USMNT: Mauricio Pochettino emphasizes “incalculable value” of January auditions

The MLS-heavy squad taking part in the US men’s national team’s January camp in Florida gets one more chance to make an impression on coach Mauricio Pochettino and his staff on Wednesday night, as the Yanks host Costa Rica at Orlando City’s Inter&Co Stadium.

“I think we keep focusing on some of the principles of play that we’ve been working on this week; obviously a good result for us against Venezuela in Miami [a 3-1 win on Saturday],” defender Walker Zimmerman said in remarks distributed by U.S. Soccer over the weekend. “Now driving up to Orlando, a chance to get a good recovery in and then ultimately have some other guys go on the field take advantage of their opportunities, same way that the other guys did against Venezuela.

“We’ve talked over and over about how important January camps can be for players getting their first cap, first couple of caps, just as a chance to improve and impress. And that’s what Poch and his staff have been preaching — the whole camp is about taking advantage of your chance when you get it. And so that’s exactly what we’re going to do on Wednesday.”

As much as broadcasting, data analysis and other modern technology have transformed how coaches can observe and evaluate players around the world, there’s still no substitute for time spent face-to-face on the training ground. That was a central message from Pochettino as he addressed the media in his matchday-1 press conference Tuesday morning, extolling the usefulness of working up close with so many current and future USMNTers over the past two-plus weeks.

“It is not the same to be seeing them in their teams, how they perform, to then having them for two weeks. The possibility of having them here, in the end the confidence that they transmit to us, that is what makes us make certain types of decisions correctly. And that for us is of incalculable value,” the Argentine said in Spanish.

“There are many players that we are thinking, ‘well, this player is at the level of players who have been competing [on the USMNT],’ and that gives us peace of mind, knowing that we have replacements for the future or that we can have main players who can gain a place.”

Might we…