Mauricio Pochettino meticulously built USMNT culture of total belief in chance at special World Cup run

IRVINE, Calif.— At so many points over the last year, Mauricio Pochettino had to ask people to trust in what he was doing and let his process play out.The decision to use last summer’s Gold Cup as a testing ground was, in some part, foisted on him — Christian Pulisic declined to go, others were injured or playing in the Club World Cup — but bringing in 14 players with five or fewer caps instead of something as close as possible to his best team was Pochettino’s decision.At so many points before and after, the Nations League last March, the South Korea loss last September, this team looked nowhere.

The clock was ticking.The identity, as late as this March, hadn’t fallen into place.Now, after winning consecutive games at the World Cup for the first time in 96 years and clinching its group with one game still to play?Look through the roster from the Gold Cup.

Matt Freese, Alex Freeman and Sebastian Berhalter all came to that camp with zero caps for the senior national team.All three played in both of the first two World Cup games; Freese is their starting goalkeeper, Freeman scored in the 2-0 win against Australia on Friday and Pochettino said he “has potential to be one of the best players in his position in the world.”The tactical growing pains, the culture Pochettino sacrificed multiple camps to instill? It was all done to make sure the USMNT would arrive at the World Cup ready, and here they are: a flexible, versatile group that can lose Pulisic to injury, play in a two-striker setup it hasn’t used before and be at ease.“Someone had asked me after the South Korea game my thoughts on that, and very immediately [I] said we’re all in total belief,” Freese said.

“We’re all totally supportive and have faith in the process he’s been outlining to us.Our task was to keep believing, keep working hard, keep trusting and we did that.

I don’t think at any point — there was never questions, anything like that.”Pochettino can put Malik Til...