Gets It - Mauricio Pochettino Is Showing The US Soccer Team Clips Of Fights During Games To Teach Them To Play With Heart Again
John Todd/USSF. Getty Images.[Source] - “We’ve talked a lot about many, many, many things. But the most important thing that you need to feel is that you are a strong team,” he told the players, as he showed them clips of on-field scuffles, of teammates standing up for one another this summer. “If something happens like this, we need to show that we are strong. That shows when the team is a team. That shows when the team is ready to fight for each other.”
The fracas that followed Malik Tillman’s penalty miss against Costa Rica, after a Costa Rican player taunted Tillman, “changed the game,” Pochettino preached. “Because if we don’t react in this way, [the opponents] say, ‘Ah, that is not like a team.’ They are laughing in your face, and [if] you don’t react, you don’t have blood in your veins.”
HELL YES. This is what I've been begging for. I've said it numerous times in this blog that this era has felt like they just don't have the balls that some of our old teams have. We were never more talented, we won games because we had lunatics who weren't afraid of anything. Brian McBride is the one guy who always sticks out to me. He was all heart. Yeah, he was obviously good too, but his game was dependent on diving and throwing his head into anything and everything.
It didn't matter if it was one of our stars like McBride or Dempsey or one of those guys who showed up for 4 years and we forgot about. They were never scared of an opponent despite being way less talented. Now we actually have talent and everything has seemed off. We blamed Gregg Berhalter (and I still think rightfully so) and US Soccer Federation (even more correct) for things going bad. Now it's up to the players to prove that we were right to scream about everything else.
So, yeah, I love Pochettino showing them clips of fights and scuffles to get them to bond. It's something that I assume Gene Hackman did during The Replacements, if that was a real team. It's the American way to at least fight if we're not going to be more talented. Find a way to get a win and we don't care how ugly it is.
Give me guys who see Malik Tillman get taunted and everyone takes it as a personal insult. Give me guys who aren't afraid to get into a scuffle if it means protecting someone else on the team. That's what our game should be based on. That and actually using the talent we have to look the part. Now beat Australia tonight.