U.S. leans on Pochettino’s toughness message ahead of Australia rematch

Mauricio Pochettino’s old warning about Australia suddenly carried fresh weight for the U.S. men’s national team as the Americans prepared for a rematch that could seal a knockout-round berth. Seven months earlier, when the teams met in a non-counting friendly, Australia pushed the U.S. into a physical fight from the opening whistle, and Pochettino entered halftime of a 1-1 game with what Sebastian Berhalter described as a “rant.”

“They come and they fight,” Pochettino told the team, and Berhalter said the message landed because it fit the coach’s wider demand for edge and accountability. “I think one is that we’re American, we don’t take s ,” Berhalter said. “He’s, even though he’s Argentinian, he has that mindset of like, ‘Look, this is what we do, and this is who we are, and this is what America is about.’”

That lesson mattered even more after the U.S. opened the 2026 World Cup with a 4-1 victory over Paraguay, a result that tied the largest World Cup margin of victory in U.S. history. Folarin Balogun scored twice, becoming the first U.S. player to score multiple goals in a World Cup game since 1930. Haji Wright said Pochettino was “proud” after the win, but the players also knew it was only the start of group play, not proof they had arrived.

Tyler Adams framed the challenge as one of discipline as much as confidence. “There’s been moments throughout the process where things weren’t going amazing,” Adams said. “Now all of a sudden, some people consider [our play] amazing, whatever it is, but we’ve stayed completely humble in our approach to every single game and trusted the process of what we’re going through.” That approach could be tested again by Australia, which also entered the match with a 1-0 start after beating Türkiye 2-0 and has built a reputation for compact defense, organization and stubbornness.

The stakes were clear. A U.S. win over Australia would clinch a spot in the knockout round, and the expanded 48-team World Cup now sends teams into a round of 32. ESPN noted that the U.S. has gone beyond the round of 16 only once in the modern World Cup, 24 years ago, a reminder that one fast start does not change the harder history that follows. Australia and the United States have never met on soccer’s biggest stage, but in Seattle, that shared history was about to be written in a game that demanded no letdown.