By: Lucas Delgado
September 18, 2024
Photo Credit: US Soccer
The summer of 2024 was one to forget for the United States Men’s National Soccer Team (USMNT). The USMNT played host for the 2024 Copa America, a competition pitting the finest national teams from both North America and South America against each other. While the US went into the tournament with high expectations, they suffered painful losses to Panama and Uruguay and couldn’t find their way out of the group stage. This underperformance caused many fans and media members alike to reiterate a demand that they had been making for years, for the team's manager, Gregg Berhalter, to be fired. About two weeks after the teams elimination, Berhalter was dismissed from the Head Coach position and the USMNT officially went on the market for a new coach.
The coach that they hired is Mauricio Pochettino, an Argentinian manager known mainly for his success with Tottenham Hotspur in the English Premier League from 2014 to 2019, most notably leading the club to the 2019 Champions League Final. For just the second time in their last six head coach hires, the US Soccer Federation (USSF) has chosen a non-American coach to head the national men’s national team. This move has been judged within a litany of different perspectives. Some believe that a coach with top level experience in major European leagues is the catalyst for a greater USMNT, while others feel that a non-American in charge of the team could create a disconnect with homegrown talent from Major League Soccer (MLS).
The USMNT and the MLS have been virtually inseparable since the league’s inception in 1996. In spite of the talent gap that has historically existed between club leagues in Europe and those in the rest of the world (including the United States), the US have always relied upon the MLS as a pool of national team players. At the 1998 World Cup, 16 of the team’s 22 man squad played for MLS clubs, and the number of MLS players represented in the men's national team continued to stay in the double digits for a majority of tournaments after that. Luckily for the USSF, the league continued to see steady growth following its introduction up to the modern day. Since the MLS was founded in 1996, the league has expanded from 10 to 29 teams, has seen a mass influx in star players like David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Lionel Messi, and secured a lucrative TV rights contract with Apple for $2.5 Billion over course of 10 years.
However, as the MLS has continued to grow in economic, the national team, focused solely on sporting success, has become more disconnected from the league than ever. In fact, the USMNT's 23 man squad for the 2024 Copa America featured only three MLS players. In the same time that the MLS has grown to the status of being the biggest American sports league outside the four major sports, American players, most notably USMNT captain and star player Christian Pulisic, have gone away to Europe younger than ever to develop their talents against stronger competition. Multi-nationality players, such as Yunus Musah and Sergino Dest, represent the team despite being born outside of the United States and never having represented an MLS team at any point during their athletic career. With Pochettino at the helm, many speculate that the outright rejection of the USMNT's historic MLS-centric approach could be the overwhelming norm for the team going forward.
With all of this being said, the tie between the MLS and the USMNT cannot be broken easily. Despite Pochettino representing a coaching hire with roots in the European game, his supporting coaching staff and upper management for the US Soccer Federation will still maintain overwhelming ties to the nation’s top league, and have taken a different approach in using the MLS to help the national team - youth development. The introduction of MLS NEXT in 2020 signaled what the federation is looking to use the league for as the talent exodus to Europe continues - a source of development for the game’s future stars before they take off to make careers in England, Spain, Germany, Italy, and other leagues. The leagues’ cities have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the program - which has 15,000 overseas players for over 600 teams - and they are already reaping the benefits. Players like Inter Miami's Benjamin Cremaschi have already broken out in the MLS at only 19 years old after finishing his stint in NEXT, while others, such as 14-year-old MLS NEXT alumnus Cavan Sullivan, have parlayed their success into greater moves, as he is set to move to Manchester City once he turns 18. Success stories like these are just scratching the surface of the young development league’s impact, and signals a new era for the MLS characterized by a strong development network for our country's brightest players to build their skills in a high-exposure professional setting.
While hiring a foreign manager of Pochettino's pedigree to coach the USMNT is unprecedented for the US Soccer Federation, the USSF is still committed to maintaining and improving its domestic relationship with the MLS. The balancing act between these two key interests will be highly publicized and integral to the success of the USMNT in both the short-term and long-term. Only time will tell if this approach proves to be successful on the field.
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