The U.S. men’s national team don’t play a competitive fixture until their World Cup opener next June, but for Mauricio Pochettino, any meeting with Marcelo Bielsa, his “hero” who is in charge of Uruguay, carries far more weight than another meaningless friendly.
Midnight had long since passed when there was a knock on the door of Pochettino’s family home one night in 1987. The then-teenager’s parents answered to find a complete stranger claiming to be a scout for Newell’s Old Boys, a team in Argentina’s top flight based in Rosario, more than 90 miles away. It was Bielsa.
