Atlanta (AFP) – US soccer coach Mauricio Pochettino expects Tuesday’s pre-World Cup clash with Portugal to be an even tougher assignment for the tournament co-hosts than their recent 5-2 thrashing by Belgium. But the manager insisted he is happy that his final chance to assess his players before naming his World Cup squad will be another daunting friendly against highly ranked opposition.
“We never thought that facing Belgium or Portugal would be easy,” said Pochettino after Saturday’s crushing loss to Belgium in Atlanta. “We knew we would have to dig deep and that it would give us a bit of a reality check. We have many things to improve…Portugal will present us with the same level of challenge — or perhaps even greater — and we need to raise our game.”
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Pressure is high on Pochettino’s men to deliver this summer. The US will take on Paraguay, Australia, and either Turkey or Kosovo in their World Cup group, which has been viewed by pundits as a relatively kind draw for the co-hosts. All those games will take place on American soil — as would any knockout games should they progress — further raising expectations.
The choice of opposition teams for the United States’ final World Cup warm-up friendlies was always going to require navigating a fine line between building the players’ confidence and rigorously challenging them. In contrast to the Americans’ elite opponents, for example, Pochettino’s native Argentina this week played a friendly against 115th-ranked Mauritania, which they won 2-1, and versus 91st-ranked Zambia.
“We need competitive games to arrive at the World Cup at our best,” Pochettino told reporters. “I think we can arrive with the wrong idea — that we are so good, we are so handsome, we are so well dressed, and we are Americans. It is good to feel that. But if you want to win the World Cup, you want to go to the next stage of the group and beat Paraguay…do you think they’re not going to fight?”
Injuries aside, Pochettino picked a near full-strength team against Belgium. The US lined up with stars such as Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie. Following the defeat, Pochettino said that his team had been superior for the opening half hour but would learn an important lesson about dropping their intensity against such elite opposition, who went on to score five goals.
“Losing a game…in my mind, is never really good,” said McKennie. Nonetheless, he expressed hope the team would be “stronger for it against Portugal,” who are fifth in FIFA’s world ranking. With injuries to defenders Sergino Dest, Chris Richards, and Miles Robinson, as well as midfield anchor Tyler Adams, Pochettino was forced to experiment with Timothy Weah at right back. Weah struggled badly in defense against a rampant Jeremy Doku.
Pochettino also trialed Johnny Cardoso at the base of midfield — who has excelled for Atletico Madrid but often goes missing in a US shirt, and was substituted at half-time — and Tanner Tessmann. Pochettino admitted Tessmann “can do better” in front of the US defense, adding: “I saw him play better games than today.” It is a midfield selection conundrum that the manager must quickly resolve.
After Portugal, the US will have its final warm-up matches against Senegal — whose victory over Morocco in the African Cup of Nations final was recently reversed — and another top-10 ranked side in Germany. But Pochettino insisted he was “not going to change the approach because of the result” against Belgium. “We need to keep going with the plan.”
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