Mauricio Pochettino’s experience already paying USMNT dividends with player interactions

PHILADELPHIA — Perhaps the clearest sign of Mauricio Pochettino’s background at the club level comes in his interaction with members of the U.S. men’s national team when they are outside international windows.

Which is to say, there’s not much interaction at all.

“I feel like in-season, he kinda lets you deal with your club and lets you focus on your coach and stuff there,” USMNT defender Alex Freeman told The Post this week. “But if you ever need him, he’s always a text or a call away. He always picks up. I think he lets you be at your club. He was a club coach, so he probably knows how it is with clubs.”

Mauricio Pochettino is pictured before an Oct. 10 match. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

That is not to imply that Pochettino isn’t building the necessary relationships with his players or doing the legwork in between international windows amid the run-up to next summer’s World Cup that will be the most important event for American soccer perhaps ever.

Pochettino and his staff have visited more than 50 clubs in North America and Europe and watch every game they can.

When Freeman showed up at camp for the Gold Cup over the summer, Pochettino took him aside for a 20-minute conversation that included extensive feedback on his game.

“It’s good to go to camp and have a guy who’s giving you feedback and letting you know what he thinks about how you play,” Freeman said. “Just gives you confidence as a player to want to do better for him. Just having him as a coach, you can tell he’s very passionate about the sport and he wants the best out of all of us.”

Pochettino has admitted he didn’t know Cristian Roldan before making the midfielder a late call-up two months ago.

Mauricio Pochettino watches from the sidelines during an Oct. 10 match. Imagn Images

But when Roldan arrived for his first camp under the Argentine, Pochettino established a relationship immediately, nevertheless.

“Giving me confidence, telling me I belong here,” Roldan told The Post. “Telling me that I can do it, that I had been gone [from the national team] for two years [but] I still have the ability to affect the game in the way they see it. To be myself with my personality. I think that those things correlate to success. And I felt like he did a great job of just bringing me in and making it seem seamless.”

That was crucial for Roldan’s successful re-entry into the national team fold.

“He was very clear in what he wanted out of me,” Roldan said. “So just bringing that same energy back is really important. … Continue to form that relationship. Definitely trust is the first word I’d put to it.”