SAN JOSE, Calif. — The star striker is sidelined. The stakes are immense. And Mauricio Pochettino steps into a spotlight.
It sounds like 2026, like the challenge facing the United States World Cup team after Folarin Balogun’s red card Wednesday night in a 2-0 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina.
But it is not. It’s April 2019. And this, a seven-year-old scene that suddenly feels pertinent, is evidence that Pochettino, now the U.S. men’s national team coach, has been here before.
Pochettino, then at English club Tottenham Hotspur, was preparing for a Champions League quarterfinal decider, perhaps the biggest game he’d ever coached. And the week before, he’d lost his leading scorer, Harry Kane, to an ankle injury. “It’s very, very sad,” he’d said.
But when he walked into a news conference on the eve of this decisive second leg against Manchester City, he was calm, confident, even jovial.
“We have the belief,” he said, “and we will be strong.”
And sure enough, the following day, Tottenham stunned Man City. Kane’s backup, Fernando Llorente, scored the pivotal goal off the bench. A second forward, Son Heung-min, scored two as Spurs triumphed on an unforgettable night in Manchester.
“Of course, (it’s) better to play with all the players fit and available,” Pochettino said afterward. “(But) you know, football is about the squad, it’s about the collective effort. It’s a collective sport.”
A few weeks later, in the semifinals, that collective also stunned Ajax. Pochettino started Son and Lucas Moura, both natural wingers, as a makeshift front two. Moura scored a second-half hat trick to complete a three-goal comeback and send Tottenham, an oft-overshadowed club with a decade-long trophy drought, to its first Champions League final.
Pochettino leapt and ran euphorically onto the field. He eventually fell to his knees, overcome with emotion. And he proved the point he’ll surely try to make this week.
Yes, the USMNT will miss Balogun when it faces Belgium in the World Cup’s round of 16 on Monday. But it will adapt and can still rise to the occasion.
His U.S. players were already sending that message Wednesday night, because it’s one that Pochettino has been preaching for more than a year.
“We’re definitely a team, we’re more than just one player, we’re more than just 11 players,” defender Chris Richards said Wednesday night.
It’s the message Pochettino sent during the second-half hydration break, minutes after Balogun was shown the controversial red card. “We need to show we are a team, that we are united,” Pochettino said. “That was the moment to show to everyone, to show ourselves, that it’s not only empty words when we say we are a family.”
When asked who would replace Balogun in Monday’s starting lineup, Pochettino gave nothing away.
And in this sense, the 2019 precedent offers few, if any, hints. Circumstances, personnel, tactics and opponents are distinct. Back then, Pochettino had one set of options to replace Kane; now he has another set. He has Ricardo Pepi or Haji Wright as something resembling like-for-like replacements. He has Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie, two attacking midfielders who’ve played up front for their clubs. Moura doesn’t really help us guess which one he will pick — although a setup with Pulisic and McKennie up top, and an extra midfielder beneath them, similar to the team’s alignment against Portugal in March, feels most analogous.
It’s the concept, however, that is most relevant. The Spurs example helps explain his mindset and approach — one that’s been at the heart of his USMNT rebuild.
He has preached to his players that individual names get dwarfed by the collective, that “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” as he told them back in October, relaying a quote first shared with him by Chick-Fil-A chairman Dan Cathy.
“This is one of his biggest things — the team culture, the team togetherness, is stronger than any individual,” U.S. midfielder Brenden Aaronson told The Athletic at the time. “If we’re a team, and we can play like a team, then we can beat anybody.”
That’s why Pochettino took offense some nine years ago when Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola referred to Tottenham as “the Harry Kane team.”
“It’s a sad comment,” Pochettino said at the time. “It was very disrespectful for many people.”
He’d later say that it “didn’t sit well with us because it seemed to diminish the work of the group,” which is part of why there was “enormous value” in Tottenham’s upset of City in the 2019 Champions League.
Seven years later, to be clear, no one is describing the USMNT as “the Folarin Balogun team.”
But similar questions are coming. Balogun has elevated the U.S. with his off-ball movement and goalscoring. None of his backups can stretch and threaten Belgium as he could.
Within the team, though, there is a confidence instilled over many months. It has become almost automatic. It was evident when Pulisic missed time during the World Cup group stage with a calf injury. It reappeared instantly on Wednesday night.
“I mean, of course he’s a great player, he’s our top scorer so far, we’re gonna miss him,” midfielder Malik Tillman said of Balogun. “But I think we have great players who can replace him, give the best they can, and hopefully score some goals for us.”
Richards added: “We’re a team of 26, not just one. Ultimately, we’re gonna miss him for the next game, but we know that if it’s Pepi, or Haji, or whoever (else), they’re gonna do their job just as well as he did.”
And even with Balogun suspended, without any mechanism to appeal, Pochettino reiterated his message to players in a postgame locker-room speech.