Kyle Martino, the former U.S. international turned commentator, knows much about USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino, dating back more than a decade back he was Tottenham Hotspur manager and Martino was a host for NBC Sports Soccer. And what he's seen so far from Pochettinto and the USMNT?
"The first impression is that it's not good enough yet," Martino told GOAL.
Martino, however, is backing him to succeed long-term with the program.
"I've gotten to spend a lot of time with him," he said. "I have always been impressed in my time being able to observe him, whether from afar, through my role at NBC, or being at Spurs trainings when he first got there, and now getting a chance to be on the inside."
Currently competing at the 2025 Gold Cup, the USMNT is preparing for the 2026 FIFA World Cup that will be hosted in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. However, Martino - in contrast to some other voices of the game - doesn't believe the current tournament matters much in the grand scheme.
"I hate to take wind out of the talking heads that want to be hyperbolic in this moment, but the Gold Cup has almost never created the majority of a World Cup roster," he said.
The TNT commentator sat down with GOAL ahead of the Steve Nash Foundation's Showdown in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Martino, founder of Street FC - a street soccer community across the country - partnered with Nash to bring some of the top high school players from around the city to play along with legends such as Ali Krieger, Sacha Kljestan, Bradley Wright-Phillips, and Dutch legend Edgar Davids.
"I built Street FC to be a platform to shift the paradigm away from the construct of grass and coaches and expensive play," he said, "and that being the only avenue to get in for the game and move up the pyramid."
Showdown, a staple of NYC footballing culture, is a competition Martino has fond memories of, dating back to 2008, the first edition of the 5v5 tournament.
"I'll never forget," he recalls. "I was walking around in Manhattan, and one of my buddies called me and was like, 'I think that Steve Nash and Claudio Reyna - because he knew I was friends with these guys - are playing like a pickup soccer game in Chinatown with, like, Thierry Henry and Jason Kidd' And I was like, 'Dude, you're f*cking with me!'
"And so when he told me that the game had already kicked off, I jumped in a cab, got there, and I couldn't even see the game through the wall of kids and adults, and everyone that had scaled the fence to get a view of the spectacle."
Martino discussed the return of Showdown, Pochettino's World Cup opportunity, and the state of the USMNT in the latest edition of Mic'd Up, a recurring feature in which GOAL US taps into the perspective of broadcasters, analysts, and other pundits on the state of soccer in the U.S. and abroad.
NOTE: This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity
