In a year of ups and downs, it has been hard to know what exactly to expect from the U.S. men’s national team at times but at long last, things finally appear to be settling in for the World Cup co-hosts. They capped off 2025 with their first statement win under head coach Mauricio Pochettino, a 5-1 drubbing of Uruguay, extending their winning streak to three matches and closing out the year on a five-match unbeaten run.
The most obvious turning point is Pochettino’s switch to a back three, though it is not a “full on, stick with it three with the back,” per defender Tim Ream. The USMNT are undefeated since Pochettino introduced the approach in the second half of a 2-0 defeat to South Korea, acting as the foundation of the team’s newfound identity. With each passing game, though, the USMNT seem to add a new complementary layer to their look, rooted in an intensity that allowed the U.S. to capitalize on just about every mistake Uruguay made on Tuesday. The fact that the USMNT continued their upward trajectory without a handful of high-profile players, though, is perhaps the strongest indicator yet that the group’s hard work is finally beginning to pay off.
Underneath the tactical switch is a year’s worth of work Pochettino and his staff have put in to rebuild the national team, which is virtually unrecognizable from the last time the USMNT faced Uruguay, a lifeless 1-0 defeat that marked the conclusion of ex-head coach Gregg Berhalter’s time in charge. A host of fresh faces are starting to become national team regulars, creating an uber-competitive race for World Cup roster spots, while the high-tempo style of play is a new constant regardless of who is on the pitch.
As the long wait begins for March’s international break, the final one before the World Cup, the USMNT finally seem to be peaking at just the right time.
A fully bought-in national team
Pochettino has taken a surprisingly aggressive approach to expanding the player pool, calling in around 70 players over the course of his year and change in charge. It is an approach that is beginning to pay off in a big way, Tuesday’s win over Uruguay acting as the greatest source of validation the head coach could ask for. The victory highlighted one thing in particular – the group is fully bought in, the player pool’s size making the feat all the more impressive. Pochettino’s coaching style has made it easy for a handful of players to rise up the ranks, including Alex Freeman, who scored a brace against Uruguay.
“I feel like he’s very passionate and I feel like as a coach, if you have trust in your coach and he has trust back in you, I feel like it just builds a good bond and you’re able to go 100% and you’re able to be the best,” Freeman said on Tuesday. “To have that confidence from a coach, I think that’s the most confidence you can have as a player, to know that a coach can trust you, that a coach is always going to be there, even if you mess up. Also to have the coach that’s intense, not afraid to tell you what’s true or what’s not so I feel like having a coach like that, it’s going to get you bought in. It’s going to get you bought into the system. It’s going to make you want to do your best, so I feel like that just means a lot to the players to have a coach like that.”
Freeman felt Pochettino’s trust in him from his very first day with the national team.
“Right when I met him, you could just tell,” he said. “He brought me aside the first day when I was in Gold Cup and just told me right away what I need to improve on, what I did good so I think having that trust and having that person who was going to tell you – it’s not going to be black and white. He’s going to tell you straight up so it’s very good to have a coach like that. It just tells you that whatever happens, he’s just going to tell you straight up if you pay bad or good but also he’s going to tell you that you have quality. You can be very good so I think that means a lot.”
Pochettino’s tactical approach – and specifically his strong desire to create a flexible game plan – creates an ideal environment for players, stylistically speaking.
“The freedom to go out there and solve problems, the freedom to impose our creativity, to make things happen, depending on the context of the match,” defender Mark McKenzie said, “but I think that freedom also comes with the responsibility to do the dirty work really, really well, to make sure defensively we’re really strong, moving cohesively as a unit, sliding, shifting and preventing opportunities for the opponent and then once we get to the final third and the attacking half, then it’s about finding those opportunities, especially get our creative players on the ball and to hurt teams.”
Flexibility in tactics and personnel
Recruiting players with wide-ranging skillsets is a tried-and-true roster-building approach for the World Cup and is something that Pochettino has leaned on recently, especially as the live auditions for next summer’s tournament continue. Diego Luna, for example, was listed on November’s roster as a forward for some of his natural attacking habits, while Joe Scally’s versatility earned him a starting spot in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Paraguay. On Tuesday, Freeman slotted in more centrally on Tuesday while John Tolkin took up a position as a left wingback. It only bolstered Freeman’s case for a World Cup spot.
“For me, it’s not our credit,” Pochettino said. “We [only] create the platform for him to show the quality but the credit is [for] him but I’m so happy, so happy that he scored twice. I think you need to analyze in the way that he plays – he can play like a third center back, he can play forward on the side, go inside. In the time that he took the ball, how difficult it is for the opponent to stop him, go inside and play. When he has the ball, the team is like – it’s like a relief. It’s how easy [he] plays.”
A newfound professionalism
With each passing day, new layers of seriousness take shape in the USMNT’s environment, the looming deadline of their World Cup opener quickly approaching. The tone shift may seem natural and to some degree, it is, but Pochettino suggested that a lot of behind-the-scenes work went into creating an ideal working environment.
“The way that we are working – the staff, the players, the naturality of the trainings, the way that we live inside the dynamic of the group, it’s all very natural,” Pochettino said. “If you describe a group of professionals, when you say ‘professional,’ that is the [what the] last week or 10 days [were like]. … Not one thing happened – small thing, silly or stupid. The focus, the concentration to perform and to train and to do everything that we propose and the way of the feedback of the players, the staff, I think was amazing. I am really, really happy because the reality is much better [than] what you think, much, much better – and before was much, much, much different. [It] was completely different.”
Focus has been a theme of the week for the USMNT, Pochettino issuing a constant demand to maintain concentration for 90 minutes. That even applied after the U.S. went up 4-0 against Uruguay, the head coach upset with the goal they conceded shortly before halftime.
“I told in the halftime [break] to the players – number one, I was so disappointed in the way that we conceded and I said that we can put [the game] in danger only [if] we drop, a little bit, our focus, our concentration,” he said. “I said, if you accept my challenge, we need to win the second half and I told [them] we won 1-0, the second half, and I think that is in the way that we need to be.”
Pochettino continues to try to instill an intentionality no matter the task, including a set-piece strategy that allowed them to score four times off those opportunities on Tuesday.
“I feel like we do work on it,” Freeman said. “It’s a chance to score so I think for us, it’s just to be able to know that it’s an opportunity to score and we need to be 100% at it. We can’t take a set piece half-assed or be halfhearted. We want to be 100% at it. … For us, it’s very good to be able to score that way.”
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