Brendon Aaronson identifies the key change Mauricio Pochettino has already made inside first days in charge

Yesterday at 04:36 PM

Mauricio Pochettino is desperate to get off to a fast start as USA head coach.

The Argentine manager takes charge of his first game in a friendly against Panama on Saturday.

He has not had much time to implement his style.

But Leeds United forward Brenden Aaronson says Pochettino is making a big impact on the squad.

"I feel like we've already learned a lot," he said.

"One thing we know for sure is the intensity we want to play with.

“We want to play with high intensity, play in the other team's half, have possession of the ball.

“I think what he wants is just a confident team."

Pochettino is dealing with a lot of injuries ahead of games against Panama and Mexico.

Giovanni Reyna, Folarin Balogun, Timothy Weah, Cameron Carter-Vickers, Tyler Adams, Lucas De La Torre, Chris Richards, and Sergino Dest are all absent.

Former coach Jurgen Klinsmann says that Pochettino will have to get to grips with managing a squad from such varied backgrounds.

“It was just a huge learning curve,” he told Gary Neville on the It’s Called Soccer podcast.

“I had to understand so many different things that are outside of the football range.

“You had the discussion of the dual citizenship players that were all over.

“We tried to identify talent, mainly certainly from Mexico, but also European talent, German-Americans, Icelandic-Americans, Norwegian-Americans.

“And we had to figure out how to melt this all together. And that’s what America is. America is the melting pot.”

Pochettino has been told his target is to reach the World Cup quarter-finals on home soil in two years.

“I think the sky’s the limit,”  Klinsmann said of the team’s potential.

“Just go go one game at a time. Build that belief that you can go really far.

“It’s a great time to have that tournament in the United States.”