SEATTLE — Mauricio Roberto Pochettino Trossero grew up on farmland in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, surrounded by cows on a multi-hundred-acre ranch, 200 miles west of Buenos Aires and a world away from America.
Now, at age 54, he is America’s coach.
He has led the U.S. men’s soccer team to the World Cup’s round of 16. He has endeared himself to an American public that has heeded his one-word commands: Dream. Believe.
But then, as the son of a third-generation cattle farmer near the tiny town of Murphy (pop. 3,000), he knew the United States only as the foreign land whose dollar helped set the market price for livestock.
Pochettino dealt with pigs and other chores on the family farm, “where Saturdays and Sundays don’t exist,” he once wrote. He’d watch his father toil ’til dusk, inhaling the ethos of hard work. Eventually, he grew from humble boy into soccer star, and the game took him everywhere — to Spain, to France, to England and beyond. But Argentina never left him. He’d find happiness and comfort in the smell of Argentinean wine. He still identified with the country’s fútbol culture.
When he chose to take charge of the U.S. men’s national team in 2024, he was very much a foreigner. He continued to live in London and Barcelona. He had been to the U.S. on preseason tours with English clubs Tottenham and Chelsea, but he was largely unfamiliar with the country whose team he signed up to lead.
And so, over the past 21 months, he learned it.
He leaned into it.
“It feels like he’s really in tune with it,” U.S. star Christian Pulisic said last month.
From college football to country music, from “Country Roads” to Friday’s ceremonial first pitch at a Major League Baseball game, Pochettino has embraced some of the most quintessential — or stereotypical — aspects of American culture.
And America, in return, has embraced him.
Pochettino’s lucky World Cup fit
An introduction to America
Before Pochettino touched down at LaGuardia Airport in mid-September 2024, his impressions of the United States had developed as a visiting coach or from the outside. With Tottenham, he had been to Seattle and Chicago in 2014; to Denver in 2015; to Orlando, New Jersey and Nashville in 2017; and to Southern California then Minneapolis the following summer. He enjoyed the trips — the nice hotels, the glistening facilities — but he didn’t exactly know the country.
He arrived in New York in 2024, sporting a BOSS hat and sunglasses, with eyes wide. He peered up at skyscrapers and snapped pictures. He popped into a Nike store. He rode through Manhattan in a midsize yellow cab and a black car. He met with businessmen.
Then, after an introductory news conference, he flew back to Europe.
His indoctrination was gradual and piecemeal. He’d come for training camps — the first was in Austin, the second in St. Louis — but those were largely consumed by work, by getting to know his players. It was other trips, before or in between camps, when he tiptoed into this love affair and got to know America.
In December of 2024, while in Southern California for MLS Cup, he took in a Los Angeles Rams NFL game from the owner’s suite at SoFi Stadium — and ate a hot dog.
He got and wore a Shellback Tavern hat — which has become something of a phenomenon among celebrities and others who visit the Manhattan Beach dive bar.
On at least one occasion, he has eaten at Chick-fil-A; and in April of 2025, on a visit to Georgia, he got breakfast with Chick-fil-A chairman Dan Cathy.
He realized over time, though, that perceptions of American cuisine are incorrect. “People say Americans have no healthy food. Yes, you have healthy food,” Pochettino told a small group of reporters during this World Cup. Sure, he acknowledged, there are fast food joints that make you feel awful, “but you go to the Whole Foods, and … you have organic this, that — you have everything here.”
He saw many different parts of America, and came to understand that no two are the same. There is no monolithic American culture. The country’s diversity and its vastness make it rich, complicated, tough to fully grasp.
But everywhere he went, at least from his privileged position, he felt some commonalities. “All are different, different states and everything,” Pochettino said, “but you have the same sense of the human being. You always want to welcome people.
“You go to some place like Nashville, and you go to a bar, and if you are alone, you make friends so quick. And it looks like you belong.
“It’s difficult to describe your culture,” Pochettino continued. “But when you are here, it’s difficult now to see yourself living in another place. We will miss (America) if one day we don’t stay here.”
Mauricio Pochettino celebrates with fans after a World Cup knockout win over Bosnia (Catherine Ivill / AMA / Getty Images)
Pochettino’s sources of American sports culture inspiration
There were some aspects of American culture, and specifically American sports culture, that clearly startled Pochettino.
At postgame news conferences and in an interview with Spanish show El Chiringito, he launched into long monologues comparing soccer in the U.S. with fútbol in Latin America. He spoke about how in countries like his, playing the sport is akin to fighting, whether for happiness and pride or even for survival. “Today, do you think that was a sport, two teams playing, and doing a spectacle? No,” he said after a USMNT battle with Guatemala. “You play for something more.”
He also spoke to U.S. fans. “The fans have one year to realize how important the fans are in soccer,” he said after U.S. supporters were outnumbered by Mexico supporters, four days after being outnumbered by Guatemala supporters. He wanted them “to be in the stadium, to stay with the team, to support — not only through Instagram, social media, or through TV. It’s to be here, and translate the energy.”
He clarified, though, that he wasn’t trying to change American culture.
And in early September, on a visit to Columbus, Ohio, for a Week 1 college football clash between Texas and Ohio State, he saw that the passion he’d been seeking does exist here. “It was really, really, really amazing,” he said of the experience, which included an appearance on Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff show and a chat with Matthew McConaughey.
“It was a massive surprise,” Pochettino continued. “I’m 53, it’s difficult to have this type of surprise. But to live the atmosphere that we lived there, three hours before, seeing the passion of the people, all the things that were (being prepared), the fans in the stadium, 100,000, I was so jealous. I was so jealous, I said, ‘I want to coach these teams.’” He laughed. “I want to be next.”
Mauricio Pochettino does a jersey swap with LA Lakers coach JJ Redick while in Los Angeles for the World Cup (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
Later, in December, he took in a New York Rangers hockey game. Previously, he’d been to see the NBA’s Orlando Magic. He has now been to all four major North American professional sports leagues. He has even drawn inspiration from them.
In November, Scott Goodwin, one of the boosters who helped U.S. Soccer land Pochettino, recommended that he watch “Miracle,” the 2004 movie that dramatizes the 1980 U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team’s upset of the Soviets. Pochettino watched it and cried. He spoke soon thereafter about building an “emotional link with the film” and even learning from hockey.
“It represent very well the culture of USA,” he said. “And I think we identify with (so) many things like this. I am in love with this movie. … It’s amazing how a group of 20 players really believed in an idea … and a process to beat the best team.”
A few days later, he began citing the philosophies of the 1980 hockey team’s coach, Herb Brooks.
“We don’t need the best players, we need the right players to make a team a strong team,” Pochettino said. “And that is what we want to provide to this (U.S. men’s) national team.”
Mauricio Pochettino, flanked by his USMNT players, after throwing a first pitch at a Seattle Mariners game (Stephen Brashear / Imagn Images)
Country music, a ceremonial first pitch and a sense of belonging
Pochettino’s openness to American culture also seemed to help him connect with players.
“He’s come in and he’s really wanted to understand it from the players’ point of view, what it means and what it feels like to be American,” striker Folarin Balogun said last month. “He’s always asking questions. He might be watching a basketball game or something, and he’s intrigued, and he wants to learn more.”
Team captain Tim Ream said Saturday: “He’s embraced the American culture while adding his own flair to this group, and adding his own culture to the group. Listen, he loves it, he loves being here, and we love everything that he’s done for us as a group, and the way he pushes us.”
“The group is such a melting pot — staff, players,” Ream added, “and it’s an incredible representation of who we are as people.”
The entire team, regardless of politics or upbringings, has leaned into the unique brand of patriotism that this World Cup has whipped up. And Pochettino has leaned in with them.
When John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” first played over stadium loudspeakers after a 2-0 win over Australia on June 19, Pochettino didn’t know the words. Over the two weeks since, he learned some of them.
In general, he has fallen for country music — for Lainey Wilson and Luke Combs, for Ella Langley and Teddy Swims. Pulisic recalled arriving at Pochettino’s temporary office for a meeting and hearing a country song. “It’s just funny,” Pulisic said.
Pochettino even took on the challenge of a first pitch at the Seattle Mariners game this weekend. His practice tosses before the USMNT’s training session Friday morning made it clear the’d hardly ever thrown a baseball; but that evening, at T-Mobile Park, he smiled, soaked in the scene, and delivered a near-strike.
U.S. Men’s National Team manager Mauricio Pochettino tosses the first pitch at the @Mariners game ⚽️⚾️
He’s a natural! #WorldCup pic.twitter.com/9JVwvFplwV
— MLB (@MLB) July 4, 2026
A day later, on July 4, he walked by American reporters wishing us a “happy birthday.” He has frequently led “U-S-A” chants. He has leaned in so far that one British reporter, after the USMNT’s round-of-32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina, asked him whether he “felt a little bit American.”
Pochettino clarified: “I am 200% Argentine. … I am 200% Argentino, sorry. I’m not going to lie, I’m not going to lie.”
But he added: “When you feel part of something bigger, things that we are building here, I enjoy being part of that amazing project.”
Paul Tenorio contributed reporting to this story
