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The U.S. men’s national team lost to Mexico 2-0 on Tuesday in a friendly. While the U.S. losing to Mexico is something no American soccer fan ever wants to see, the match could not have been more meaningless, but that hasn’t stopped plenty of supporters from calling out newly appointed manager Mauricio Pochettino.

Pochettino was officially introduced as the U.S. manager on September 10. He led the U.S. to a 2-0 win over Panama in his debut on October 12 and was then faced with a quick turnaround against Mexico on Tuesday in Guadalajara.

Outside of the U.S. out-possessing El Tri, Mexico dominated the contest with 17 shot attempts and five on target compared to just one from the American side.

The loss was ugly, but without Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Ricardo Pepi, Gio Reyna, and Folarin Balogun just to name a few not even in the U.S. squad on Tuesday, a win south of the border would have been stealing one for the Americans.

Mexico’s win marked the first time it had topped the U.S. since 2019, yet that didn’t stop plenty of U.S. supporters from coming after Pochettino after the loss

The USMNT needs as many passionate fans as it can get, but questioning Pochettino and the direction of the team after his second match with a B- squad at his disposal, at best, is truly ridiculous.

It is a 100% guarantee that former manager Gregg Berhalter would have also lost to Mexico on Tuesday night.

Giving Pochettino a few months on the job before tossing out ridiculous criticisms seems like a good plan. After all, this is a man who has managed Tottenham, Paris Saint Germain and Chelsea, among other teams, and has had success at the very highest levels of European soccer. He’s won the Ligue 1 title with PSG, led Tottenham to their highest points finish in the top level of English soccer, and took it to a Champions League final. 

“For us, it’s a process that we started 10 days ago and today was a great opportunity for our player to visit a very difficult place to play. I think only we can improve and learn from this experience.” He went on: “We wanted to win. I think we need to be positive about this type of game. We need to play more games like this to improve the knowledge that we have,” Pochettino explained after the match.

“Give us time, let us evaluate all the players, have them, know them, and from there I will give you a better opinion about what is much more fundamental than what I see.”

While some will argue that every match between now and the 2026 World Cup matters for this U.S. team, it’s hard to say that is the case when Pochettino has been in charge for four weeks, has half of a roster to coach, and is trying to turn around a ship that Berhalter and the federation were steering in the storm of all storms.

It’s going to be alright, promise.