After a disappointing loss to Panama in the CONCACAF Nations League semifinal on Thursday, Pochettino had called on his team to play with more urgency and take greater risks in Sunday's third-place match against Canada. However, his requests seemed unheeded as the team delivered another underwhelming performance, failing to register a single shot - on or off target - in the first 30 minutes at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
This disappointing display adds to the frustration for the 2026 World Cup cohost, who will return to the same venue for their tournament opener on June 12 next year.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Despite the setbacks, Pochettino, who took over after Gregg Berhalter's troubled second stint, remains confident that his team will be in better form by then.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"There's a lot of examples in different years of teams that were building to play in a World Cup that were not good until they arrived at the World Cup,\" Pochettino said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"So I want to send a message to the fans 'Don't be pessimistic; don't get bad feelings.' It can happen. But the main objective is the World Cup. It's always painful when you lose, but we need to accept it. But I don't want people to feel pessimistic. We are all disappointed that we didn't win, but I'm not going to allow us to feel pessimistic because I think we have good players.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"We are going to find a way to perform, and for sure we are going to compete and we are going to get different results from those that we got from Thursday and today,\" he added.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Pochettino did acknowledge, however, that if there is no improvement over the next year of preparation for the World Cup, it would be a cause for concern.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"If we are in this situation, in one year's time, for sure, I will tell you, 'Houston, we have a problem. S.O.S. But you will see in one year if we are talking about that, we will have a big problem. Because it will mean that we were not capable of discovering and designing a better strategy to provide the team with the capacity to play in a different way. I think we have time. I prefer that what happened today, happened today and not in one year's time,\" Pochettino said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
United States skipper Christian Pulisic said that \"some things need to change\" following Sunday's loss.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
\"If we are in this situation, in one year's time, for sure, I will tell you, 'Houston, we have a problem. S.O.S. But you will see in one year if we are talking about that, we will have a big problem. Because it will mean that we were not capable of discovering and designing a better strategy to provide the team with the capacity to play in a different way. I think we have time. I prefer that what happened today, happened today and not in one year's time,\" Pochettino said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Also Read: <\/b> Highest tax paying cricketers<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n