SEATTLE – World Cups are built to be relentless, with wall-to-wall soccer filling nearly every waking hour while the full field still dreams of a deep run. That remains true this year, but the tournament’s new 48-team format has introduced an unexpected benefit.
“We are feeling [like] coaches now,” U.S. men’s national team manager Mauricio Pochettino said Thursday, sounding noticeably relieved.
For fans, the calendar is still nonstop. For the teams, though, the expanded format now provides roughly a week between matches — nearly twice the turnaround they had at past 32-team World Cups. The shift has made the tournament feel less compressed and more like the rhythm of a club season, the environment most players know best between international competitions. For Pochettino and other managers, that extra time allows for real tactical preparation instead of spending just a couple of days focused mainly on recovery and fitness.
“In nearly one month working together, I think the plan is very effective and I think that is why we are happy and also the team is showing great belief in all the aspects on the field and off the field,” Pochettino said, with the U.S. World Cup camp having officially opened May 27. “Yes, now we feel the competition different[ly] … because when you come and you have only few days to prepare [for] a game, you can select players. You don’t coach the player but after, you use the players and it’s difficult to change the habits or demand things that normally they don’t do [at] their clubs. That is why now it’s a great opportunity for us to settle on our principles.”
Pochettino, who took over the USMNT in the fall of 2024 after a career spent exclusively in club management, has long relied on methods better suited to the longer arc of a domestic season than the stop-start nature of international soccer, where teams often gather for only 10 days at a time. That is especially relevant given his intricate, attack-first system, which has required patience to install but appeared to be clicking in Friday’s 4-1 World Cup-opening win over Paraguay.
“I think the coach has done a fantastic job,” forward Brenden Aaronson said Wednesday. “We finally can understand the system to the fullest. He comes in two years ago, I think, maybe not even two years ago and you have 10 days every month to get a gameplan across and I feel like he’s a coach that we have a certain gameplan, we have a certain way that we want to play so it takes time to get fully into it and I think we’re hitting that spot now at the perfect time with this really great understanding of every player knows what they need to do. Every player knows, in each position, what they need to do and I think that goes to show how well they’ve done in this situation of telling us what to do and gameplanning for each game and just preparing us for every match.”
Weeks of time spent together has only been of benefit to the USMNT, who now have a clear style that they plan to impose no matter the opponent.
“I think we want to play our style,” Weston McKennie said before Thursday’s training. “Obviously, there’s going to be a little of changes in maybe the way we approach certain things but if we’re going to play a game, we want to play it the way we play it and try and make teams adapt to us rather than us adapting to them but we fully respect the speed that they have up top and you saw it against Turkiye and we’ve seen it before as well in the game that we played [against] them.”
Then there are the more obvious benefits. Players have more time to de-stress in between games and ensure their bodies are receiving the proper rest, which allows them then to give a little more in each and every match.
“I think mentally this is also something that will help because let’s say if you have to do the last sprint, you don’t have to worry about [the fact that] you have to play in two days again,” Sergino Dest noted. “You just give everything and you have more than enough time to recover … We [also] have more time to analyze the opponent as well and we can train more so that is helpful for us and hopefully we can take advantage of that.”
That stretch of time is likely why the USMNT have been able to kick the can down the road on Christian Pulisic’s status against Australia, the star still dealing with the calf issue that forced Pochettino to pull him out of the Paraguay a week earlier. Pochettino said a meeting with the team medical staff on Thursday evening will determine whether or not Pulisic plays on Friday.
There is also the greatest benefit of all – more time to watch the actual World Cup.
“You get the opportunity to bond as a team, to have the regular life with the days off, to have a little bit more time with guys that are struggling with injuries and overall, you get to bond with the group a whole lot more so there is a huge difference,” Cristian Roldan said. “It does feel like a bit of a club World Cup in that sense because you have a lot of days in between games but overall, for me, I get to watch more soccer and I think that’s the best part of it.”
How to watch USMNT vs. Australia
Friday, June 19 | 3 p.m. ET
Lumen Field — Seattle
FOX (Eng), Telemundo (Spa) | Fubo (Try for free)
USMNT -170 | Draw: +340 | Australia +425
Keep up with the World Cup standings here!
Projected lineups
Matt Freese, Alex Freeman, Chris Richards, Tim Ream, Antonee Robinson, Tyler Adams, Malik Tillman, Sergino Dest, Weston McKennie, Brenden Aaronson, Folarin Balogun
Patrick Beach, Jacob Italiano, Alessandro Circati, Harry Souttar, Cameron Burgess, Jordan Bos, Connor Metcalfe, Paul Okon-Engstler, Aiden O’Neill, Nestory Irankunda, Mohamed Toure
Prediction
Expect a closely contested, physical battle and perhaps one in which onlookers will notice Pulisic’s absence as the USMNT aim to for a second straight win at the World Cup. The U.S. have enough depth in attack to survive his absence, though, and look both well-rehearsed and have easily soaked up the home-field advantage even in the build-up to the tournament. If they come out as they did against Paraguay, they should have what it takes to win – with or without their star. USMNT 2, Australia 1
Check out our World Cup expert predictions.
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