Soccer <\/p>\n
ATLANTA \u2013 You might not expect the head coach of the\u00a0US men\u2019s national team<\/a> to compare his side\u2019s task in Tuesday night\u2019s international friendly vs. Portugal to key principles of weight loss and healthy lifestyle (7 pm ET | TNT, HBO Max, Telemundo).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Yet that\u2019s exactly the rhetorical journey Mauricio Pochettino led reporters on in Monday afternoon\u2019s matchday-1 press conference, explaining why he\u2019s come to see Saturday\u2019s stinging 5-2 loss<\/a> to Belgium as a positive for his squad as they march ever closer to this summer\u2019s FIFA World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Yanks largely outplayed their guests in the first half and took a deserved lead as a result. What followed, however, was analogous to a dieter declaring premature victory after shedding a few pounds, according to Poch.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to lose weight. I want. I can. \u2018I want\u2019 is only the beginning,\u201d said the multilingual Argentine in his latest colorful conversation with the media. \u201cBut after you need to have discipline. Not the intention to eat the nice food, and everything like this \u2026 \u2018I won, I won! I won!\u2019 But then, it’s nice, no? The chicken, the steak, the lasagna, the pasta.<\/p>\n \u201cThat for me is [why] I am so happy that happened,\u201d he added, \u201cbecause there\u2019s still time to realize \u2013 it’s still time to realize that we need to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Reset & Refocus pic.twitter.com\/GKhln8qO4g<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 U.S. Soccer Men’s National Team (@USMNT) March 30, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n Oh wait \u2013 did we call Tuesday\u2019s game a \u2018friendly\u2019? In another example of \u2018Pochismo,\u2019 that term has been dropped from the USMNT\u2019s lexicon, replaced by one he believes better reflects the level of fire his players must summon before the big tournament begins.<\/p>\n \u201cListen, first and foremost, these aren’t friendlies. That’s something that Mauricio has made very clear to all of us. It’s more of a non-official game,\u201d said US and\u00a0Charlotte FC<\/a> veteran Tim Ream<\/a>. \u201cYou look at [Saturday\u2019s] result, and nobody’s happy about it. There’s a lot of disappointment, but you have another game right away that you can go and try to put things right and start to build that momentum.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s just an overall effort,\u201d Ream added of his side\u2019s need for relentlessness. \u201cIt’s not that guys don’t want to do it. I think sometimes it’s, we’ve just made an effort, and now it’s about making another one, right? It’s about making not just the first, the second, the third, the fourth.<\/p>\n “And sometimes that doesn’t happen, and that’s just, again, something that is a non-negotiable, really, and it’s something that we were doing really well in the fall last year, and it’s something we have to get back to.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n “When you fall down and get back up, that shows our character.”<\/p>\n Tim Weah comments on the mindset following Saturday’s match against Belgium. \ud83c\udf99\ufe0f pic.twitter.com\/t0bnzQfgzl<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2014 U.S. Soccer Men’s National Team (@USMNT) March 29, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n Pochettino said he was satisfied with the Yanks\u2019 attacking fluidity and chance creation; the problem lay in their lack of sustained commitment to disrupting the Red Devils\u2019 buildups, and not just along the back line but among all 10 field players.<\/p>\n He noted with approval recent remarks from Brazil\u2019s legendary manager Carlo Ancelotti that this summer\u2019s champion will be \u201cnot who scores the most goals, it\u2019s who concedes fewer goals,\u201d and urged reporters to watch Sunday\u2019s France-Colombia match in Landover, Maryland, to get a clear image of the flow and ferocity of the world\u2019s elite contenders.<\/p>\n The Argentine delved into more detail when answering a Spanish-language reporter\u2019s question about his concerns from the Belgium setback.<\/p>\n \u201cInternally,\u201d he said in Spanish, \u201cbased on all the data analysis we conduct \u2013 and we have a large team working with and for us specifically on data analytics \u2013 one of the things that concerned us most when comparing our last two matches, Uruguay and Paraguay vs. the game against Belgium, was the lack of intensity in the \u2018box-to-box\u2019 areas.<\/p>\n \u201cThe numbers clearly show a decline in our capacity to be aggressive \u2013 that intensity required to win back possession and prevent the opposing team from playing the ball through the midfield. If you compare the Paraguay and Uruguay matches, our performance in this regard was cut in half; in other words, we gave the opposition far too much leeway.\u201d<\/p>\n So 90 minutes of constant cohesion and aggression is expected against Portugal, the world\u2019s fifth-best team according to the latest FIFA World Rankings, and a repository of top talent even with Cristiano Ronaldo sidelined by injury.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Chris Richards training with USMNT, says he will be available tomorrow pic.twitter.com\/8V5F4sNbfB<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) March 30, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n The Yanks will get a hefty boost, it seems, from the return of center back Chris Richards after a knee injury kept the FC Dallas<\/a> academy product from taking part in Saturday\u2019s match, though holding midfielder Johnny Cardoso is set to return to his club Atl\u00e9tico Madrid due to an unspecified muscular issue that remained \u201cuncomfortable\u201d for the Brazilian-American in a capped 45-minute outing against Belgium.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s moments here and there where you’ve seen that kind of toughness,\u201d said Richards, \u201cand sometimes, like, for example, the other day, we maybe let in a few, I guess, soft goals. So I think something we can bring to it is just this toughness. I think when attackers fear you, it makes your game a little bit easier.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don’t have that much time left, but I know that when we’re able to play in these high-level games, when you’re able to get good performances and good results against high-level teams, I think it definitely gives you confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n
Righting the ship<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Defensive improvements<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Richards returns<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n