{"id":697395,"date":"2026-05-27T15:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T15:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/697395\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T15:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T15:47:11","slug":"world-cup-2026-pochettino-defends-using-email-for-united-states-squad-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/697395\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Pochettino defends using email for United States squad cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

United States manager Mauricio Pochettino has hit back at criticism over the way he informed players whether or not they had made his 26-man squad for the World Cup.<\/p>\n

According to The Athletic, the former Tottenham and Paris St-Germain boss emailed players who were left out.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Pochettino sent video messages to the 26 players included in the squad.<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking on ESPN’s Futbol Americas show, former US forward Herculez Gomez – who praised ex-US manager Jurgen Klinsmann for informing him of his omission from the 2014 World Cup squad via voicemail – said it was inexcusable for Pochettino not to call those players he cut.<\/p>\n

Pochettino defended himself during a news conference, arguing that players would not want to speak to him immediately after being cut.<\/p>\n

“When I was a player, when I didn’t make the roster I didn’t want my coach to call me,” Pochettino said. <\/p>\n

“The players who didn’t make the roster, they don’t want to hear me say ‘I apologise’. What are you going to say? Am I going to lie?<\/p>\n

“I care. Do you know why I care? Because during [the past] two weeks I didn’t sleep.<\/p>\n

“And today, still I cannot enjoy the 26 guys that are in front of me, because I am thinking of players that are out.<\/p>\n

“If I call, it’s about myself. I say, ‘Oh, I call, I am very human about calling and then giving an explanation’.”<\/p>\n

The World Cup co-hosts open their Group D campaign against Paraguay on 13 June before matches against Australia and Turkey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States manager Mauricio Pochettino has hit back at criticism over the way he informed players whether or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-697395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}