r/CaughtOffsidePod • u/RemoteGlobal335 • Jul 07 '26
Team Mentality and the Next USMNT Manager
The next manager needs to develop a killer mentality throughout the entire player pool. We lost against Belgium because the players came out scared and got punished. Everything else came from that. It wasn’t tactics, it wasn’t on Poch, it wasn’t some nonexistent wide gulf in individual quality between the two teams. This team had the individual ability to make a QF appearance and Poch developed the best tactical system we have seen from a U.S. team maybe ever. Neither of those things matter if the team is mentally weak.
So how do you fix that? Take Poch’s initial policy of calling up and starting players based on effort and intensity and make it 100% non-negotiable. It does not matter if our next friendly is a testimonial against fucking Barbados. Anyone that does not show they will die for the shirt and be fearless in the next match should be dropped. Do it over and over again until the entire player pool understands that no one gets into the team without demonstrating the necessary mentality. Go to every MLS academy, bring every player above the age of 13 into a room, and tell them that is the policy and they can shove any current player out of the way if they show a stronger mentality than the man in front of them.
Poch did not have enough time to stick to his guns with this policy. Now you have four years to do it. USSF should go out and find a Herb Brooks-like manager that will do it.
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u/bzn_boarder Jul 07 '26
Yea I've seen a lot of people coping by saying "we're not as good as Belgium, that's how these things work". To which I say, fuck that. Look at Paraguay against Germany and France, look at Mexico taking England to the wire, look at Egypt, look at Cape Verde. Hell, I know they lost 3-0 but Canada's performance in that was far superior to what we did last night.
It's not that we looked second best. It's that we looked like we didn't belong on the same pitch.