Mauricio Pochettino says US have time to put things right before 2026 World Cup

LOS ANGELES – Mauricio Pochettino called for patience after the United States slumped to a 2-1 defeat by Canada on March 23, insisting there was still time to turn things around ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

After an abject Concacaf Nations League semi-final loss to Panama on March 20, Pochettino had called on his team to show greater urgency and take more risks in the third-place game against Canada.

However, those pleas appeared to have fallen on deaf ears, judging by another lacklustre display from Pochettino’s side, who failed to muster a single shot – on or off target – in the opening half hour at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

It marked another dispiriting performance from the World Cup co-hosts, who will return to the same venue on June 12, 2026 for their opening game of the tournament.

Tani Oluwaseyi and Jonathan David netted either side of half-time for Canada, with Patrick Agyemang scoring for the US.

Pochettino, who was appointed in 2024 after the ill-fated second reign of Gregg Berhalter, is confident that by the time the global showpiece comes around, his side will be in much better shape.

“There’s a lot of examples in different years of teams that were building to play in a World Cup that were not good until they arrived at the World Cup,” Pochettino said.

“So I want to send a message to the fans, ‘Don’t be pessimistic, don’t get bad feelings’. It can happen. But the main objective is the World Cup. It’s always painful when you lose, but we need to accept it. But I don’t want people to feel pessimistic.

“We are all disappointed that we didn’t win, but I’m not going to allow us to feel pessimistic because I think we have good players. We are going to find a way to perform and for sure... we are going to get different results from those that we got from Thursday and today.”

The Argentinian acknowledged, though, that failure to improve over the next year of building towards the World Cup would be a cause for concern.

“If we are in this situation, in one year’s time, for sure, I will tell you, ‘Houston, we have a problem. S.O.S,” the former Paris Saint-Germain boss said.

“Because it will mean that we were not capable of discovering and designing a better strategy to provide the team with the capacity to play in a different way. I think we have time. I prefer that what happened today, happened today and not in one year’s time.”

United States skipper Christian Pulisic said that “some things need to change” following the loss.

“Obviously disappointed. We’ve gotta come back from this, we’re not at our best at the moment,” Pulisic said.

“All we can do now is go back and be the best example we can be at our clubs... and when we come back of course, some things need to change and we need to improve. We’re gonna look back and see what that is. I don’t have all the answers at the moment.”

In the final, Raul Jimenez scored twice as Mexico snatched a last-gasp 2-1 victory over Panama to win the title for the first time in the later match at the same venue. Panama’s goal came via an Adalberto Carrasquilla penalty. AFP