{"id":90336,"date":"2025-11-28T05:17:39","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T09:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/pochettino-usmnt-aims-to-win-the-2026-world-cup-no-excuses-2\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T05:17:39","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T09:17:39","slug":"pochettino-usmnt-aims-to-win-the-2026-world-cup-no-excuses-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/soccer\/pochettino-usmnt-aims-to-win-the-2026-world-cup-no-excuses-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Pochettino: USMNT aims to win the 2026 World Cup, no excuses!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Pochettino aims high: United States dreams of winning the 2026 World Cup<\/h2>\n\n\nThe United States men&#8217;s national team coach, Mauricio Pochettino, maintains his firm goal of conquering the 2026 World Cup, and insists that the players must &#8220;think big&#8221;.\n\n\n<p>Although the USMNT hasn&#8217;t reached the World Cup quarter-finals since the 2002 edition, their best result in the modern era, Pochettino maintains that the team should aim to win the tournament when it is co-hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico next year.<\/p>\n\n\nThe Argentinian coach cited the example of Morocco, who surprised many with their surprising run to the semi-finals in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Pulisic will miss the Milan match due to a new injury<\/li><li>USMNT 2026 World Cup Big Board 3.0<\/li><li>USMNT World Cup starting lineup prediction<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>&#8220;For me, it&#8217;s about winning. I think if you don&#8217;t win, what does it matter? If you come in second, nobody ever remembers you,&#8221; Pochettino told Andr\u00e9s Cantor for &#8220;Futbol de Primera&#8221; in an interview published this week.<\/p><cite>Mauricio Pochettino<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n&#8220;And I think we should aim to win it. Then you tell me &#8216;you reach a semi-final, you reach the quarter-finals, you have a great tournament and, due to different factors, well, you can&#8217;t win&#8217;. I think we have to give ourselves credit and merit, but I think if you look at Morocco in Qatar, I think they get where they get because they always had the mentality of saying: &#8216;I&#8217;m going for it, I&#8217;m going to win'&#8221;. \n\nPochettino emphasized the importance of a winning mentality and establishing football as a permanent pillar, especially when playing at home.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F1127%2Fr1581703_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"Mauricio Pochettino ha construido un impulso positivo con el USMNT, incluida una gran victoria sobre Uruguay.\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n\n\nSince taking over after the disappointing performance of the USMNT in the Copa Am\u00e9rica last year, Pochettino has continuously spoken about the importance of a strong mentality and culture within the national team, constantly working to improve on and off the field.\n\n&#8220;The storm began when I wasn&#8217;t there,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So the storm must have been the reason they looked for us. Sometimes I use the analogy that a ship in the middle of a storm needs to change the way it is heading, and the new captain has to accept the responsibility that the ship is being taken to a difficult place.&#8221;\n\nPochettino also referred to a turning point when losing the 2025 Gold Cup against Mexico, falling 2-1 on July 6 with goals from Ra\u00fal Jim\u00e9nez and Edson \u00c1lvarez, insisting that the team has found a way to compete since then.\n\n&#8220;I believe that, based on what we have shown in the last few months, I believe that the team, especially after the Gold Cup, has found a way to compete, a way to raise the standards,&#8221; Pochettino said.\n\nSince the defeat against Mexico, the USMNT has achieved a record of 4 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss. Pochettino recently led the Stars and Stripes to a surprising 5-1 victory over Uruguay.\n\nHowever, there have been many criticisms of Pochettino&#8217;s mandate with the USMNT.\n\n&#8220;There are coaches here in the United States who have criticized me completely unnecessarily. I would never have criticized a coach,&#8221; Pochettino said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t criticize because I know how difficult it is to be a coach.&#8221;\n\nThe USMNT will face Portugal and Belgium in March, in what will be the last two matches before Pochettino names his squad for the World Cup.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pochettino aims high: United States dreams of winning the 2026 World Cup The United States men&#8217;s national team coach, Mauricio Pochettino, maintains his firm goal of conquering the 2026 World Cup, and insists that the players must &#8220;think big&#8221;. Although the USMNT hasn&#8217;t reached the World Cup quarter-finals since the 2002 edition, their best result [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1211,2661,2075,522],"class_list":{"0":"post-90336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-1211","9":"tag-pochettino","10":"tag-usmnt","11":"tag-world-cup"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}