Mauricio Pochettino’s USMNT project began with intensity this week in Texas. Fresh off long flights from Europe, their minds and bodies weary, players pushed through “tough” training sessions; Tuesday’s was “one of the longer ones we've had with the national team,” veteran defender Tim Ream said.
They also began, of course, with “basics,” with rudimentary movements, with introductory meetings. “The most important [thing],” Pochettino said last week, “is that we need to set a few principles, few concepts” — rather than “spend two, three hours talking about tactics.”
The hope, though, is that eventually, those principles and concepts will ignite the U.