Why USMNT coaching target Mauricio Pochettino’s quest for World Cup glory could end in failure

If Mauricio Pochettino moves to the United States and becomes coach of the U.S. men’s national team, he will have to make an adjustment.

Atlanta, Georgia — the future site of U.S. Soccer’s headquarters and training center — is a far cry from Barcelona, ​​Paris or London. Atlanta is, by most accounts, cosmopolitan, but it probably lacks some of the Old World charm that some of Pochettino’s previous stations in life had.

Perhaps he will decorate his office to give it a touch of those places. A photo of his former roommate and teammate at Newell’s Old Boys, Diego Maradona, could be thrown on a wall. Perhaps a shirt from his time at Paris Saint-Germain or La Liga club Espanyol, the club that shaped him more than any other.

And of course there will be lemons.

You see, in at least one respect, Pochettino is already uniquely equipped for life in America.

The 52-year-old Argentinian is somewhat obsessed with the motivational techniques and almost supernatural beliefs that many Americans are obsessed with.

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If you’re an insomniac, you’ve probably seen the late-night infomercials. Pochettino will talk about auras, about self-determination, about bravery. He’ll lead you over hot coals, or run you into a wall with an arrow at your throat. Spend enough time with the guy and you could end up in a trust fall.

And then there are the lemons. Walk into Pochettino’s Atlanta office once he’s settled in and you’ll definitely see the lemons.

“An Argentinian friend told me that lemons absorb negative energy and purify the air,” Pochettino writes in Brave New World, a book that documents his five years as head coach of London-based Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur. “That’s why I keep a tray full of lemons in my office.

“We all have the potential to see the energy surrounding objects and people, although not everyone has honed that sense. For whatever reason, I have been able to develop an ability to see the auras of others.”

Indeed, Brave New Worlda light-hearted, 267-page read produced by Spanish author and journalist Guillem Balague, is filled with motivational buzzwords. Search for the word “brave” and you’ll find a version of that word used on 18 different occasions. “Energy” appears 40 times, “aura” a half dozen. Lemons, well… they’re mentioned only once.

(Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Pochettino is famous for his thoroughness in the way he prepares his teams for matches, both from a tactical standpoint and from a fitness perspective. However, just as important are his motivational beliefs and the trust he places in his players. Those beliefs are at the heart of everything Pochettino does as a manager. And in a way, many of those beliefs have been shaped with the help of Xesco Espar.

Espar first met Pochettino when the Argentine ended his playing career at Espanyol in the mid-2000s. The two reunited a few years later, when Pochettino became head coach of that club in Barcelona during a fierce relegation battle in La Liga. Pochettino had read Espar’s book Playing with the heart (Play from the Heart) — and felt it resonated closely with his own philosophies. Espar, a former handball player and coach who led FC Barcelona’s handball team to a European Championship, was eager to help.

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Years later, when Pochettino took charge of a promising Southampton club midway through the 2012-13 Premier League season, Espar recalls his friend feeling frustrated.

“The first time we spoke (after he arrived) he said, ‘These players are much better than they think,'” Espar said. “‘We have to do something to make them realize this.'”

Espar and Pochettino presented their solution live at a US corporate event.

The following pre-season, the team went to Espar’s home base in Spain for a few days of seminars and motivational talks. And then they all walked outside to find a bed of hot coals spread out before them. Pochettino went first, calmly and coolly crossing the briquettes without a trace of hesitation. Newcomer and current CF Montreal midfielder Victor Wanyama had a harder time, as did 31-year-old striker Rickie Lambert, who approached with obvious hesitation. Eventually, they all left the coals behind, encouraged by their teammates and by Pochettino himself.

“It was just a metaphor for breaking through your own beliefs about yourself and what you can do,” Espar says. “And they had a great season. They were safe (from relegation) very quickly (finishing eighth in the 20-club English top flight, Southampton’s highest finish in 11 years). He trusts the players. That’s one of his most important qualities.”

Pochettino used motivational techniques with his Southampton players (AMA/Corbis via Getty Images)

Espar learned the hot coal trick from Tony Robbins, who is perhaps the poster boy for self-help and motivational techniques in the United States. Pochettino also had his players do something even more terrifying: place the shaft of an arrow on the soft tissue around their throats and lean it against a board until it breaks.

His motivational beliefs, however, extend far beyond the Robbins-inspired team-building exercises. There’s his belief in the power of a handshake — at Spurs, Pochettino demanded players shake his hand every morning as they entered the team canteen, and that they do the same with each other.

“When you touch some people you feel the energy,” Pochettino once said in a podcast appearance. “You can sense if it’s good, if they need love, if they’re upset, if they’re sleeping well. You can have a lot of information that’s so important to manage after that — you’re not managing a robot, you’re managing a person who’s going to ask you for the best form. You’re going to try to get the best to try to achieve everything you want.”

Making handshakes mandatory was likely just a bonding exercise at Spurs, but Pochettino may have been looking for more. While the Argentine relies on sports scientists and analysts for performance data, he relies on personal contact with players to gauge another metric: their aura.

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“I believe that nothing happens by chance,” Pochettino writes in Brave New World. “There is a reason for everything.

“Since those early days I have had the ability to sense something powerful that you can’t see, but that exists. A vital force, an energy field that makes the world go round, an aura that accompanies people, that gives a lot of information about them. It’s in my skin, I feel it. (Wife) Karina and I call it ‘universal energy’. My wife helped me to understand it and to gain a deeper understanding. Others helped me to explore those feelings further. It’s not superstition or black magic. I believe there is science behind it.”

American soccer fans are no strangers to quackery about team building and motivation.

Former USMNT manager Jurgen Klinsmann is German, but when he took the head coaching job in 2011, he came across as a native Californian. He had lived there for the previous 13 years, and it often felt like his comments about players and his coaching philosophy were saturated with jargon typical of the West Coast self-help group.

When Pochettino’s journey across the hot coals feels like a scene from a fairy tale The office, Klinsmann went one step further and had his players watch as a 55-year-old guy in a tracksuit tore up some phone books and folded a frying pan in half.

USMNT legend Tim Howard recently spoke about Klinsmann’s approach. He didn’t hold back.

“I can’t remember a time when there was a bigger gap between the players and the manager than under Jurgen,” said former goalkeeper Howard wrote in the British newspaper Daily Mail. “He organised a lot of team outings. He specialised in fluff and philosophical rhetoric. But there was zero football.”

That’s not the case with Pochettino, of course, who would bring with him an extensive coaching resume and a reputation not just for managing people but also for managing the game itself. “He also uses very advanced analytical techniques,” Espar adds. “He’s not just a ‘motivational guru’ or something. He has a strong playbook, a strong model and methodology of the game and training and physical conditioning. It’s not just motivational stuff.”

The Argentine is explicit with players about positioning, almost micromanaging that aspect of the game, and about building play from the back. He also places extreme emphasis on trust and building relationships. Pochettino, famously, does not fine players for minor infractions and he never enters the dressing room at the training facility. In many ways, he delegates much of the responsibility for leadership to the players themselves.

“He balances leadership and management,” Espar said. “Management is talking to the player’s head, leadership is talking to the player’s heart. He’s very good at balancing those things. He has a strong structure in training, with drills, assistants, all that work. And then he also trusts the players more than most other coaches. He gives power to the players. He gives recognition to the players, but he also gives them accountability.

“For both of us, the difference between a championship team and a team that wins multiple championships is who bears the responsibility. In a championship team, the coach bears the responsibility. But in a team that wins multiple championships, it is the players who hold each other accountable. That is one of Pochettino’s main philosophies. He sees the players as better than what they already are.”

But let’s not forget the lemons.

Because after all this work, after building a deep well of knowledge and creating his own unique vision for his team, Pochettino is still relying on a citrus fruit – at least a little bit – to turn the ship around.

The USMNT are currently in a slump after being eliminated from the Copa America on home soil this summer and are looking to turn things around for the 2026 World Cup, which they will co-host with Canada and Mexico. If Pochettino has his way, the lemons will likely play a role in that.

“They started working after two years at Tottenham,” he said during his spell at Spurs’ London rivals Chelsea last season. “Give the lemons time. It’s something we all believe in… They take a long time, they’re not magic, but more than ever I still believe in them.”

(Top photo: Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty; additional photo credits: iStock; Design: Dan Goldfarb)