Pochettino unimpressed with football’s shift toward NFL and NBA entertainment standards

Mauricio Pochettino is preparing to lead the USMNT at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Taking place on home soil and co-hosting with Canada and Mexico, the 2026 summer tournament promises to be bigger than any World Cup before, largely due to the expanded 48-team format.

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Some of football’s biggest stars, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe will be heading stateside to battle for the biggest prize in football.

For Pochettino and the USMNT, they will be targeting their first World Cup victory, having come third in the first iteration back in 1930.

In modern World Cups, they have reached the Round of 16 in four editions, most recently in 2022 but also in 1994, 2010 and 2014, however they have failed to ever advance past the quarterfinal stage which they achieved in 2002.

With proven manager Pochettino at the helm, who won three major trophies during his 18-month tenue at Ligue 1 side Paris Saint-Germain between 2021 and 2022, the USMNT are hoping to get over the last eight hurdle at the minimum.

With the likes of Christian Pulisic – once dubbed the ‘LeBron James of soccer’ – as their leading talisman, and bright talent in Weston McKennie, Chris Richards and Folarin Balogun, there is hope that home advantage could propel them through the summer.

In a wide-ranging chat with The Overlap’s Stick to Football podcast, Pochettino has made his feelings known over football’s increasing reliance on technology.

Pochettino slams direction football is heading in

Like many other managers, particularly in Europe where complaints of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) are rife, the Argentine manager has too expressed his frustrations over the use of such technology.

While Pochettino acknowledges that technology can be a useful supplementary tool, such as in coaching, where data can be used to ‘raise the standard’, he feels it is beginning to dictate the sport too much.

“Today the technology is next to us, is with us and we cannot give back the technology,” Pochettino explained to The Overlap crew.

“It’s really important – all the coaching staff now we need to give the principles and what we love, that is a sense of the football from the past, understand that it’s different game to another.

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“But to add the technology, and also to know how to use that technology, not to affect to go in some direction or another, but I think to mix with our experience and to create that idea or culture or to raise the standard in the way to help the the player.”

Pochettino’s main frustrations, though, lie in the sense that it has somewhat contributed to the growing commercialization of the sport, arguing that football is becoming more similar to that of popular American sports, such as NFL and NBA, and moving away from it’s soul of sorts that has been rooted in tradition.

“Today the technology I think we are seeing – the VAR, how it is affecting the game. It is a completely different game than when when we were players,” he continued.

“It’s annoying me a little bit, the VAR. I think it’s changing our game, is changing the way that we also educate our young kids in that game.

“That game [football] is special because it’s completely different to another. It’s not an entertainment game. It’s a very competitive game. But we are now forcing that unbelievable sport to do an entertainment game.

That is what I hate because I am seeing now in America that entertainment games is American football, basketball, [ice] hockey. But football is not an entertainment game, it’s a competitive game, and that is what we are forcing now into change.”

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For the casual American football fan, and even those who are not into the NFL at all, will have heard of the Super Bowl.

Some may have even watched it, perhaps primarily because of its infamous Halftime Show, where some of the biggest global artists put together a 15 minute set with all eyes on them.

New for the World Cup Final this year – which will be held at New York New Jersey Stadium – there will be a halftime show.

Curated by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, FIFA president Gianni Infantino has described that it will be “the biggest show in the world”. 

It is therefore expected that the show – with the list of performers still yet to be officially confirmed – will last longer than the traditional 15-minute halftime break during a football match.

This just serves as yet another example to Pochettino for what football is becoming in the modern day as ‘the beautiful game’ continues to evolve into an entity primarily suited for commercial success.

All 104 games at the 2026 World Cup this summer will be live on talkSPORT, talkSPORT 2 and the talkSPORT app.