Over dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant near their Central Park hotel last month, Mauricio Pochettino explained to U.S. Soccer staffers the cultural significance of mate, the herbal tea enjoyed by South American soccer players including Lionel Messi.
Among the thoughts Pochettino shared with his new colleagues that night in New York was the name of a shop back home in Argentina that makes custom mate cups. A month later in Austin, Texas, when Pochettino and his staff arrived for their first camp in charge of the USMNT, the incumbent staff had a surprise: they had called that store in Argentina and ordered cups emblazoned with a U.S. Soccer logo, which
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