When Mauricio Pochettino stands on the touchline at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on June 12, 2026, watching his US males’s nationwide workforce (USMNT) start their World Cup finals marketing campaign, the eyes of the remainder of the world will likely be on him. Nothing he has skilled in his profession as a coach at membership degree will examine to changing into one of many most important characters within the best present on earth.
There are some elite managers who change their workforce of assistants from job to job. Pochettino just isn’t one among them. Becoming a member of him with the USMNT are 4 folks he is aware of very effectively; Miguel ‘Miki’ D’Agostino, Antonio ‘Toni’ Jimenez, Jesus Perez, and his son Sebastiano Pochettino.
He first assembled the core of his workforce — Perez, Jimenez and D’Agostino — in his first position at Barcelona-based Spanish membership Espanyol, the place he grew to become the supervisor in 2009 on the age of 36, a few years after ending his taking part in profession with them. Sebastiano joined them as a health coach and sports activities scientist at Tottenham Hotspur, Paris Saint-Germain and most not too long ago Chelsea.
There will likely be one new face too, Silvia Tuya Vinas, who speaks English, Catalan and Spanish and joins as a energy and conditioning coach.
Pochettino will faucet into the experience of these already within the U.S. Soccer set-up, and is open to the opportunity of including a coach who’s extra acquainted with American soccer and this group of USMNT gamers.
Talking at his first USMNT press convention in New York earlier this month, he mentioned: “I feel we have now very certified folks working within the federation that may in a short time assist us. However after all, we’re versatile and we’re all the time open to including folks as a result of we all know that soccer is altering; know-how is right here and now we want palms to work, folks to work, as a result of we have to analyze (plenty of issues).
“We have now instruments to work actually, actually exhausting. Previously, a few years in the past, you had just one coach, one health coach, one analyst and that’s it. However now on this enterprise it’s actually essential to have all that it’s good to cowl (all the things), and also you want certified folks working subsequent to us to offer us data to be higher and to assist the gamers to carry out.”
It’s not possible to grasp Pochettino’s work and his journey up to now with out understanding the teaching workers who’ve adopted him each step of the best way thus far, from Spain to England, to France, again to the UK and now throughout the Atlantic.
Right here, The Athletic profiles the coaches who will assist put together the USMNT for the 2026 World Cup on house soil — and the way they function as a workforce…
First, there may be Miguel ‘Miki’ D’Agostino, who performed with Pochettino for Newell’s Previous Boys, a membership of their native Argentina (named after an Englishman who was among the many pioneers to first convey soccer to that South American nation), within the early Nineteen Nineties.
The 2 males have been shut since they had been youngsters taking part in for Newell’s beneath now world-famous coach Marcelo Bielsa, marvelling on the routines Bielsa had them going by to get them in tip-top form. Pochettino loves telling the story of how he used to present D’Agostino a elevate to coaching in his battered previous Fiat Uno, just for D’Agostino to by accident break off one among its doorways, one thing for which he has by no means paid Pochettino again.
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D’Agostino didn’t have as stellar a taking part in profession as his pal, who gained 20 caps for Argentina and performed for them within the 2002 World Cup, however when Pochettino took over at Espanyol, he shortly known as him in to work on his backroom workforce, filming classes from a hastily-constructed tower on the coaching floor. Even now, he oversees evaluation and scouting for Pochettino — massively essential work for a workers who need all potential data at their fingertips. Additionally, as a result of D’Agostino spent six years taking part in and training in France within the early to mid-2000s, he would interpret for Pochettino in press conferences after they had been collectively extra not too long ago at Paris Saint-Germain.
Then there may be Antonio ‘Toni’ Jimenez, who performed in aim for Espanyol within the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s. He had an awesome taking part in profession, together with being a part of the Spain workforce that gained gold within the soccer event on the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, alongside future international stars Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique. He, naturally sufficient, grew to become Pochettino’s goalkeeping coach at Espanyol and has been a part of the backroom workforce ever since.
Pochettino and Jimenez have a good time Spurs’ Champions League semi-final win over Ajax in 2019 (Bradley Collyer/Getty Photographs)
Jesus Perez is Pochettino’s assistant supervisor and his right-hand man. Perez was a health coach with a background in sports activities science who labored for varied golf equipment throughout Spain within the 2000s. He initially joined Pochettino’s Espanyol as an analyst, partly as a result of he knew the best way to use the software program Sportscode, whereas additionally working with the youth academy. Three months later, he grew to become a part of the first-team teaching workers.
Perez is Pochettino’s closest confidante, a lot in order that the brand new USMNT boss has described him as an “extension of himself”. It was Perez, together with Pochettino’s spouse, Karina, who satisfied him to maneuver to the Premier League as Southampton supervisor in early 2013 — probably the most essential moments of his entire profession — two months after leaving Espanyol by mutual consent.
Pochettino’s work is unimaginable with out Perez by his aspect. He oversees a lot of what Pochettino does, from the coaching a great deal of gamers to the monitoring regime to evaluate their harm danger. He’s Pochettino’s eyes and ears, throughout all the things that he must know, proper right down to particulars like whether or not gamers have arrived with a brand new automotive or new watch.
The Athletic has each angle coated on Mauricio Pochettino’s appointment as USMNT head coach:
Perez may be robust and isn’t averse to talking his thoughts, however he’s additionally the right complement to Pochettino. One of many strengths of their relationship is that they interchange the roles of fine and unhealthy cop. If Pochettino goes simpler on the gamers, Perez will take a more durable view and vice-versa. In distinction, it was usually remarked at Tottenham, who sacked Pochettino and his workers after a poor begin to their 2019-20 season, that one of many issues with successor Jose Mourinho and his No 2 Joao Sacramento was that they all the time echoed each other somewhat than delivering completely different messages.
Finally, Perez’s vitality and concepts make him an indispensable a part of the Pochettino workforce. One former colleague as soon as described him as probably the most clever individual he had ever labored with in soccer, somebody who might run each division on the soccer aspect of the membership higher than every one’s precise head.
The ultimate addition was Pochettino’s son, Sebastiano, who earned a college diploma in sports activities and train when his father was Southampton supervisor in 2013 and 2014. He has labored for his dad as a health coach and sports activities scientist at Spurs, PSG and Chelsea and is a longtime a part of the workforce.
D’Agostino, Pochettino and Perez at Chelsea in 2024 (Darren Walsh/Getty Photographs)
Silvia Tuya Vinas joins them with the USMNT as a energy and conditioning coach. Vinas, who studied for a PhD in sports activities science at Barcelona College and speaks English, Catalan and Spanish, most not too long ago labored with the Levante Badalona girls’s workforce in Spain.
The shut hyperlinks between Pochettino’s long-term associates enable them to supervise the holistic strategy that has outlined Pochettino’s teaching profession thus far.
On the coronary heart of it — the primary side of his teaching — is the model of play.
Pochettino groups need to play the positional recreation, a mode of soccer the place you management the house by the positions you tackle the pitch. They need to dominate possession, however solely as a approach to dominate the sport somewhat than an finish in itself. His groups all the time play out from the again and they’re particularly pleased with having carried out this at two smaller golf equipment in Espanyol and Southampton somewhat than solely after they inherited elite gamers. By the top of Pochettino’s one season at Chelsea again within the spring of this yr, you might see them taking part in his soccer, too.
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It is a very structured model of play, extra just like the soccer of Guardiola than to every other coach, however barely much less inflexible than that. The construction of a Pochettino aspect is integral to having the ability to press effectively: you want the gamers to be within the appropriate positions if you wish to win the ball again inside three seconds. You defend the best way you assault, as Pochettino’s workers say, somewhat than the opposite means round. And so it wants numerous time on the coaching floor to get it proper.
This brings within the second side of the Pochettino strategy: constructing the connection between the coaches and the squad.
That is usually known as ‘team-building’, however it is not going to work if it doesn’t prolong past the primary XI. Pochettino desires to create an surroundings the place each participant feels included and revered, famously introducing handshakes each morning at Tottenham. He all the time makes time to speak to his gamers as people. It’s about reaching ‘buy-in’, ensuring the gamers type that shared ethos that’s indispensable to any good workforce. That is partly why Pochettino doesn’t imagine in fining gamers for ill-discipline: he desires them to do the suitable issues as a result of they need to, not as a result of they should.
If the squad are totally invested, that helps the essential third side of the Pochettino methodology: enhancing the person gamers on the coaching floor. There are some managers who see their job as simply constructing as much as each matchday, tweaking the ways, motivating the gamers, however Pochettino and his workers put rather more emphasis on fixed each day enchancment.
Sebastiano Pochettino, centre, has labored beneath his father as a health coach and sports activities scientist (John Berry/Getty Photographs)
It’s exhausting work and gamers don’t all the time relish it at first, however the viewpoint has all the time been that the last word approach to respect gamers is to assist to make them higher. So there should not many days off and, when the schedule permits, double classes. There may be an emphasis on health as a result of there isn’t a level in merely desirous to press if the gamers would not have the gasoline within the tank to do it, in addition to the understanding of when and the way to take action.
Pochettino has a status for operating his gamers exhausting.
At Southampton, he would have the gamers doing ‘horseshoe’ runs across the pitch, even on a Monday after that they had performed a match two days earlier than. And through pre-seasons, he loves to present his gamers the ‘Gacon Check’, invented by Georges Gacon, a French health coach who labored at PSG simply earlier than Pochettino’s time taking part in there. The Gacon Check includes 45 seconds of operating, then 15 seconds of relaxation, again and again, with the space coated in that operating portion growing steadily every time. It was designed to push gamers’ most cardio capability, impressed by Gacon’s work with middle-distance monitor and discipline athletes, though in actuality these runs are only a small fraction of the general course of and are all the time carried out with a particular aim in thoughts.
There may be gymnasium work, too, not conventional weight-lifting however classes geared in the direction of the practical actions that make up soccer: operating, leaping, kicking or throwing and competing for the ball. Repeating these actions with various resistance and repetitions builds up the gamers’ energy and endurance over the season. Then there may be cognitive coaching within the gymnasium, asking gamers to react to lights turning on in a panel in entrance of them.
The aim of all of that is health and harm prevention and Pochettino gamers are fastidiously monitored with saliva exams each morning to evaluate muscle harm and hormone response. The purpose is to know as a lot about them as potential to ascertain how they’re dealing with the rigours of competitors.
So many of those strategies and strategies are based mostly across the each day lifetime of membership soccer. They depend on fixed publicity to the gamers, to construct up their health, monitor their bodily response and to construct that fraternal feeling between a gaggle of gamers who all endure collectively.
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The fascinating factor about Pochettino’s transfer to worldwide soccer will likely be how these concepts and strategies work in that format, the place managers can go months throughout a season with out seeing their gamers. Longer nonetheless if there are premature accidents.
As a result of Pochettino and his workers will naturally solely get their palms on the gamers for restricted quantities of time between now and that 2026 World Cup, which the USA is co-hosting (albeit staging the majority of the matches, together with all video games from the quarter-finals onwards) with neighbours Canada and Mexico.
No matter habits and rules they instil will all the time be diluted by no matter these gamers do with their golf equipment within the intervening durations.
Worldwide get-togethers, after they occur, are sometimes extra about fine-tuning somewhat than placing within the exhausting yards. And but the success of Pochettino and his workers — and, by extension, the USMNT in a house World Cup — might stand or fall by how a lot of a constructive affect they will make.
(High picture, from left: Sebastiano Pochettino, Toni Jimenez, Mauricio Pochettino, Jesus Perez and Michel D’Agostino; John Berry/Getty Photographs)