Spend enough time with U. S. Men’s National Team coach Mauricio Pochettino, and you’ll hear him repeat a few key words ad nauseam. Fight, for one. Togetherness. Spirit. Connection.
One word, though, has cropped up more often than any other: intensity. It’s Pochettino’s great white whale, his obsession; listen to him before or after any USMNT game and you’ll hear him bring it up like it’s the most important thing in the universe.
Pochettino lamented the USMNT’s lack of intensity during the team’s March camp, comparing the squad unfavorably to France’s and Colombia’s (who played each other during the same time period.)
“They played like this was the final of the World Cup!” Pochettino exclaimed of the two sides. “And France, when they saw the intensity and the aggression of Colombia said: ‘If we don’t play as intense, they will kill us.’ That is intensity.”
That’s what Pochettino wants from his USMNT players, but it’s not exactly what he’s getting. The team struggled to turn the intensity dial up against Belgium and Portugal in its March friendlies, losing 5-2 and 2-0 over the course of three days.
For many USMNT fans, the answer to this lack of intensity lies in the team’s European superstars like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie and (absent through injury but soon to return) Tyler Adams. Push them forward, get them playing with real bite, and the rest will follow.
But what if the key to the USMNT’s intensity lies a little closer to home?