AUSTIN, Texas – Mauricio Pochettino’s debut with the US men’s national team came to life after 48 minutes, and the man who gave it the necessary jolt wasn’t the savior coach; it was the star who should drive Pochettino’s reboot, Christian Pulisic.
Pulisic had a friendly against Panama on Saturday that, for most of the scoreless first half, looked a lot like the USMNT’s Gregg Berhalter era. “Really, I didn’t feel too many changes,” Panama coach Thomas Christiansen said after the match.
But shortly after the break the decisive moment arrived. It started with nine patient cards. Tim Ream pinned a 10th over the top, bottom left. The ball then found Pulisic, who squeezed into the penalty area via a cute 1-2 with Brenden Aaronson. And with the attack’s fourteenth pass, Pulisic set up Yunus Musah for the opening goal of the match – and Musah’s first for the national team.
In second half stoppage time, Ricardo Pepi added a second and the USMNT secured a 2–0 win.
The execution was certainly not perfect or dynamic, but: “I think this is the basis and the first step to grow and get better,” Pochettino said.
Before and after the goals, the USMNT was unremarkable. Pochettino called it a ‘professional achievement’. The players sounded pleased, but “obviously it’s a work in progress,” veteran defenseman Tim Ream said. After all, it was Pochettino’s first match after his very first week of training.
And the starting lineup was necessarily experimental – as seven regular players were injured and missing. An eighth, Weston McKennie, was benched due to undisclosed discomfort. “We want to protect him,” Pochettino said. The physical problem is minor, he added, but “we didn’t want to take any chances.”
Instead, the starting midfielders were Aaronson, Gianluca Busio and Aidan Morris. Musah played on the right, after several years as a central midfielder, almost exclusively under Berhalter. Pochettino said the reason was so Musah could “build his confidence by starting in a different position”, with less “responsibility in the build-up”.
Pochettino’s 11 were energetic and quickly put pressure on Panama. They made several counter-attacks after recoveries in the attacking half – and they want to do more of that. “Against the ball I think we can still figure things out, the way we want to press and win balls back,” Pulisic said.
Ream added: “In the first half, the pressing in the attacking half was a bit disjointed at times. But again, we didn’t work on it fully.”
The other problem was that, as was often the case under Berhalter, they were short of leads in the final third, especially in Panama’s penalty area.
The difference, however, was the winger who Pochettino recently called ‘one of the best attacking players in the world’.
Pulisic is in the form of his life for AC Milan in Italy. He is the best striker in Serie A. “He’s flying,” Musah, his teammate for club and country, said on Friday. And he brought the form to Q2 Stadium on Saturday.
He is without a doubt the most important player in the Pochettino project. If there is a revolution, Pulisic will surely drive it. He is a “fantastic player,” Pochettino said on Friday, “a player who will help now and in the future to get the team to the place we want.”
And a day later, Pochettino’s first match secured the point.
Other American players were active. Deployed as an attacking midfielder, Aaronson was a pest – and exactly the kind of urgent maniac Pochettino will love. Aidan Morris was imperfect but often neat on the ball and firm against it. Antonee Robinson was his usual buccaneer on the left.
However, none of them had the quality to find a crisp pass or finish a single chance. Josh Sargent missed the USMNT’s best chance in the first half. In the second, before stoppage time, the best chances were Panama’s – and American goalkeeper Matt Turner equaled every one of them.
It wasn’t until the 94th minute that Haji Wright set up Pepi for another golden one. Pepi sealed the deal. And Pochettino ended the evening with a round of applause for the fans, who serenaded him with a simple chant: “Poch-e-tti-no! Poch-e-tti-no!”
Next up for the U.S. is a friendly against Mexico in Guadalajara on Tuesday. In many ways that will be a tougher test for Pochettino and the Americans. It will, Pochettino said, “be a very complicated match.”
