taught

I’m one of those rare Mexicans who never cared for soccer.

My family is from the north-central Mexico state of Zacatecas, where baseball is king and even volleyball was more popular in the ranchos of my parents than futbol. The childhood sports idols for my generation of cousins were Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela and boxing champion Julio César Chávez, not Mexican soccer legends Hugo Sánchez and Jorge Campos. Our dads bought us hats and bats to occupy our summer, not kits and cleats. I don’t even remember any of us ever owning a soccer ball — and I have nearly 100 cousins.

The first World Cup I remember was the 1994 edition hosted by the United States. I remember reading a huge Times special preview section on the affair and collected some of the commemorative pins that McDonald’s sold. But the matches were background noise in our living room during family parties as we splashed around in the swimming pool at our Anaheim home. When the tournament finale happened at the Rose Bowl, my favorite cousins and mutual best friend instead caught a baseball game at Angel Stadium and knew about Brazil’s victory over Italy only because the people above us in a private suite let us know.

As a sports fan, I paid enough attention to soccer as the decades passed to know who was who and what team was what and which sides kept winning — and that was mostly because I enjoyed EA Sports’ excellent video game version of it. What made playing soccer on consoles so fun — an exponential number of domestic leagues and international tournaments, the fact that every English-language match seemed to have a Scottish color commentator, the seeming aimlessness and formlessness on the pitch broken up by flairs of beauty — made it a slog when watching in real life.

As a reporter, I knew enough about soccer culture to file stories from watch parties across Southern California’s cornucopia of diasporas every World Cup. As a Mexican American, I cared enough about Mexico’s perpetually heartbreaking El Tri squad to watch their runs and sigh about how we’ll always have it harder than most. But I never bothered to tune in to other matches even as soccer leagues from across the globe have stormed network, cable and streaming channels in recent years.

I never hated the sport — it just never moved me. But when the final whistle blew on this year’s World Cup finale and three-quarters of the packed house at Chapter One: The Modern Bistro cheered wildly, I realized I was finally, truly a soccer fan.

Over 104 games, a bunch of questionable VAR calls, another heartbreaking downfall by Mexico, a bizarre Tom Cruise pregame monologue in the last match and the brilliant goal by Ferran Torres in extra time that let Spain squeak by Argentina 1-0, I slowly learned and felt why soccer is the world’s most popular sport, why a billion-plus people watched alongside me Sunday afternoon, and why this Cup kept setting viewership records in the United States and beyond until the end.

Who wouldn’t be moved by the heroic performances of underdog countries against the game’s traditional powers, such as tiny Cape Verde and ancient Egypt? Who couldn’t feel the thrill of seeing young stars meet the hype around them and exceed it — Erling Haaland of Norway, Lamine Yamal of Spain, Mexican midfielder Gilberto Mora, to name the most fabulous? Who didn’t want to interact with fan bases that distilled the best of their side’s cultures and traditions and showed it off to everyone and anyone — I’m doing Norway’s Viking Row even as I type.

Who can’t learn from the life lessons soccer offers — and I’m not talking about the obvious geopolitical metaphors? I knew some of them, yet I never really absorbed them until I decided to make Chapter One my gustatory church for the Cup and watch as many games there as possible. I caught so many that I effectively became a walking Manhattan cocktail for the summer, and while my liver won’t forgive me for a while, my heart and soul absolutely have.

The one thing I always admired about domestic leagues — well, except Major League Soccer — is the relegation system, where the bottom teams in one league swap places with the top teams in a lower-ranked league at the end of each season. For national tournaments, the corollary is how poorer countries always have to match up against richer ones for regional face-offs and qualifiers that culminate in the quadrennial dream that is the World Cup.

That makes soccer a beacon of hope and possibility that few other team sports can offer, especially in an era where top teams try everything possible to keep everyone else out of their riches (which is why relegation will probably never come to MLS). In a world where the haves are grinding down the have-nots, soccer is a reminder that anything truly is possible for anyone — you just have to keep at it.

The Chapter One gatherings quickly taught me how the long lulls broken up by spurts of passion that I once found a drag were actually as stirring as a religious experience. It’s impossible not to feel this watching even one game — but a succession of them have the effect of a full conversion.

Cheers and chants turned into prayers. Boos against opponents and bad referees and yells at your side to do better was the Spirit moving you to testify. Text threads among friends became daily missals. When your side scored, it was like the gift of life itself — I’ve never been in a louder environment than when Mexico scored against England, a roar that rivaled a jet engine.

When your side lost, like Mexico eventually, inevitably did, it was a reminder that we all must at some point — but that we shouldn’t dwell on defeat because while eternal glory isn’t guaranteed, it can happen. And that’s why soccer teaches we must continue no matter how bad our team performed, no matter how terrible things get or how hopeless life seems.

After every Mexico match, downtown Santa Ana became the most wonderful expression of happiness I’ve ever been lucky enough to join — fireworks, conga lines, street takeovers or just standing among thousands of strangers and soaking it all in. It was the revival of a people whom a year early were angrily protesting on those same city blocks if they weren’t sheltering in place because ICE was running roughshod over Southern California.

Only soccer could’ve caused such a joyous revolt. We should all channel some of that magic into our daily lives.

And in the middle of all this emotion, I actually watched what was going on. I saw talented teams such as South Korea collapse under pressure and my beloved Mexico valiantly fall against an English squad that was taller, faster and just better — for now. Haaland’s singularity was a testament to how humanity seeks heroes — but Spain’s ultimate triumph via crisp passes and selfless teamwork offered a stirring, convincing collective counterpoint.

Soccer probably won’t supplant my love for baseball, football, basketball and hockey — but I can now mention it in the same breath as them.

International and professional soccer is rife with corruption and avarice and increasingly embraces the worst tendencies of late-stage capitalism. And yet fans suspend their cynicism for a few hours — for a tournament, for a season — because they know that the communion that soccer offers is pure and holy.

It truly is the people’s game. And no amount of Gianni Infantino or mysteriously suspended red cards can ever take that away.

Now that the Cup is over, my mind is racing with what club teams I should start to follow and continue my World Cup experience. I already kind of like Bayern Munich because that was the side I chose in EA Sports FIFA 18 (to show how retrograde my soccer knowledge remains, I still think James Rodriguez, Thomas Müller and Robert Lewandowski play for them), but who will I root for in Premier League? I can’t do Arsenal even though Chapter One is the official Orange County home for Gooner fans because that would be too obvious. Maybe Crystal Palace, about which I know nothing other than that was also the name of the Bakersfield music hall owned by country legend Buck Owens?

Zacatecas has never had a successful club team — baseball still rules there, after all — so I think I’ll root for Pumas UNAM to honor all my Mexico City friends who urged me forever to give soccer a true chance. I don’t really know any La Liga squads besides Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid and FC Barcelona, so I have a lot of studying to do there. And between the Galaxy and LAFC? Well, time for me to catch a home-and-home El Tráfico and let their support groups court me.

One team I know I’ll now follow: Angel City, the L.A. women’s soccer side brilliant enough to rebrand itself “Immigrant City Football Club” last summer in the midst of President Trump’s deportation deluge while the city’s other professional sports teams stayed quiet. And I’m already counting down the months before Brazil hosts the Women’s World Cup a year from now and Chapter One becomes my Cheers anew.

Soccer: it’s been a long time coming between you and me. But here I am! Drop those hydration breaks, and you’ve got a fanático for life.

A bowl of lemons sits on a table in the conference room Mauricio Pochettino has turned into an office at the U.S. men’s soccer team’s beachfront resort in south Orange County. The citrus fruit, the coach believes, has the spiritual ability to absorb negative energy. On the corner of another table, the flame from a candle flickers.

“I like candles,” says Pochettino, who believes they release therapeutic fragrances and create a calming environment.

But it is the massive, blood-red mural covering the entire south side of the room that truly reveals what Pochettino believes. In the center of the wall, just behind the coach’s desk, white block letters spell out “Why Not” above a script “U.S.,” which, despite the periods, is meant to be read as “us.”

Pochettino has turned the question in a mantra for a World Cup team that has answered it with two wins in as many games and has a chance to win a third match in the tournament for the first time when it meets Turkey at SoFi Stadium on Thursday.

The idea came to him during a team meeting last November when he sensed his players had doubts about their upcoming World Cup run. So Pochettino turned those doubts into a question. If South Korea could come from nowhere and make the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup, and if Morocco could do the same four years ago in Qatar, why not the U.S.?

Why not us?

“Hey, come on, guys, are you listening to me?” Pochettino said he asked the group. “We need to believe.”

Before he could convince his players, however, he had to convince himself. And that might have been the hardest part.

The 54-year-old Pochettino is a benevolent Svengali with a whistle; Ted Lasso with an Argentine accent. Belief isn’t so much a concept for him as it is a way of life. But when he and his coaching staff took over the U.S. team in the fall of 2024, following its disastrous performance in the Copa América, he said he inherited a demoralized, dispirited group.

“We received a big bang,” Pochettino said, mimicking a punch to the face. “We were knock[ed] out for a while.”

“We were so naive,” he continued. “The situation was way worse than we really believed.”

Pochettino refused to change the system that has brought him success at European clubs Tottenham, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea. So he set out to change the players instead. That would take time, something he had very little of since he took over with the World Cup just 20 months away.

“It’s difficult to analyze the process, you know,” Pochettino said during an informal, 40-minute discussion at his team’s Dana Point hotel, the sun setting over the ocean through the open patio doors of his office.

“When you put the seed on the soil, [the] first seed, you don’t see nothing. Then you start to grow the tree. It was difficult to explain the plant because it’s not easy.”

The seed Pochettino planted with the national team took time to sprout. He lost five of his first 10 games, including a disastrous four-game stretch that included Nations League losses to Panama and Canada in the spring of 2025. The team’s supporters revolted, but Pochettino rejoiced.

“What happened, that was [a] good crash,” he said. “When we detect all the problems, we go for the solution. And we knew that the solution will arrive. The object is to challenge people.”

U.S. men’s soccer coach Mauricio Pochettino during the second half of his team’s World Cup match vs. Paraguay at SoFi Stadium.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

So he stayed the course.

“That was the process. Now is not a coincidence,” he said of the team’s success.

Pochettino has long believed that building a roster isn’t about picking the best players, but picking the right players. Players who fit his tactical approach, players who get along with one another, players who contribute to the team chemistry.

For him, the human connection, human respect is as important — if not more important — than the ability to dribble through tight spaces. And those traits are particularly important in a World Cup since the team will spend every day together for six weeks or more.

Although Pochettino’s team includes 13 holdovers from the 2022 World Cup roster, it also includes five players who made their national team debuts in the last 18 months.

Sometimes, he concluded, it is easier to simply change the player than it is to change what the player thinks or believes. And the newbies have totally bought in.

“We’re all in total belief. We’re all totally supportive and have faith in the process that he’s been outlining,” said goalkeeper Matt Freese, who made his first appearance for the national team more than 12 months ago and now is starting in a World Cup. “Our task was to keep believing, keep working hard and keep trusting. And we did that. We fully bought into the process.”

That process has made Pochettino the first U.S. coach to win a group stage in 16 years while his two victories in as many games match Bruce Arena, the most successful World Cup coach in U.S. history, who managed eight games over two tournaments.

The lemons and candles Pochettino keeps in his office are manifestations of energia universal or universal energy, a foundational concept common to many Eastern philosophies that believe a fundamental life force connects all things. Pochettino said he has long felt this connection and it has been a foundational part of his coaching.

But it doesn’t stop with the candles and citrus fruit. Pochettino also has filled the mural behind his desk with inspirational sayings.

“The talent has brought us here, but it is heart, effort and unity that will make us unforgettable,” one reads.

“If I dream of touching the moon, maybe I can get close to it. If I only dream of getting close, I’ll stay on Earth,” another says.

Each ends with the coach’s initials, similar to the way a painter signs his portraits.

Pochettino’s faith in the power of fruit and candles and his penchant for penning aphorisms hasn’t taken away from the ferociousness of his approach to soccer. Many players say the training sessions under Pochettino — which are intricate, focused and highly physical — are frequently more intense than the games. But most also are punctuated with laughter.

“Training is still very competitive, it’s very intense,” said midfielder Max Arfsten, who made his national team debut under Pochettino last year. “That’s the culture that the coaches created. Everyone’s still trying to prove something.”

Although Pochettino has spent his life in Argentina and Europe and still splits his time between houses in Barcelona and London, flying to the U.S. for matches and training camps, he’s been a quick study in this country’s culture and quirks.

“One of the things that we really like, and we learn from you, is in the way that you approach life. It’s more casual than formal,” said the coach, whose English is still a work in progress. “People are very approachable and make you feel comfortable. That, for me, was a massive surprise. You always want to welcome people.

“Even the music, even the food. People say ‘no, Americans have crazy food.’ Yes, you have crazy food. But also you have Whole Foods. In Europe, you don’t have a Whole Foods.”

And Pochettino has adopted it all. He’s become a big fan of country artist Lainey Wilson, went to hear Teddy Swims, a uniquely American genre-blending singer, last winter in New York, and is learning the words to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” the unofficial victory anthem of the World Cup team.

Perhaps more important, at times he’s taken his lemons and his candles and pushed them aside, replacing them with another distinctly American trait: the in-your-face confidence to will yourself to victory from the most hopeless situations.

It’s how Americans won at Valley Forge even before they were Americans and how they won on the beaches of Normandy when the concept of America was threatened. It’s how Americans went to the moon and invented the internet.

And it’s how Pochettino’s team has remained perfect two games into the World Cup.

“We’re American. We don’t take s—,” midfielder Sebastian Berhalter said Pochettino told the team during one meeting. “Even though he’s Argentinian, he has that mindset of, ‘Look, this is what we do. This is who we are. This is what America’s about.’ Even from an outside perspective, he showed us Americans what we’re about.

“He really drills that into us.”

For decades Americans have measured World Cup success in advancing beyond the group stage. Pochettino entered this summer’s tournament predicting a run to the semifinals, runs like South Korea and Morocco made.

“When people believe in each other, impossible dreams become possible,” reads another message the coach has scratched onto the wall of his office.

Why not us?