for late crosses and an edge-of-box shooting alternative. Instead, Horan has been stationed by the center circle, struggling to make as much of an impact in all phases as she previously had.

Entering the final, Horan completed 69.8 per cent of her passes in the attacking third. In theory, that suggests she played higher-risk balls to find a shooter. However, it’s the lowest of the four USWNT midfielders who logged 200 minutes in the Games, trailing Korbin Albert (81 per cent), Coffey (77.8 per cent) and even Lavelle (72.5 per cent).

Advertisement

https://f1decb3c29c2d2ba221884ab95f1e422.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

It ended up being a moot point in the final, as Lavelle’s injury concerns brought Albert into the lineup and pushed Horan closer to the forward line. Still, one would assume that Hayes will want to incorporate both Horan and Lavelle in her lineups moving forward. We’ll see how that ends up being working — or if it’s possible — in the coming months.

Subs (or the lack of)

Along with questions about Horan’s performances, one criticism of the team’s run has been Hayes’ unwillingness to rotate and relatively lax substitution patterns. Only three teams averaged fewer substitutions before the 75th minute than Hayes’ 2.0 per game, while her average time of making a change (74.1 minutes into a game) was tardier than the tournament average of 68.6. If that seems insignificant to you, ask a player how difficult another five minutes of high-stakes play can be when you’re already gassed.

It’s one thing to trust your starters when you’re swapping out starters to ensure as many players are at full fitness as possible. However, Hayes’ insistence on playing with a set preferred lineup that only changed after injuries or suspension often left the team lagging in the second half. Whereas the United States averaged 1.2 goals in the first half of games, that rate plummeted to 0.5 in the second half. Some of this can be attributed to opponents making adjustments, but such a staggering drop-off is also cause for concern.

(Carl Recine/Getty Images)

That said, Hayes’ final season with Chelsea shows that she may be quicker to make in-game changes as she gets more familiar with a greater number of players in her pool. In the WSL last season, Chelsea averaged 3.1 subs before the 75th minute, with her changes coming with an average game clock time of 67.9 minutes.

The good news now is that, with the tournament concluded, her regular starters can finally enjoy some rest. They’ve certainly earned it, with hardware to show for their perseverance.

It’s all a work in progress, even as the United States has returned to a more prominent place on the Olympic podium. The early signs under Hayes could hardly be more encouraging — and she’s only just getting started.

(Top photo: Getty Images)

What did you think of this story?

USWNT’s Alyssa Naeher is a brick wall to her opponents, her teammates have found a way through

By Meg Linehan THe Athletic Aug 10, 2024

---

PARIS — U.S. women’s national team defender Naomi Girma always runs to her goalkeeper, Alyssa Naeher, after the final whistle of a win. Saturday night was no different, even as this one had resulted in an Olympic gold medal — a first for both of them, despite the age difference (Girma is 24, Naeher is 36).

Advertisement

“As soon as the whistle blew,” Girma said in the mixed zone Saturday night, “I was like, my last sprint of the tournament is to give Alyssa a hug.”

Naeher once again played a massive role in the USWNT’s victory, providing a poster-worthy save in the final few moments of the win over Brazil — this time pawing a close-range shot with a hand — just like she did in the semifinal win over Germany.

The U.S. doesn’t reach the top of the podium without Naeher. They all know that.

There’s been so many emotions through the past three weeks in France for this team. The physical challenges, too, have forced them to suffer. But there’s been so much joy, too. There’s been karaoke, there’s been dancing, there’s been a lightness, a trust, a sense even from the outside that something new was being built both before our eyes and behind closed doors.

Naeher and Girma helped keep three clean sheets in the knockout stage of the World Cup. (Photo by Justin Setterfield, Getty Images)

At the heart of so much of that was a player most might not have expected: Naeher. It’s not because she’s anti-fun, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking she’s nothing but business with her game-day face and massive saves, followed by pushing her teammates away as they try to swarm her to celebrate. It goes back to 2019, her first major tournament as the No. 1 goalkeeper, and even before that.

There’s the growing bond between Naeher and Girma, of course, but there’s also been something special brewing between Naeher and the starting front line of Mal Swanson (Naeher’s Chicago Red Stars teammate), Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith.

They’ve slowly, lovingly, cracked open whatever remains of her shell.

“Alyssa has been the best person for Mal, Trin and I,” Smith said Saturday after the game. “She’s our biggest supporter, but I do feel like we’ve helped her open up a little bit, even if it’s uncomfortable for her. We give her hugs and tell her how much we appreciate her, because obviously we would not be here right now without Alyssa. We just want to remind her of that every day.”

https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/3fGYj4p6mdxSz9lCPKWAgl?utm_source=generator

Rodman stressed how Naeher has been a mentor to her as well. “I’ve asked her for so much advice and comfort through everything, even just sitting next to me and not saying anything,” Rodman said Thursday.

But she was also delighted by how they’ve gotten Naeher to open up a bit over the past few months — and all of them are still thrilled by that one time they managed to convince her to participate in their group TikTok. It’s a multi-pronged effort, after all.

Advertisement

https://cee5ff31f80b3b21da8ddb5497b72ca3.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

“We’re making her a little more mushy gushy with us, which I think is nice. We’re opening up a side that I think has always been there, but it’s hidden a little bit,” Rodman said.

There’s no better time to embrace the mushy gushy than in the first few moments after winning gold medals together. After the group pile-on, led by Girma, Naeher shared a moment with Swanson and Rodman, all three of them giving into tears.

For Naeher, that moment was never about her (it usually isn’t).

“To see (Swanson’s) journey, to see her maturity, to see her come in,” Naeher began in the mixed zone, warning she was about to get emotional all over again, “I’ve been fortunate to be with her every step of the way the last few years, and to see her come into this tournament, to score that goal in this game, I mean… I love her to death. To see her emotional, to see that joy in her face again of being back on the field, it kind of all finally hits when you look in each other’s eyes again.”

Swanson missed the 2023 World Cup due to a knee injury. (Photo by John Todd, Getty Images)

She knows, too, that the three of them have been working on her — in a good way, of course — since the tail end of last year, before Emma Hayes joined the team and there was still the uncertainty of the post-World Cup transition.

“They truly have made me feel a part of it,” she said. “I felt like if I could allow myself to be a little bit more vulnerable with the younger group, and buy into that, and be able to share the experiences that I’ve had and have them soak it up.”

She has felt their embrace, even as she’s only barely tolerated the push to be included in social media videos. It’s been fun. It all goes back to that.

“It’s made me feel quite special as part of the group, like I feel like I have something to give to this team as an older player,” Naeher said. Naeher hasn’t talked about her plans moving forward, but there is perhaps the slightest hint of knowing she should take advantage of the chance she has now, to share everything she knows — to help them, and be rewarded with their love right back.If she has to tolerate a few hugs here or there, then it’s a price she doesn’t seem to mind paying even if she’s still putting on the bit on camera, even if she struggles to accept the praise in real time. “Mother-daughter besties forever,” Rodman declared in a team video, after forcing Naeher to hug her back.

Advertisement

https://cee5ff31f80b3b21da8ddb5497b72ca3.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

“It’s funny because I’m not a touchy person,” Rodman said Thursday, laughing about that very video. “Just in that moment, I wanted to shout her out. You’ll never see us hug, so that was a once in a lifetime thing. Maybe. Hopefully if we win, there’ll be another one. But I love making her uncomfortable; it brightens my day for sure.” As hoped for, they won. And they got that second hug. And a third, just to be safe. Consider the shell fully cracked.

Is becoming USMNT head coach the right move for Mauricio Pochettino?

By Oliver Kay

Aug 16, 2024

85

---

In late 2022, out of work following his departure from Paris Saint-Germain that summer, Mauricio Pochettino found himself reflecting on the unpredictable nature of a coaching career.

“Football is timing,” he told Spain’s Radio Marca. “It’s about the moments that coincide and then for that marriage to happen. Sometimes it is only a question of time. I don’t believe in trains passing only once. I think sometimes you need the patience and you have to know how to wait.”

Advertisement

https://cbacf8222d7c808287d928ec34b48a82.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

The “train” he was referring to was the Real Madrid job. The timing had not been right when they sounded him out in the summer of 2018, given he had just signed a five-year contract at Tottenham Hotspur, but by the end of the following year he was out of work. The stars never quite aligned for him with Manchester United either, despite a long on-off courtship. He ended up coaching PSG and then Chelsea, where he lasted 18 months and a year respectively.

GO DEEPER

Why Pochettino and Chelsea parted ways: ‘Loneliness’, injuries and resistance to club structure

And now, to widespread surprise, Pochettino is on the verge of becoming the new coach of the United States men’s national team, enthused by the challenge of leading them into the 2026 World Cup they will host most of. If you had asked him five years ago, even two years ago, it probably wouldn’t have been a position he envisaged taking at the age of 52. But football is timing. The past years have taught him that.

It is an unexpected leap from Pochettino — away from the Premier League, away from the Champions League circuit and away from European club football, where he has worked as a player and then a coach since he left his native Argentina to join Barcelona-based Espanyol as a 22-year-old in the summer of 1994.

It is a prestigious job, particularly given the looming prospect of a World Cup played primarily on American soil. It is the type of challenge Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Jose Mourinho and others have often said might tempt them at some distant juncture — just not now, as Klopp made clear when the U.S. federation sounded him out this summer in the early stages of his post-Liverpool sabbatical.

For Pochettino to take the jump at this point in his career underlines not only the appeal of the challenge in question but also, perhaps, a level of disillusionment with the European club scene.

Pochettino suffered bad timing at Chelsea last season (Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images)

His reputation as one of the world’s brightest coaches was built on spells at Espanyol, and then Southampton and Tottenham in England, three clubs where he found a vision and an energy that appeared to chime with his own. In terms of showcasing his coaching ability, all three seemed like the right jobs at the right time.

Advertisement

https://cbacf8222d7c808287d928ec34b48a82.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

PSG, by contrast, had begun to resemble a circus by the time he took that job in early 2021; “flashy bling-bling” is how club president Nasser Al-Khelaifi described the dressing-room culture the following year. Chelsea have so far appeared pretty much unmanageable in two turbulent years under the co-ownership of Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital.

Wrong place, wrong time. Twice.

There were talks with the Manchester United hierarchy after he left Chelsea at the end of last season, but he received little encouragement before learning that Erik ten Hag was to be kept on after all. A wide range of coaches attracted interest from Bayern Munich and Barcelona before they appointed Vincent Kompany and Hansi Flick respectively. Pochettino did not seem to be among them.

In comparison to the fresh-faced figure who arrived on the Premier League scene more than a decade earlier, he seemed a little jaded at times at Chelsea. He certainly found it harder to get his tactical message across than he had at Southampton and Spurs, where young players gave the impression they would happily run through walls for him.

But perhaps it was less about Pochettino and more about the state of dysfunction he encountered at his past two clubs.

As his time at Chelsea headed towards a predictable break-up, there was a sense a young team had begun to turn a corner. They lost just one of their final 15 Premier League games last season, scoring 39 goals in the process, and won their final five to secure a sixth-placed finish and European qualification. Several of their players reacted to his departure by expressing shock or sadness on social media. Their Senegal international forward Nicolas Jackson posted a “facepalm” emoji and wrote, “Love you, coach. Wish we could stay together more.”

This is what the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) is buying into: a coach who tends to win hearts and minds — young, fresh, enthusiastic minds in particular — and to impose his playing philosophy. His high-energy, high-pressing, possession-based style is far more mainstream now than when he brought it to the Premier League in early 2013, but even if his principles are similar to USMNT predecessor Gregg Berhalter’s, it seems like a bold as well as highly ambitious, eye-catching appointment by the USSF, whose technical director, Matt Crocker, briefly overlapped with Pochettino at Southampton.

A fresh-faced Pochettino with Southampton in 2013 (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

International football is a strange beast. Many successful club coaches have proven less suited to that version of the game — far less about the tactical challenge and far more about the rhythm of the calendar, where they go months without seeing their players or spending time on the training field, then find themselves plunged into a tournament where the tests are so much harder, the stakes so much higher and the pressure ramped up dramatically.

Advertisement

https://cbacf8222d7c808287d928ec34b48a82.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Pochettino has the emotional intelligence to be able to adjust to those different dynamics and connect with players in a different way. There are unlikely to be many coaches at the 2026 World Cup with more elite-level management experience — not that this is all-important, as Spain’s Luis de la Fuente, Lionel Scaloni of Argentina and England’s recently departed Gareth Southgate have demonstrated of late.

GO DEEPER

Southgate, De la Fuente, Scaloni: Why summer 2024 was powered by the federation coach

The English FA has considered Pochettino in the past and, despite a preference for a homegrown candidate, was expected to do so again following Southgate’s exit last month after Euro 2024. Instead, having considered the free agents on the market, they have just put their under-21s team coach Lee Carsley in interim charge of the senior side, perhaps with an eye on continuity post-Southgate rather than the type of game-changing appointment the USSF had in mind from the start of this process.

It is easy to imagine that, in Pochettino, the USSF have found a coach who could not just improve the national team but further energise the sport in America; someone who can change the culture around the entire national team setup and bring long-term benefits.

Equally, it is possible to imagine him getting itchy feet as he counts down the months towards the 2026 World Cup and the challenge of trying, in those sporadic international breaks, to transform a squad that contains plenty of young talent but which fell so far short of expectations by failing to get past the group stage at this summer’s Copa America, beaten by Panama as well as Uruguay.

There is a lot of work to do to get the USMNT up to speed — specifically to Pochettino speed — by summer 2026. Conversely, though that is nearly two years off, there is not an awful lot of time in which to do it.

That is the strange thing about international football. Anything he does between now and then can be filed under experimentation. Then the World Cup will arrive, expectations will be high and judgements will be made on the validity (and value) of the Pochettino project.

At “flashy” PSG in 2021 (Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images)

It is easy to see why so many leading coaches tend to regard international football as something that can wait until they are at the tail-end of their careers. But sometimes, as Pochettino said, it is about how moments and opportunities coincide.

Looking beyond finance, if he is inclined to feel any regrets over his choices of PSG and Chelsea, there must be something that has convinced him this is an opportunity that will engage and excite him for the foreseeable future and re-energise his career in the longer term.

Advertisement

https://cbacf8222d7c808287d928ec34b48a82.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Perhaps it comes back to something he said while he was in Qatar, working as a pundit for the BBC during the 2022 World Cup. He spoke about how excited and enthused he felt by the feeling around the competition — probably pretty easy for an Argentinian at that tournament — and how, yes, having appeared in the World Cup as a player in 2002, he would love to do so as a coach in the future.

At the time, it was presumed he meant by taking charge of Argentina — or even England, such is the way he’d come to be regarded as an Anglophile since his arrival on these shores over 11 years ago.

Instead, he has now been lured Stateside, just as his compatriot Lionel Messi, now 37, was when he joined Inter Miami of MLS last year, just as German veteran Marco Reus, 35, has been now that his move to LA Galaxy in the same league has been confirmed.

https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/are-premier-league-friendlies-enough-for-u-s-fans/id1488521447?i=1000663945716&itsct=podcast_box_player&itscg=30200&ls=1&theme=auto

In some ways, Pochettino’s move feels more unexpected because it’s all happened in a matter of days rather than being flagged months or even years in advance.

Football is timing, as Pochettino said.

Perhaps the past few years have taught him something different about coaching careers and the difficulty of trying to plan too far ahead.

Sometimes the opportunity to board a particular train doesn’t come along again.

Pochettino didn’t want to hang about waiting. He is evidently enthused by the journey that lies ahead, wherever it may take him.

Indianapolis – Visiting Western Conference leader New Mexico United scored three second-half goals in a 22-minute span to rally for a 3-1 road victory over the Indy Eleven at Carroll Stadium.

Indy Eleven played an impressive first half with an 8-4 advantage in shots.  In the second minute of the match, a header from Romario Williams set up an chance for Augi Williams for a left-footed opportunity in the area that was saved by New Mexico keeper Alex Tambakis.

In the 23rd minute, Neidlinger struck a nice cross from the right corner to the far post to defender Aedan Stanley, but his header was just over the bar.

The Boys in Blue took a 1-0 lead in the 28th minute when 18-year-old midfielder Logan Neidlinger became the youngest player in franchise history to score a goal.  Neidlinger is also the first Indy Eleven player on a USL Academy contract to score.  Neidlinger, born in Indianapolis, has played the full 90 minutes in all three of the team’s August matches.

Defender Adrian Diz Pe started the scoring sequence with an interception at midfield.  Three quick passes got the ball to midfielder Laurence Wootton, who quickly passed it to Neidlinger on the right side of the box.  Neidlinger fired a shot into the top left corner.  It was Wootton’s second straight match with an assist.

Indy Eleven had a great chance to take increase its lead just three minutes later when Neidlinger delivered an excellent cross from outside the area on the right side to the far post to Augi Williams, who headed across to the far post, but Romario Williams was not able to finish.

In the 39th minute, forward Sebastian Guenzatti spun and passed to Stanley, who hit a cross that just eluded both Augi and Romario Williams.

Indy Eleven are in fourth place in the Eastern Conference with 35 points.  Their next match is at the Las Vegas Lights FC on August 24.

Indy Eleven 1:3 New Mexico United

Sunday, August 11, 2024 – 5 p.m. ET

Carroll Stadium | Indianapolis

2024 USL Championship Records

Indy Eleven: 10-8-5 (-3), 35 pts, 4th in Eastern Conference

New Mexico United: 13-6-2 (+4), 41 pts, 1st in Western Conference

Indy Eleven 1-3 New Mexico United

Carroll Stadium | Indianapolis

Attendance:  10,013
Weather:  Partly sunny, 75 degrees

US Women Reach Gold Medal Final vs Brazil Sat 11 am USA

So coaching does make a difference as new Coach Emma Hayes has molded this young US team and has them on the brink of Olympic gold for the first time since 2016. Their foe – Brazil and the legendary Marta – who made her debut Olympic debut 20 years ago as she faced the US in the Olympic Gold Medal game. After being knocked out in the round of 16 in last year’s World Cup – the change of coaching finally came. I said all last summer – the US players have not fallen behind the rest of the world – the coaching had. Spain and France and England don’t have better female players than the US does. These new leagues are not better than the NWSL – not yet. But the US has not had the right coach for a while – now with the US trained English coach Emma Hayes in charge – the US has turned the team over to the youngsters and they have responded. The Holy Trinity/Trident/Triple Expresso up front with Smith/Swanson/Rodman has 3 goals each and 10 of the 12 goals or assists have come thru them (Check this goal in the semi-final.) The back line anchored by the US best player Centerback Girma and of course goalkeeper Elysa Naeher has really stepped up. Now there are things I think can be improved upon -aka more subs, overall you can’t argue with the results so far. If Hayes can bring home the gold after only 2 months in charge of this team – maybe we should give her the Men’s job next. 🙂

Surprised to see Brazil beat Spain 4-2 – honestly Spain had an own goal and a stupid back pass – along with the Brazilian GK Lorena making save after save. She could have a real role vs US Sat. But I like the US 2-1. Unbelievable saves Germany vs USA

2024 U.S. Olympic women’s soccer roster

GOALKEEPERS (2): Casey Murphy (North Carolina Courage), Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars) DEFENDERS (6): Tierna Davidson (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Emily Fox (Arsenal), Naomi Girma (San Diego Wave FC), Casey Krueger (Washington Spirit), Jenna Nighswonger (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Emily Sonnett (NJ/NY Gotham FC) MIDFIELDERS (5): Korbin Albert (Paris Saint-Germain), Sam Coffey (Portland Thorns FC), Lindsey Horan (Olympique Lyon), Rose Lavelle (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Catarina Macario (Chelsea) Lynn Williams NY Gothem FORWARDS (5): Crystal Dunn (NJ/NY Gotham FC), Trinity Rodman (Washington Spirit), Jaedyn Shaw (San Diego Wave FC), Sophia Smith (Portland Thorns FC), Mallory Swanson (Chicago Red Stars) ALTERNATES (4): Jane Campbell (goalkeeper, Houston Dash), Hal Hershfelt (midfielder, Washington Spirit), Croix Bethune (midfielder, Washington Spirit),

US Boys Bow Out – Spain faces France in the Final Friday at noon on USA

The US U23 team bowed out to Morocco last weekend with a pathetic 4-0 shellacking. Amazing just how bad our defense was with 2 veteran overage Centerbacks added to this team. If there is any doubt that the US men’s side is broken – the Olympic showing didn’t help things. Combine that with the U20 loss to Mexico and the men’s side of US soccer is — ah broke. Will be interesting to see Spain vs France on Friday on USA — can coach Henri bring home a goal for his country – could that lead to an offer of the head job from the US. I still prefer Mauricio Pochettino formerly of Spurs and Chelsea- but Henri would be better than LA’s Steve Cherundelo in my mind.

Fri, Aug 9

9 am USA, Tele, Peacock Spain Women vs Germany 3rd place game

12 noon USA, Tele, Peacock France U23 Men vs Spain Gold Medal Men

7:30 pm Apple TV Cincy vs Santos Laguna

10 pm FS1 America vs Atlas – Leagues Cup

Sat Aug 10

7:30 am CBS SN QPR vs West Brom Championship

7:30 am CBS Golazo Leeds United (Aronson) vs Portsmith

10 am ESPN+ Community Shield Man City vs Man United

11 am. ET – Telemundo, Peacock, USA Gold Medal Game USA Women vs Brazil

12 noon CBSSN Wrexham vs Wycombe League 1 England

7 pm CBS Galazo Pittsburg Riverhounds (GK Dick) vs San Antonio

9 pm ESPN2 Louisville City vs Sacramento USL

Sun Aug 11

11 am CBS Golazo Sheffield Wed vs Plymouth League 1

5 pm ESPN+ Indy 11 vs New Mexico United – Beat Cancer Day @ the Mike

Fri, Aug 16 EPL Starts

3 pm USA Man United vs Fulham (Robinson)

US Ladies

USA women’s soccer vs Brazil: How to watch, stream link, team news, prediction for Olympic gold-medal match
USWNT faces pressure of history in Olympic final Sam Borden
Rodman on Marta: ‘I love her’ but we want gold

Smith, Girma dazzle in new-look USWNT as Olympic gold medal awaits

USWNT’s Triple Espresso brings Triple Trouble to Olympic opponents S&S

Albert: Hayes’ ‘tough love’ repaired USWNT bond Sam Borden
Emma Hayes reveals motivation techniques after taking USA to Olympic football final

Moving on from Alex Morgan was key for USWNT

No pain, no gain: USWNT coach wants team ‘to suffer’

Will Marta win her first Olympic title with Brazil or will USA reclaim gold? | The Cooligans

Scouting Brazil

Women’s soccer recap, Aug. 6: Brazil shocks Spain, will …

US Men

Mauricio Pochettino a ”top target” for USMNT (report)
USMNT begin conversations with ‘top target’ Mauricio Pochettino
Recent USMNT managers have promised the world and forgotten the basics

USMNT defender Tim Ream returning to MLS, signs with Charlotte FC

Analysis: U.S. team’s Olympic campaign a mixed bag after Morocco loss

USMNT search continues, U-20’s qualify, transfer talk, Leagues Cup, and Yanks Abroad rundown

U.S. Olympic Men’s Soccer Team vs. Morocco: Match Recap

EPL 

Manchester City vs Manchester United: How to watch live, stream, team news, prediction for Community Shield
Manchester United already facing new season injury headaches ahead of Community Shield
Premier League teams touring USA for summer 2024 preseason: Results, recaps, highlights
Championship hopefuls try to ‘do an Ipswich’ but who will be this year’s saviours of the EFL?

MLS

🖐 things we learned from the Leagues Cup group stage
🔬 The Debrief as Leagues Cup knockouts begin with two MLS exits

Seven goals and a red card! Chaos erupts in Miami’s clash with Toronto

Messi’s ankle ‘better every day,’ but Inter Miami star has yet to play Leagues Cup

Tigres edges Inter Miami 2-1 to win Leagues Cup group
🎥 Pumas goalkeeper makes spectacular diving save to deny
CF Montréal confirm arrival of midfielder Caden Clark

Goalkeeping

Unbelievable saves Germany vs USA

Brazil Lorena GK PK Save vs France
Ex-Man Utd keeper De Gea in talks with Fiorentina

Great Ladies GK Saves  

Reffing

Bad Decision Does Not Mean you’re a Bad Ref

Become a Licensed High School Ref

Become a Licensed Ref with Indiana Soccer – must be over 13

=======RackZ BAR BQ ====Save 20% ===========

Looking for a good summer meal?  Try out the Best BarBQ in Town right across the street (131st) from Northview Church on the corner of Hazelldell & 131st. RackZ BBQ

Save 20% on your order 

(mention the ole ballcoach) 

Check out the BarBQ Ribs, pulled Pork and Chicken, Brisket and more.  Sweet, Tangy or Spicy sauce. Mention you heard about it from the Ole Ballcoach — and Ryan will give you 20% off your next meal. https://www.rackzbbqindy.com/ Call ahead at 317-688-7290  M-Th 11-8 pm, 11-9 Fri/Sat, 12-8 pm on Sunday.  Pick some up after practice – Its good eatin! You won’t be disappointed and tell ’em the Ole Ballcoach Sent You!  

======================RackZ BAR BQ ====Save 20% ======================

Sophia Smith: ‘This team has a standard of winning on the biggest stage’ as USWNT eyes Olympic gold

By Meg Linehan Aug 8, 2024

---

PARIS — Twelve years ago, the last time the U.S. women’s national team won a gold medal at the Olympics, Mallory Swanson was watching the game at a Buffalo Wild Wings. Trinity Rodman joked that she was five years old (she was 10, actually). Sophia Smith added she had been watching the very team she stars for today for as long as she could remember.

On Thursday, the three starting forwards for the USWNT — now having dubbed themselves “Triple Espresso” (or at least, they’re throwing it out there for workshopping purposes) — spoke to reporters at the Olympics’ press center. In two days’ time, they’ll have their chance to truly stamp their mark on this program with a major tournament victory.

“This team has always had a standard of winning, and winning on the biggest stage,” Smith said Thursday. “We take so much pride in that, and want to uphold that in everything that we do to pay our respects to the players that have come before us.”

For all the worries about the USWNT’s inability to score in the send-off games last month, and as tight as the knock-outs have been against Japan and Germany, all three of the forward line have scored three goals so far this tournament. Swanson has also added two assists, and Smith and Rodman one.

There’s no secret recipe for their success. All three have talked about not playing selfishly, and knowing one of them will step up — it’s just a matter of which one and when. The other part is even more simple: they actively like each other. They’re best friends off the field. The chemistry between them, their trust, all of that came together so quickly for a reason.

“We hang out every second that we can,” Rodman said, laughing. “Which is crazy because we’re stuck together.”

(Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)

As Smith pointed out following the U.S.’s statement win over Germany in the group stage, they had only had six or seven games (at that point) with the three of them as the starting forward line. “We’re clicking really well, really fast,” she said that night in Marseille. “I think this is only like 70 percent of what we can do.”

For Rodman though, it’s the off-field stuff that has made a massive difference to their communication in game. “We know how we take certain tones. It’s the littlest things. We just know each other so well, and we can then translate that on the field. If we miss a pass, there’s already a look of, ‘Oh no, she was mad. We got the next one.’”

Advertisement

https://82688ab70efc10c8e1dae55b6935561b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Trinity Rodman was the extra time hero in Paris against Japan. On Tuesday, it was Sophia Smith against Germany (via a Swanson assist) — who had so little left in the tank at that point in extra time that she opted to just drop to the ground and let her teammates pile on top of her, so she didn’t have to run any more than she had to. 

Head coach Emma Hayes in the mixed zone later couldn’t help but drop a couple of f-bombs in disbelief after the match on Smith’s performance, stating the forward had “f****** gone on another level.”

The front line has earned their reputation as a group at the Olympics, but each player offers something unique — playing off each other doesn’t work nearly as well if all three of them are not fully embracing what they do best.

In almost every postgame mixed zone during this tournament, either one of the three of them or one of their teammates has referenced the idea of “just Mal being Mal,” “Trin being Trin”, or “Soph being Soph.”

Smith celebrates her winner against Germany (John Todd/ISI/Getty Images)

On Thursday, Rodman gave her version of what those three shorthand comments stood in for. For herself, it was “smiling, creativity, trying new things, and being one-on-one.” She does after all, she added smiling, really enjoy a good one-on-one. That’s probably why the ‘Trin Spin’ got it’s Olympic debut so early.

For Swanson, Rodman said she is a selfless player. “She makes a lot of selfless runs to open up space. She’s explosive. She’s a perfectionist. She wants to get the perfect shot, the perfect touch, the perfect angle. But it’s in a healthy and good way.”

And for Smith, Rodman wanted to remind everyone how good she is with her feet. “She’s so good at holding defenders off, when she’s back to goal. She’s good at it in a weird way. She’s gonna be sneaky; you don’t think she’s gonna get there and then she’ll change her speed at the perfect time to get a toe in or get a touch. Her body control is really good, and it sets her up for success.”

Advertisement

https://82688ab70efc10c8e1dae55b6935561b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Rodman added that having all those different skill sets on the field at the same time and knowing any one of the front three could step up meant that if one of them didn’t have a big game, it wasn’t the end of the world. Everyone was still trusted to contribute. If things aren’t working for her offensively, that’s her sign to make sure she puts in a big shift defensively.

The details may have been tweaked this tournament match-by-match, but Emma Hayes’s approach and starting XI has remained the same. She hasn’t changed it due to the threat of yellow card accumulation, or tired legs, or any whiff of outside pressure to rotate. 

So on Saturday, it will be Mallory Swanson, Sophia Smith and Trinity Rodman up top, hunting goals against Brazil at Parc des Princes. And all three trust one of them will get the job done. They don’t care who, just that it ends in gold.

USWNT has suffered at the Olympics. Its perseverance is rewarded with a chance for gold

(Top photo: Mike Lawrie/Getty Images)

USWNT vs. Brazil Olympics gold medal game odds: Americans enter as favorites in Paris

By Dan Santaromita Aug 7, 2024

---

It took two extra-time matches, but the United States women’s national team is back in a gold medal match at the Olympics. The Americans will face Brazil on Saturday in the final in Paris.he U.S. enters the match as the favorite after the Brazilians upset reigning World Cup champion Spain in a semifinal. The Americans have -250 odds on BetMGM to win the gold medal after opening at -275.
The USWNT has won four of the seven golds at the Olympics. Regardless of what happens in the final, the U.S. will have made six of the eight finals and won medals in seven of the eight women’s soccer tournaments.Meanwhile, Brazil is looking for its first-ever gold medal in women’s soccer. The Brazilians took silver in 2004 and 2008.The gold medal game will take place Saturday at 11 a.m. ET at the Parc des Princes in Paris.

USWNT vs. Brazil odds

Odds are for result after 90 minutes and from BetMGM.

	Odds
US win	+100
Draw	+220
Brazil win	+280

The paths to the final for these two teams have been a bit reversed.The Americans mostly cruised through group play, winning all three matches with a plus-seven goal differential. The two knockout matches were both tense affairs that went to extra time after 90 scoreless minutes. The U.S. survived past Japan in the quarterfinals and Germany in the semifinals with 1-0 victories after two hours of play in each match.Brazil barely made it to the knockout stage. After beating Nigeria 1-0 in the opener, Brazil gave up two goals in added time to lose 2-1 to Japan and then lost 2-0 to Spain. Brazil was the last team to get into the quarterfinals, edging out Australia in goal differential by one goal among teams that finished third in their groups.In the quarterfinals, Brazil shocked host France 1-0 with a late goal and then blew away Spain in a big upset in the semifinals. Brazil beat Spain 4-2, but it could have, and probably should have, been much worse. Spain was a mess defensively against Brazil and the first goal was truly embarrassing.So how do these two teams match up? The Americans are undefeated and have survived some close tests, but will that extra hour of play affect the Americans in the final? These teams have been playing every three or four days for the duration of the two-and-a-half-week tournament, and USWNT coach Emma Hayes has received criticism for not rotating players or using subs earlier in matches. Nine Americans have started every match and that number might have been 10 if not for Tierna Davidson getting injured in the second group game against Germany.Of course, that’s all there is to complain about when Hayes is undefeated since taking charge of the team in June. The U.S. has eight wins and a draw under Hayes.Brazil also gets a boost in the form of Marta’s return. The legendary forward was suspended for both knockout games after getting a red card in the previous meeting with Spain in group play. This is Marta’s final year before retiring from international play so her team will be plenty motivated to send one of the all-time greats out with a gold medal. isn’t even the first final these teams have met in this year. In March, the U.S. beat Brazil 1-0 in the final of the W Gold Cup in San Diego. The USWNT has won the last seven meetings against Brazil and has gone nine straight without a loss. Brazil last beat the Americans in 2014.

USWNT advances to the Olympic final. Plus: Vote on what to call this front line

By Emily Olsen Aug 7, 2024

---

Full Time Newsletter ⚽| This is The Athletic’s weekly women’s soccer newsletter. Sign up here to receive Full Time directly in your inbox.

---

What is the meaning of suffering? Emma Hayes might just have the answer. I’m Emily Olsen here with Meg Linehan, Steph Yang and Jeff Rueter to bring you an Olympic edition of Full Time!

Want more? Steph and Tamerra Griffin break down how the USWNT advanced to its first gold medal match in 12 years on the “Full Time” podcast — a special Olympic episode is being released after every U.S. game during the tournament.

---

Olympic Final Set: USWNT advances to gold medal match

I was picturing this Michael Scott meme while writing the following:

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, but also Emma Hayes

With a win against Germany in extra time yesterday, the U.S. women’s national team guaranteed either a silver or gold medal at the Paris Games. The Americans will face Brazil on Saturday at 11 a.m. ET in the Olympic final, the USWNT’s first since 2012.

Advertisement

https://6a0f72449bdb88769c3a02869e3e0d8f.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

“I could see today that players were having to dig to the deepest place within them,” Hayes actually said after the win. “I want them to suffer. I want them to have that moment because I do not believe you can win without it.”

The U.S. boss is still new to the international game, but the players have fully bought in. For now, they are pushing through fatigue, injuries and suspensions to prove a point and in doing so, have outperformed expectations. This is not the same team that won bronze at the Tokyo Games or the one that lost in penalties to Sweden exactly a year ago yesterday at the World Cup. 

“We’re a different team since she’s come in. She’s so hilarious and chill and funny, and I feel like that’s exactly what we needed. We have the players, we have the talent, we just needed someone to come in and believe in us,” Sophia Smith said. “Emma’s doing exactly that.”

I mean how could you not be totally in when playing for a coach that uses gummy bears to describe tactics?

The U.S. played 90 minutes of scoreless soccer again yesterday before Smith broke the stalemate five minutes into stoppage time. Her goal adds to a very familiar trend this tournament: the USWNT’s big three showing up — we’ll come back to them later.

Collectively, Smith, Trinity Rodman and Mallory Swanson have contributed to 10 of the team’s 11 goals during this Olympics.

Midfielder Sam Coffey said it best this week in training: “They’re like the Big Three, but they’re all Michael Jordan.”

While it’s refreshing to see the team find the back of the net, the defense also deserves plenty of credit for its efforts in keeping two consecutive clean sheets against Japan and Germany. Speaking of …

---

Claudio Villa / Getty Images

Hi, My Name Is: The best defender Hayes has ever seen

Since Becky Sauerbrunn was ruled out for the 2023 World Cup, the U.S. back line has been Naomi Girma’s to lead. Heck, she can command the entire team, as highlighted by the armband she wore yesterday after Lindsey Horan left the pitch. A quick stage-setter:

• Girma, 24, made her professional debut in 2022 with the San Diego Wave after being picked at No. 1 in the NWSL Draft.
• But she patrols the defensive third with the kind of composure that’s more commonly expected from a seasoned veteran.
• She’s bailed the U.S. out on multiple occasions with her ability on the ground and in the air, even as her central partner has alternated between Tierna Davidson and Emily Sonnett due to injury concerns.

“She is the best defender I’ve ever seen. Ever,” Hayes said. “I’ve never seen a player as good as her in the back.”

And Hayes has worked with her fair share of solid defenders: Millie Bright, Kadeisha Buchanan, Niamh Charles and Magda Eriksson, to name a few from her time at Chelsea.

The Stanford grad put up serious numbers against Germany:

• Carried the ball for 687 meters — 24 percent of the entire USWNT’s dribbling distance.
• Completed 125 passes from 132 attempts in the game.
• Led the team in ball recoveries (13), clearances (5) and interceptions (3).

But Girma’s impact doesn’t stop there. She has also been a staunch advocate for mental health, sharing her story of personal loss after her best friend and college teammate Katie Meyer died by suicide. She continues to do work to promote mental health, especially among athletes, in Meyer’s memory.

---

Moment of the Match: Tournament-mode Naeher strikes again

While Rodman, Smith, Swanson and Girma are having an impressive tournament, there’s one person who can’t be outdone when the right combination of tournament play and clutch moments overlap.

Tournament Alyssa Naeher is a different beast. The goalkeeper hits a level not seen elsewhere in her play when she’s on the big stage. She was one of the few USWNT players to convert a penalty kick against Sweden in the World Cup last year and did it again to greater success in the W Gold Cup semifinal earlier this year.

On Tuesday, it was her acrobatic save and laser-focused reflexes that earned her the moment of the match:

I’ll let Steph describe it:

“Naeher’s last-minute block to preserve the U.S. lead and avoid penalties was the stuff of legend. Perhaps Laura Freigang’s header wasn’t well-placed, and perhaps it was a bit of luck. Perhaps Naeher was playing the odds by simply making herself as big as possible and her leg happened to be in the way. In replays, you can see Naeher tracking the ball in and looking down at her foot, even though it’s all taking place in about a second flat. Regardless of intent, the effect was undeniable: a shot at the gold medal.”

---

Looking Ahead: Brazil playing one more for Marta

Brazil beat Spain 4-2 in the other semifinal to earn a ticket to the Olympic final. It’s one more chance for Marta to make her mark on the international stage after the completion of her two-game red card suspension.

The game was anything but expected from the opening goal — which came off a poor clearance by Spain’s goalkeeper Cata Coll, causing a ball to hit off her teammate Irene Paredes and into the goal — to Brazil taking control with goals from Gabi Portilho, Adriana and Kerolin. With the reigning World Cup winners bounced to the bronze game, there has still yet to be a World Cup-Olympic double.

Advertisement

https://6a0f72449bdb88769c3a02869e3e0d8f.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Meanwhile, this will be the third time the U.S. and Brazil meet in an Olympic final. It is also a rematch of the W Gold Cup final. The Americans won each of those previous meetings.

Schedule for the medal matches (USA Network, streaming on Peacock):

• Bronze: Spain vs. Germany – Friday at 9 a.m. ET in Lyon
• Gold: USWNT vs. Brazil – Saturday at 11 a.m. ET in Paris

---

Name Games: What are we calling this front line?

The front three of Rodman, Smith and Swanson has taken this Olympics by storm. In addition to capturing eyes, they’ve also gotten everyone to discuss what they should collectively be nicknamed.

NBC commentators Jon Champion and Julie Foudy have had their fair share of suggestions during broadcasts.

🗣️“Germany speared by the trident,” Champion said after Smith’s goal in the semifinal.

But with the team on the cusp of history, is “trident” what we’re sticking with for this front three forever?

The options:

• 🔱 Trident
• 👑 The Triple Crown
• 😈 Triple Trouble
• Write-in

While I’m of the opinion the trio should name themselves, as the women’s gymnastics team did with “Golden Girls” this year, it’s still fun to brainstorm. Cast your vote for what you think befits the forwards.

While Smith and Swanson liked Christen Press’ suggestion of “Triple Trouble,” we can rule out the “Holy Trinity.” Rodman didn’t like that one: “I don’t want it to be just, like, my name,” she said after the Australia game in the group stage. “So, we’ll try something else.”

USWNT’s Rodman, Smith, Swanson having fun as fearsome front three

• Sam Borden, ESPN Senior WriterAug 5, 2024, 07:00 AM ET

LYON, France — When Trinity Rodman came into the locker room after the U.S. women’s national team victory over Australia last week at the Paris Olympics, she was carrying a piece of paper that a fan thrust at her as she’d walked off the field. The paper had printed on it the names of the three starting American forwards — Rodman, Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson — and then, in big, colorful letters, the words: “THE HOLY TRINITY.”

Rodman was torn. While very much appreciative of the sentiment behind the sign, she remained optimistic (hopeful, even?) that a different nickname for the trio could be found. “I don’t want it to be just, like, my name,” she said. “So, we’ll try something else.”

That lack of an obvious (and catchy) moniker for the USWNT’s front three is perhaps the only issue they’ve had over the past four games. As the U.S. prepares for its Olympic soccer semifinal here Tuesday against Germany, the Americans can take comfort in knowing that their primary scorers have been doing exactly that: scoring.

After Rodman’s outrageous, extra-time game winner into the upper corner in the 1-0 quarterfinal victory against Japan, she and Swanson share the team’s scoring lead with three goals apiece while Smith has added two goals of her own. Between them, they’ve scored eight of the team’s 10 goals at the Paris Games.

Editor’s Picks

• USWNT eyes Olympic medal as quarterfinal win signals turning point5dJeff Kassouf

“I feel like we’re clicking really well, really fast,” Smith said. “This is only like 70% of what we can do. The more games we get together, the more we’re going to be playing off each other and just learning each other’s tendencies. It’s so much fun playing with them.”

That level of comfort is clearly something new coach Emma Hayes has prioritized. Despite the compressed nature of the Olympic tournament, Hayes has been adamant about keeping her preferred lineup together — even doing so in an all-but-dead-match against the Matildas in the group stage finale. While that decision is one that inspired some debate among observers who wonder about fatigue, the minutes the U.S. players are getting on the field — especially among the front three — have led to valuable understanding.

In the 4-1 group stage win over Germany, Rodman created the opening goal with a move on the edge of the penalty area that she then crossed perfectly to Smith, who finished first-time. It was a goal straight from the practice field, and it highlighted how quickly the U.S. forwards are taking in what Hayes — who called the trio “dynamic as hell” — wants from them.”I think we’re all really starting to come around to the way Emma has wanted us to play,” Swanson said. “It’s been really enjoyable just being able to learn different things and trying to apply them, especially since the group that we have is super special.”

Swanson’s appreciation for her part in this team’s rise is understandable. She has been a part of the USWNT since 2016, when she was just 17, and she worked her way into a main role with the national team as she became a star in the NWSL. But three months before the Women’s World Cup last year, Swanson tore her left patella tendon — a devastating injury that required a full year of recovery.

Missing that much time was costly, both for Swanson’s own confidence as well as her ability to mesh with Smith and Rodman, the other young attackers with whom she’d have to combine. During her time at these Olympics, she’s found herself lingering on the basic premise that she is finally playing again without fear. “I think I’m just grateful,” she said.

One thing that helped Swanson reintegrate so smoothly is her familiarity with Smith. While Smith is two years younger, she and Swanson both grew up playing for the same club near Denver, and they have been familiar with each other’s games for years.Swanson knows, then, the challenge that Smith has faced in playing a different role for the national team than the one she normally fills for her club team. With the Portland Thorns, Smith is often seen dropping back deeper into the field, playing the ball farther away from the goal.With the USWNT, Hayes has been pushing her to get into the penalty area and look to take advantage of crosses, cutbacks and rebounds or unexpected bounces that fall to her there. It’s something Smith is open to doing, but also a change that is requiring her to re-train her brain a bit.”I think Emma’s biggest goal for me is playing this [No. 9] position,” Smith said. “I tend to kind of check into the pockets, get it and turn and go myself. It’s obviously different here. I have players all around me that can do that, and I just need to find myself in the box to put away the chances that they’re putting in there.”Staying more central is critical, too, because it opens space on the edges for Swanson as well as Rodman, who powered the U.S. into the semifinals with her wondrous sequence against Japan that began on the right sideline. That play — where Rodman took down a ball from Crystal Dunn, dribbled toward the goal line before cutting sharply inside and blasting an inch-perfect shot into the upper corner at the far post — was just the latest example of the individual brilliance that the USWNT has come to expect from Rodman.At 22, she is already a mainstay of the U.S. attack and, even more to Hayes’ liking, she is a two-way player with a significant motor, working back to help on defense as much as she surges forward. Despite being the third-youngest player on the Olympic roster, Rodman already has 44 USWNT caps and is the only American to appear in every USWNT game since the start of 2023. But while she was part of the team that crashed out of the Women’s World Cup last summer in the round of 16, her impact there wasn’t anything close to what it has been in France. For Rodman, much of that is due to Hayes’ influence.

“The way that she coaches is she doesn’t want to change anybody’s style,” Rodman said. “She wants everyone to be creative in their own ways and she lets that happen while also trying to put her structure and her principles sprinkled in there. But allowing us to play free I think has been extremely successful.”

That much, certainly, is sure. And as the USWNT recasts itself under Hayes, it’s impossible to overstate how important the three players leading the line are to the new personality of this group. Lindsey Horan, the veteran midfielder and captain of the team, drew a clear line between what Rodman, Smith and Swanson are doing and the emergence of a new feeling around the team as a whole. Even if they don’t have a catchy nickname just yet.

“We keep talking about this new identity, this new style, this new sense of confidence,” Horan said. “I think you see it in our front three. I think you see it in our attack … I think that’s the key for us right now.”

Former Chelsea, Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino a top target to become USMNT coach: Sources

By Paul TenorioAug 8, 2024

---

Former Tottenham and Chelsea head coach Mauricio Pochettino is a top target for the U.S. men’s national team opening, according to multiple sources briefed on the coaching search.The sources said that the federation was still considering multiple candidates as of last week, but Pochettino is seen by some as the favorite in the pool, and U.S. Soccer is engaged in conversations with his camp.U.S. Soccer has declined to comment on any specific candidates for the job.Hiring Pochettino would be seen as a huge splash, especially at a time the U.S. fanbase is looking for a big-name manager. The Argentine has never managed a national team, but has had plenty of success at club level. He guided Southampton to an eighth-place finish in the Premier League in 2013, achieved record league finishes with Spurs, including a Champions League final appearance in 2019, and secured a Ligue 1 title with Paris Saint-Germain. Most recently, Pochettino led Chelsea to a sixth-place finish and European qualification before departing at the end of the 2023-24 season.U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker and Pochettino overlapped during the Argentine coach’s year at Southampton. Crocker led Southampton’s academy at the time, and left in November 2013 to join the Football Association.

Pochettino managed Chelsea last season (Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

Argentine outlet Olé previously reported Pochettino was a candidate for the job.

While it is possible that U.S. Soccer could make and announce a hire before the September window, the federation is planning to have former U.S. under-20 men’s national team coach and current USMNT assistant Mikey Varas to lead the senior team in friendlies against Canada and New Zealand on September 7 and September 10, respectively, according to sources briefed on the program’s planning.

The USMNT have been without a coach since firing Gregg Berhalter after a group-stage exit in the Copa América this summer. Berhalter served as the manager from December 2018 through to December 2022, taking the U.S. back to the World Cup after they failed to qualify for the tournament in 2018, and then again from June 2023 until July 2024.

The U.S. fell flat in the Copa, beating Bolivia in their opening group game before losing to Panama after playing a man down for more than an hour following a red card to winger Tim Weah. The U.S. then lost 1-0 in the group finale to Uruguay.

Pochettino would be the highest-profile coach of the U.S. since Jurgen Klinsmann, a World Cup winner. While Klinsmann coached the German national team and Bayern Munich before taking on the U.S. job, his fame came more from his on-field accomplishments as a player. Pochettino has made his name as a manager, with teams that use positional play to try to dominate space, but that also like to press and attack opposition.The 52-year-old will likely command a top-level salary, as reports have indicated he was one of the highest-paid coaches in the world at PSG and Chelsea. However, Crocker has said the federation won’t be limited by financial restrictions.“It’s a really competitive market out there, salary-wise, and we have to be competitive to get the level of coach that I believe can take the program forward in terms of achieving the results that we want on the field,” Crocker said. “It’s a priority. It’s something we’re prepared to invest in and something that we will be investing in.”(Top photo: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

A World Cup in America in the middle of summer? Have they seen the weather?

By Greg O’KeeffeAug 2, 2024

---

It was the USA’s highly-vaunted summer of soccer, but it was also a stress test for the nation hosting the World Cup.There was certainly plenty of stress to test.Aside from concerns over field conditions, crowd control and security — alarmingly highlighted before the Copa America final in Miami when ticketless fans forced their way into the stadium —Mother Nature ensured plenty of other challenges.Extreme weather, from scorching heat to torrential rain and lightning, caused games across Copa America and various European club tours to be delayed, while supporters, officials and players struggled to contend with the subsequent effects.Some meteorologists believe world soccer’s organizing body FIFA must treat climate change-driven problems as a priority, with questions being asked about the viability of major tournaments taking place during summer.“There needs to be a conversation about having these matches in places that will get 90-degree-plus summer temperatures,” says Dan DePodwin, AccuWeather’s senior director of forecasting operations. “Should games be played in Miami in July? I don’t know the answer, but the question is worth asking.”

---

Just this week, Barcelona’s high-profile friendly with Manchester City in Orlando was delayed for 80 minutes by storms.Fans had to seek shelter under the stands at the Camping World Stadium before the game eventually started, and afterwards, Barcelona boss Hansi Flick said: “The circumstances have not been the best because of the weather.”City’s first game of their USA tour, the 4-3 defeat by Celtic, was also affected when supporters had to evacuate the Kenan Stadium in North Carolina after a weather warning was issued hours before kick-off, although there was no delay to the match.

Fans in North Carolina were evacuated before Manchester City played Celtic (Peter Zay/AFP/Getty Images)

On Sunday, another game in Florida, between Wolves and West Ham, also saw kick-off delayed by more than two hours with thunderstorms lashing downtown Jacksonville and the city subject to a flash flood warning.The heat was problematic during Copa America. During a group-stage match on June 25 between Canada and Peru at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, one of the assistant referees, Humberto Panjoj, collapsed.The Guatemalan was positioned on the side of the field directly in the sun during the closing stages of the first half, which had kicked off at 5pm, and as temperatures neared 100F (37.8C) with 50 per cent humidity, he fainted and was stretchered off.Panjoj was rushed to hospital and discharged a day later with what tournament organisers CONMEBOL described as dehydration. Even fans who normally pack the Cauldron section of the stadium had moved en masse to shaded stands to avoid the blazing sun, according to the Kansas City Star.Two days earlier, Uruguay defender Ronald Araujo had to leave the field during his team’s 3-1 win over Panama due to heat-related issues. Araujo reported feeling dizzy and his blood pressure had dropped.

“The truth is I’m still a bit dizzy now,” said the 25-year-old afterwards. “My (blood) pressure went down. When the first half finished, I was a bit dizzy and when I reached the dressing room, my pressure went down. The doctor said it was a bit of dehydration and I couldn’t continue for the second half.”It impacted teams’ preparation, too. Paraguay manager Daniel Garnero described the heat during training as “oppressive”, adding: “The sun is really intense and it sets really late, so we have had to modify our training schedule. The demands at these temperatures are not helping us.”Ahead of Brazil’s 4-1 win over Paraguay at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, the squad were due to train at Bettye Wilson Soccer Complex at 5pm. It was so hot that they delayed it for two hours, having contemplated cancelling the session altogether in favour of the players working in the gym instead. When training did start, the sprinklers on the grass were kept on throughout.“We went from the parking lot into the stadium and the change in temperature was incredible,” said centre-back Marquinhos. “Having an air-conditioned stadium will really help the match because it’s very hot here. It might be a factor in our favour, being a little fresher.”“It’s really hot,” added left-back Guilherme Arana. “I stepped off the plane and it was that sultry heat. We’re following the recommendations of the nutritionists and physios, hydrating a lot.”

Canada’s Maxime Crepeau helps assistant referee Humberto Panjoj in Kansas (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

CONMEBOL described the impact of global warming on athletes’ health as “a critical issue”, saying “rising temperatures because of climate change pose significant threats to players”.The organising body issued a set of directives to address exertional heat stroke in soccer. They included medical screenings to identify players at risk of heat stroke, a recommendation that players are allowed to adapt gradually to the heat for 10-14 days, and emphasising the importance of hydration and sleep.

---

“There is a reason they play American football in the fall,” says DePodwin, who leads a team of 45 AccuWeather meteorologists from the firm’s headquarters in Pennsylvania. The organisation advises half of Fortune 500 businesses and provides forecasts to millions of people via its website and app.“It has been a very hot summer in the U.S. and I think it will rank among the hottest ever,” he says. “It’s certainly a global trend for much hotter periods, but the Copa America will have increased visibility of how we are affected in the U.S. A lot of the places where they played games get extremely hot and while many of the stadiums had retractable roofs, not all did.”

High humidity, DePodwin says, has compounded the effect of those soaring temperatures. It is one of the elements AccuWeather uses in their ‘Real Feel’ ranking, which also includes temperature, wind speed and sun angle to give a more comprehensive forecast of how the weather actually feels.

“There are plenty of afternoons in Miami, where they had the final, where the Real Feel is 100 degrees,” he says.

DePodwin says starting games in the morning or late evening would help. “But we know that in the group stages of a tournament like the World Cup, that might not always be possible.”

Regardless, he says lessons should be learned from this summer, particularly by those venues that hosted matches and will host again for next summer’s Club World Cup or the 2026 World Cup. “It’s important these venues have a plan to deal with heat and thunderstorms, which bring lightning, damaging winds and rain as well.

“There are certainly risks of further delays or postponements. FIFA must think about the exertions on athletes in those conditions, but also other places, such as how fans in fan parks and gatherings before games are vulnerable to the elements.”

Rain delayed Manchester City against Barcelona in Orlando (Rich Storry/Getty Images)

Another potential hazard could be poor air quality. “There have been many occasions in the last few years where wildfire smoke has caused dangerous air quality across parts of the United States,” he adds. “For instance, in June 2023, there were several days of hazardous air quality in the north-east U.S. which cancelled many sporting events and other outdoor activities.

“If a similar situation were to occur during the World Cup, delays or cancellations might result.”

Does he think, then, that major tournaments should increasingly be held at times of the year other than summer — such as the 2022 World Cup in Qatar?

“It’s an interesting topic of discussion,” he says. “Even having something like the World Cup start in September would help, but there’s obviously then an impact on all the domestic seasons for each nation.”

Advertisement

https://3d3823996626712aa8ba93d658afecec.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html

Asked about the impact of weather ahead of the World Cup, a FIFA spokesperson told The Athletic: “We have studied extensive historical weather data throughout our planning efforts and continue to monitor the weather trends ahead of 2026.

“As noted during the schedule announcement earlier this year, FIFA will seek to increase the prospect of favorable playing and spectating conditions for teams and fans (considering such factors like heat forecasts, for example) via kick-off times, which will be added following the final draw near the end of 2025.”

Even their detractors would concede that FIFA cannot control the weather. But, along with every other stakeholder who wants the 2026 World Cup to be a resounding success, a lot of planning will be needed.

(Top photo: The scoreboard at Camping World Stadium before Manchester City played Barcelona in Orlando, Florida; by Rich Storry via Getty Images)

What did you think of this story?