Mauricio Pochettino known as for endurance on Sunday after america slumped to a 2-1 defeat in opposition to Canada, insisting there was nonetheless time to show issues round forward of subsequent 12 months’s World Cup.
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After an abject CONCACAF Nations League semi-final loss to Panama on Thursday, Pochettino had known as on his staff to point out higher urgency and take extra dangers in Sunday’s third place sport in opposition to Canada.
However these pleas appeared to have fallen on deaf ears judging by one other lackluster show from Pochettino’s facet, who did not take a single shot on or off beam within the opening half-hour at SoFi Stadium.
It marked one other dispiriting efficiency from the 2026 World Cup co-hosts, who will return to the identical venue on June 12 subsequent 12 months for his or her opening sport of the match.
Pochettino, who was appointed final 12 months after the ill-fated second reign of Gregg Berhalter, is assured that by then his facet will probably be in significantly better form.
“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 stated.
“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,” the Argentine added.
“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’re going to discover a solution to carry out and for certain we’re going to compete and we’re going to get totally different outcomes from people who we obtained from Thursday and right this moment.”
Pochettino acknowledged though that failure to improve over the next year of building towards the World Cup would be a cause for concern.
“If we’re on this state of affairs, in a single 12 months’s time, for certain, I’ll inform you, ‘Houston, we’ve got an issue. S.O.S.,” Pochettino said.
“However you will note in a single 12 months if we’re speaking about that, we could have an enormous drawback. As a result of it should imply that we weren’t able to discovering and designing a greater technique to offer the staff with the capability to play differently.
“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 stated that “some things need to change” following Sunday’s loss.
“Obviously disappointed. We’ve gotta come back from this, we’re not at our best at the moment,” Pulisic stated.
“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 again and see what that’s. I haven’t got all of the solutions for the time being.”
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