The passion for Pochettino is visible

SEATTLE STADIUM — #PochOut.

As recently as late last month, this hashtag could be found on social media more frequently than any reasonable fan of the US men’s national soccer team could expect.

The Internet is not real life, obviously. But after another thrilling victory in the group stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup – a 2-0 win over Australia that sent Mauricio Pochettino’s team to the knockout stage with a game to spare for the first time in history – it’s fascinating to think about the sometimes downright toxic negativity that, until very recently, extended far beyond the overly connected corners of the fan base when it comes to the prominent United States coach.

Pochettino arrived on these shores at the end of 2024 with a well-earned reputation as one of the top club managers in world football. He had led Tottenham Hotspur, the perennial failure of the Premier League, to the only UEFA Champions League final in their history in 2019. The Argentine won league and cup titles with Paris Saint-Germain, where he managed both Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé. After leaving Chelsea by mutual consent after taking the Blues from 12th to sixth in his only season in London, his name was floated whenever a job opened up at marquee clubs across Europe.

It was considered almost a miracle that the United States had even managed it; He turned down more money to lead the Americans to their first home World Cup in 32 years.

However, all it took was a few poor results for many national team fans to turn against him less than a year into the job. And it wasn’t just the fans.

What began with disheartening losses to Panama and Canada in the 2025 Concacaf Nations League final hit a low point in September, when South Korea edged out the United States in a 2-0 loss in New Jersey.

Pochettino passionately defended his players afterwards and then finished 2025 on a five-match unbeaten run (four wins and one draw), capped by a 5-1 thrashing of two-time World Cup champions Uruguay in November.

But some fans called for his head again in March after decisive losses to top-10-ranked Belgium and Portugal, the United States’ final preparations before Pochettino named his 26-man World Cup roster last month.

Isolated from the noise by their coach, those players’ trust in their boss never wavered. In and out of the locker room, the 54-year-old insisted that while fighting and competitiveness were non-negotiable, the results didn’t matter in the slightest until the main event began.

“Someone asked me after the South Korea game what I thought about all that,” U.S. goalkeeper Matt Freese said after earning his first World Cup shutout on Friday. “I immediately said, ‘We all have complete confidence, we all totally support him and we have faith in the process that he’s been outlining.'”

“Look at his record. I mean, we’ve seen him do it with big teams,” defender Chris Richards added of Pochettino. “He’s very passionate in the way he speaks…we take that passion and try to apply it to the way we go out.”

That passion has been fully manifested in this World Cup. Those who doubt are now silent. Fans in Seattle chanted Pochettino’s name after Friday’s victory during FOX reporter Jenny Taft’s postgame interview. Love is mutual.

“It’s amazing, our fans,” he said of the nearly 70,000 souls in the building, the overwhelming majority of whom were dressed in red, white and blue, providing almost certainly the best home-field advantage the American team has ever seen.

The message was clear: Pochettino is one of us. He knows that the difficult times of the last two years helped create this unforgettable one. In fact, he always knew what he was doing.