Mauricio Pochettino praises US Soccer for ‘playing the way we plan to play’ in friendly draw with Ecuador

AUSTIN, TX — The day before the US men’s national team’s friendly match against Ecuador, coach Mauricio Pochettino wasted no time reminding everyone that his focus right now is on performance, not results. He had a game that summed up exactly that feeling Friday night at Q2 Stadium, where The USMNT came from behind and settled for a 1-1 drawdisplaying some real signs of progress and lending credence to Pochettino’s idea that the team is, at long last, heading in the right direction.

Pochettino’s first year in charge has been marked by unimpressive – and, at times, uninspiring – results, but as he celebrates his first year in charge, US Soccer has replaced a sense of doom and gloom with some downright normalcy. In a sense, they were just the latest victims of Ecuador’s scandalous defensive approach that saw them finish second in South America’s World Cup qualifiers despite scoring just 14 goals in 18 matches, with Valencia’s 35-year-old (or ageless) Ener scoring one from a quick counter-attack just before the half-hour mark. The Americans weren’t exactly perfect throughout, and the midfield trio of Weston McKennie, Tanner Theisman and Aidan Morris weren’t always pressing after months away from a new-look group, while the hosts were a bit wasteful in attack as the game wore on. None of the USMNT’s woes on Friday night seemed unusual for a team that still has eight months to go before its World Cup opener.

As Pochettino celebrates his first anniversary, the imprint he has begun to leave on the team is clear and was evident against Ecuador. While the newfound competitiveness for playing time was evident from the moment the roster was dropped last week, Pochettino’s version of the USMNT has a tactical flexibility that the previous version did not have under his predecessor Gregg Berhalter. The back three that made their debut in last month’s friendlies against South Korea and Japan against Ecuador are back, this time with some new tweaks – or more specifically, a different take on ball control and clearance.

“I think now we will continue to play the way we plan to play,” Pochettino said after the match. “I think we defend with a back four, two midfielders, a three-and-one and of course the goalkeeper – 1-4-2-3-1 – but then we build our formation from [the] Back, we are [were] Build by three, two, then five.”

Player selections were equally interesting, with Miles Robinson joining mainstays Chris Richards and Tim Ream at centre-back while Max Arvesten and Tim Weah balanced each other out in respective roles on the left and right flanks. Weah described his role before the match as that of a ‘dummy full-back’, simply explaining afterwards that ‘I would play less defending because Miles was covering all the time, so that was pretty much the case and in attack, I was playing like a regular winger’. Pochettino pointed to how Arvesten, a more traditional full-back, and Weah’s distinctive style added new layers to Friday’s game plan.

“This is about ownership[ing] different dimensions but this change also depends on the situation with which we want to attack, how we want to use the channels, and how vigilant we want to be if [the opponents] “Playing with one striker, two strikers, that’s really important and we’ll start to see how to do that,” Pochettino said. [to] Changing the setting depends[ing] On the rise [of the defensive line] From the opponent – low block, medium block – or when you are in the opposite half, different situations can occur. My assessment and opinion of his performance is that I think he did a good job. He did well as a winger trying to move diagonally to try to create chances. He had a few shots from outside the box then when he was like a wing-back because, [Pervis] Estupinan first then when [Yaimar] AL Madinah AL Munawwarah [was switched] To force him to defend a little closer to Miles then closer to him [substitute] Alex Freeman.”

There was still a mixed element from the USMNT, with the team openly admitting they could have converted more of their 11 shots into clear-cut chances. However, there was a clear theme at play. Every time the USMNT had the ball – which was often in a game in which they had roughly 65% ​​possession – the emphasis was on attacking as quickly and coherently as possible. Their attacking prowess was also impressive in its own right given the circumstances – Sebastian Becasese’s Ecuador conceded just five goals in 18 World Cup qualifiers, and it’s not hard to imagine a reality in which a more clinical US team could score multiple goals against them. Even if a draw was a fair enough result for both sides, the match began to tilt in favor of the United States in the second half.

“We started to look at the more active team as the game went on and listen, as someone who was on the other side of that, you know and smell that,” Ream said. “You’re like, ‘Okay, these guys…they’re starting to get a little bit irritated and you actually feel a little more energetic and it allows you to beat them more and start making more little plays, communicating better. I thought we were communicating well in the first half but closer communication in the second half and I’ll tell you what, it affected teams and it did that today.’

This version of the squad felt incomplete in part because Christian Pulisic, Anthony Robinson and Tyler Adams were not in the starting line-up for various reasons – Pulisic came on as a substitute and Robinson is not yet fully fit, while Adams did not make the trip as he and his wife are awaiting the birth of their second child. None of this comes as a surprise at this point and there are still questions to be answered about what the USMNT can do if these players, especially Adams, are not on the field. It appears the pieces of the puzzle are finally starting to come together, with a host of outstanding individual performances led by Malik Tilleman, who continued to prove his worth as one of Pochettino’s top scorers by providing the assist for the USMNT’s second-half goal. The credit ultimately goes to Folarin Balogun, who has scored two goals and one assist in his three games under Pochettino so far, reasserting himself once again as Pochettino’s preferred No.9 man.

The normality of that moment was not lost on Pochettino either.

“I think the performance was very serious, very professional,” he said. “I think what works the most is that we are here talking about actions, concepts, formations and things like that. For me, after one year, I am very happy because we are not talking about other things like commitment or attitude or things that we usually talked about in the past.” [about]. I think this is a big step forward because I think we need to always forget that, whether we win or lose, it depends [on] Our performance. If we are better and [if] We make sure that we are better than our opponent, we can win. If we don’t show that, it’s because it’s a football problem, not [that] “It’s another serious problem when things like this happen in a team.”