AUSTIN, Texas — A year after making his touchline debut with the U.S. men's national team at Austin's Q2 Stadium, head coach Mauricio Pochettino is back in Texas' capital to mark the anniversary as their World Cup preparation enters a new phase with just eight months to go until the tournament on home soil. The origin story of how Pochettino reassembled the USMNT in a mold all his own, though, arguably began in March in the Los Angeles suburbs when two crushing defeats at the Concacaf Nations League forced a wake-up call.

"That was a time to assess, to see and the moment that we identified the problems," Pochettino said on Thursday in the build-up to Friday's friendly against Ecuador . "We start to destroy the things we need to destroy and start to build the house from the ground u

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