Mic'd Up: The ex-USMNT goalkeeper pulled no punches when it came to evaluating Pochettino's 'poor' first year at the helm
For Kasey Keller, it's a question of math. U.S. Soccer has invested multiples more than it has in the past for the men's national team manager, with Mauricio Pochettino making a reported $6 million per year. Where is the return on that investment?
It's a fair question, and one Keller is asking.
"If you have tripled or quadrupled the salary for this position, you would expect triple or quadruple benefit from that, just in terms of return on investment. Your return on investment has been horrible, completely horrible. I mean, that's just on a results factor. I'm not looking at everything else," the ESPN FC analyst tells GOAL.
Suffice to say, the former USMNT goalkeeper has been far from impressed by the national team. Some of his criticism is fair. Pochettino's first year in charge has been marred by inconsistent results against good teams, high profile disputes with his best player, and losses in the handful of games that really meant anything.
Pochettino, despite winning five straight in the Gold Cup, has only won nine of 16 games since taking over the program last September. A few good performances from backups can't mask that, Keller insists.
"You're supposed to tell me beating the 100 and 115th-ranked team in the world 4-0, I'm supposed to get excited now?" he said. "I'm not that stupid. I was a goalkeeper, but I'm not stupid."
It's been a tricky few months in the USMNT sphere, challenging to fully evaluate. The good news, for some, is that there could be change. Matt Turner's return to the New England Revolution could add a little verve to the goalkeeping competition. Christian Pulisic has his chance to strut his stuff in club colors again, and his national team return seems imminent, with September friendlies ahead.
The vibes simply have to remain upbeat, Keller argues – even if the reality suggests otherwise. With 10 months to go until the 2026 World Cup, there's little other choice.
Keller discussed the state of the USMNT, Turner's return to MLS and Son Heung-Min's seemingly imminent arrival in the league in the the latest edition of Mic'd Up, a recurring feature in which GOAL US taps into the perspective of broadcasters, analysts, and other pundits on the state of soccer in the U.S. and abroad.
Getty Images SportON THE USMNT'S SUMMER
GOAL: First of all, what did you make of the USMNT's summer at the Gold Cup?
KELLER: Poor. For me, it really started with the friendlies. That, to me, was where the true competition was. I mean, getting to the final against Mexico, yes, that always has its own, lore, competition, whatever you want to say, just that match-up. So, I think those were the three matches that I looked at which were the best, maybe, gauge of where the team is right now. And clearly those matches didn't go well.
You look away from the results themselves, you look at the selection process. Was this the best representation of the team a year out? If it is, you know, there's a whole lot more questions to be asked. Before [Pulisic] came out and said that he had spoke about coming in for the friendlies, I didn't understand, because I'd been in in many summer camps, in a lot of situations where certain players had played a lot, needed a break at some stage – certain players needed to get back to preseason, because they needed that time to give themselves the best opportunity to get playing time at their club. I played in multiple Gold Cups when I knew my position was secure with my club team, and I thought "Would I rather be playing in a competition than doing three a day preseason training in Norway somewhere? I'll be in Miami playing against Brazil – that sounds a lot more fun than some terrible preseason camp."
Individually, we've always had your circumstances where the coaching staff has recognized that, "Yeah, let's get in for these matches." And then that player needs to go back to his team, or this player then needs a little bit of a break before he goes in. Obviously, someone like myself said, "No, I'd rather be here, doing this because games that matter are more important than games that don't." But I fully understand a player that said, "No, I can't miss the first three weeks of pre season, because if I do that, Who knows if I get my spot for my club."
That was very, very surprising when I heard some of the conversations about not calling these players in for these games. It just seemed very strange that you wouldn't look for opportunities to bring as many players in as possible for whatever circumstances possible, the summer before a World Cup. So, the squad depth clearly wasn't good enough against the better teams. And then when you go into these conversations of how the coaching staff and the U.S. Soccer Federation are handling selection… it leaves a lot of questions.
AdvertisementGetty ImagesON SQUAD SELECTION
GOAL: But the counterargument there is you have some lads who might not get a chance. Do you see that argument of being able to get a look at your whole player pool – even if they might not be involved in the big games?
KELLER: You're playing lower level CONCACAF in the opening round of a Gold Cup. It's twofold. One, you're saying, "Hey, look, here's your chance… It's not going to make a decision for me, but you can play against this competition. Now let's see if that makes sense to then bring you in at the next stage, when everybody's available against the stronger competition." And then the other side, what I would have like to see, let's say, against Turkey and Switzerland, you have a big squad. So first of all, you see Max Arfsten, for example, training against the main players, but seeing in a small-sided match, how he's doing against Christian in training?
Now, maybe we're not going to throw them straight in against these teams, because we want to get more of the squad that we understand and the strongest squad we can against the best competition we can that year. But look then, now you're going to get your chance against lesser opposition. Let's see how you do there first. And maybe that gives us an idea if then you get brought in when everybody's available, because usually it's a pecking order. You don't just go, "Hey, let's pull this guy that's got 20 games in MLS, and let's just throw them in the deep end."
No, it doesn't usually work that way. Usually, you come into the squad, you train, maybe you come off the bench. You show me that you can do something off the bench, which then earns you the right to start. feel this was just like, 'Oh, here you go. There you go. You do that.' You got thumped for it and and then you're supposed to tell me beating the 100 and 115th-ranked team in the world 4-0, I'm supposed to get excited now? I'm not that stupid. I was a goalkeeper, but I'm not stupid.
Getty ImagesON POCHETTINO'S PERFORMANCE
GOAL: That does bring up a pertinent point about Pochettino. He's been in the job for a year now, can we evaluate him so far? What do you make of it all?
KELLER: If you have tripled or quadrupled the salary for this position, you would expect triple or quadruple benefit from that, just in terms of return on investment. Your return on investment has been horrible, completely horrible. I mean, that's just on a results factor. I'm not looking at everything else. Now, where I do give a benefit of the doubt is that there really are only three matches that matter, and that's the first round of the World Cup. Everything else was all preseason. There's no 16=game qualifying schedule. Let's go back to Gregg Berhalter, when he took over after not qualifying. You had three goals. Your first goal: you had to qualify. Gregg qualified. OK, you can say he qualified easily, but it doesn't matter, who cares? You qualified. Goal No. 1 achieved: get into the tournament.
Goal No. 2, to me, is still based off what your draw looks like. Let's go back to Germany. Your draw is the Czech Republic, who are ranked fourth, Italy, who won the tournament, and Ghana, who were a very good team. You look at those and say, 'Should get out of that group?' I would say we get out of that group, but I would not say we get out of that group. A very similar one with Brazil in 2014. You got a good Ghana team, you've got a Germany that went on to win the tournament, and you've got Portugal with Cristiano Ronaldo. Should you get out of that group? No. Could you? Yes. And the team did. When I looked at the draw in Qatar, what the US had, they should probably get out of that group. And they did. Second goal achieved. Now, third goal, round of 16. Should the US beat the Netherlands?
GOAL: That's far trickier…
KELLER: Looking at it in an objective way, when you hit the size and the scope of the players and the teams they play for, and the history of the country and everything, you wouldn't look at and say to the US, "Yeah, you should beat the Netherlands in a knockout stage." I'm just being objective. Do I want the U.S. to win every game they've ever played, 100 percent. But I still have to be objective and say, "Yeah, that would be one of the biggest results in U.S. national team history." So I look at what Gregg did, and I say, first goal, second goal done.
For the third, maybe you needed to have a coaching masterclass. Maybe you needed the players to have games in their lives. It didn't happen. You lost to Holland. Now, if you said we need to now go spend 4X to get a coach that can produce that coaching masterclass, to beat Holland in a knockout stage, to beat the Dutch, have you seen that from the first year of Pochettino? It's 100 percent fair. If I go to a club and you make me your record signing, you probably expect me to have a few performances that justify the price, right? Otherwise, why did you just make a record signing to do that? And I think it has been not good enough.
Getty ImagesON WORLD CUP PREDICTIONS
GOAL: What's your expectation for the USMNT at World Cup vs what will actually happen?
KELLER: I think the one thing that they've done with poor results is they've dropped the expectation. Sometimes we put too much expectation on the national team. And yes, we've had some players getting opportunities at clubs that maybe they hadn't had consistently in the past. And yes, we still have a couple good players that can be better difference makers. But like any national team that doesn't have tremendous squad depth, you still need that core five or six to be fit and informed and playing very well. You need your next five or six to overachieve. And then you need a couple surprises. You need a couple people that you go back and you say, "Wow, I didn't expect that guy to have a great tournament." You need those little things to happen.
Most of us are looking at the recent results, the situation with management picking fights with some of their star players – which is an interesting route to go – and, and then saying, this golden generation or whatever, maybe is a lot more silver or bronze. But I've been on national teams and club teams that are in great form and get to a competition and struggle. I have been in teams on terrible form go to a competition and succeeded.
Sometimes the other factor is what happened internally to your team, or internally with the teams you're playing against. We had a very good team in 1998 that imploded. Portugal had a very, very good team in 2002 and absolutely imploded. France had great teams at times, and you go back three months later. Why did they not get out of the group stage? And you hear all this stuff that went on. So who do you get in your group? Do you get the team that's come together? Or are you playing a team that's imploding? In Colombia, 1994, you hear those stories about all the drama with the cartels and everything that was going on, and you're like, "No wonder that team imploded!" So I'm still kind of hoping that it comes together. But they definitely dropped the expectation.