This was supposed to be the dawn of the new era.
The bad vibes of the Gregg Berhalter days were finally gone. And U.S. Soccer finally had its first truly world-class manager in former Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino.
We'd get to see the U.S. play a coherent tactical style. The lineup choices would all make sense. And the USMNT would start consistently dominating the teams it's supposed to beat and occasionally winning games it had never won before ... right?
Not quite. The first two matches of the Pochettino era were, well, let's call them "underwhelming." There was a grind-it-out 2-0 win at home against Panama, followed by an almost-literally-never-had-a-shot 2-0 loss to Mexico.
Of course, these are just friendlies. These two matches will have almost zero bearing on what actually matters: what happens at the 2026 World Cup. The team's primary objective from these games wasn't to win. After the Mexico match, Pochettino called it a perfect opportunity "to learn."
So, what did we learn from his two games in charge?