After his young United States team defeated Costa Rica 3-0 in Florida on Wednesday to conclude their January training camp, Mauricio Pochettino claimed he had been given a welcome selection headache.
Goals from Major League Soccer-based players Brian White, Caden Clark, and Patrick Agyemang completed a confident win for Pochettino’s side at the Inter & Co. Stadium in Orlando.
Wednesday’s game was the second of two back-to-back friendlies for the US following their 3-1 win over Venezuela on Saturday.
With the games falling outside of the official FIFA window for international fixtures, Pochettino used the friendlies to run the rule over the US talent pool, with most of his Europe-based players unavailable for selection.
White opened the scoring for the US on 21 minutes, latching on to a perfectly weighted through ball from Diego Luna before firing a low-angled shot into the bottom corner.
Montreal’s Clark swept in the second goal on 77 minutes before Charlotte striker Patrick Agyemang blasted in a third in the 90th minute.
Pochettino was left pleased with how his makeshift squad performed over the two games.
“When I watch after 90 minutes, it’s not like we’ve had one or two weeks working together—it looks like we are working for six months,” Pochettino told broadcaster TNT after the win.
“That is what pleased me the most, because the performance, the attitude, the capacity to adapt to the new ideas—that is amazing,” the Argentine added.
Pochettino will now turn his attention to the climax of the Concacaf Nations League in Los Angeles in March, where his team faces Panama in the semifinal.
The former Tottenham, Chelsea, and Paris Saint-Germain coach hinted that several players from the January friendlies could now force their way into the reckoning for the Nations League finals.
“I think we now have too many players in our mind,” he joked. “When we need to pick the squad in March, there are going to be many players that work here.
“I told them from the beginning that they need to take these two games very seriously, because if they perform, they will have the possibility to show us in the future.”
