San Francisco (United States) (AFP) – Coach Mauricio Pochettino dismissed the United States’ dismal recent record against European sides as a “coincidence” ahead of Wednesday’s hugely anticipated World Cup knockout clash against Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The US have lost their past 10 straight games against teams from Europe, in a woeful winless run stretching back five years, yet the tournament co-hosts enter the last-32 match with Bosnia as favorites. Pochettino — who played and coached in Spain, France, and England for decades, before taking the US job in 2024 — denied that his team have any specific problem with European styles of play.
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“I don’t believe that. Maybe it’s pure coincidence,” he told a press conference in San Francisco. “Tomorrow we have a good opportunity to fight against the history, not only against Bosnia Herzegovina, if not against the past five years. It’s good, another challenge. We have another challenge.”
The US’s last win against a side from Europe came in a 2021 friendly — ironically, against Bosnia. Since a 0-0 draw at the last World Cup against England, the US have lost to the Netherlands, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Belgium and Portugal, and twice each to Germany and Turkey. Many of those losses came against elite teams, as the US — who did not have to qualify, as World Cup co-hosts — opted for a strategy of testing themselves in friendlies against the best nations.
The preparations seem to have paid off so far. The co-hosts got their tournament off to a flying start with one-sided wins over Paraguay and Australia, before losing a meaningless final group-stage clash to Turkey with a much-changed team. The US have also been boosted by the return to full fitness of star forward Christian Pulisic, who came off the bench against Turkey last week, and is available to start. They are 46 places above Bosnia in FIFA’s latest rankings.
The Bosnians scraped through to their first-ever World Cup knockout match appearance by finishing third in Group B after beating Qatar. But Pochettino dismissed suggestions that his team is simply expected to win.
“First of all, I don’t believe that we are the favorite team,” said Pochettino. The US coach pointed to the eliminations of Germany and the Netherlands, and Brazil’s narrow win over Japan, in the round-of-32 so far. “We need to be careful when we say, ‘okay, one is favorite, another no,'” he said. “I understand that maybe because we are USA and we host the World Cup and we are here and maybe we have the fans on our side — but I think we have full respect” for Bosnia, Pochettino added.
Bosnia’s coach Sergej Barbarez took a different view on pre-match expectations. “Well, look, of course, they are favorites,” he said. “Their place in the table, they are the host…the names in this team. Definitely. We never had a problem with being an underdog,” he added.
© 2024 AFP
