IRVINE, Calif. — Sitting in the press box at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., when the lineups were announced last November, I wondered if we might be in store for a blowout.The U.S. was fully rotating a team that beat Paraguay three days earlier in Pennsylvania. Mauricio Pochettino was leaning on a team that featured just two players, Sergiño Dest and Haji Wright, from the 2022 World Cup squad. Uruguay was starting a group that included a Barcelona center back and midfielders who featured for Manchester United and Real Madrid.I was right. And very wrong.There was certainly a blowout that day. It was just the U.S. delivering it. Sebastian Berhalter scored once and Alex Freeman netted twice as the U.S. dominated Uruguay, 5-1. After the game and after Uruguay coach Marcelo Bielsa lamented that his “first team” could be beaten by a U.S. “second team,” Pochettino bristled at the notion that his team was filled with players not considered “regulars.”“I hate the ‘no regular players’ (question),” Pochettino said. “What does this mean? It’s USA playing, it’s the national team. Stop with that mindset. Every time our decision to pick a starting XI, it’s the U.S. men’s national team playing.”He continued later.“If you know me, I hate to talk this way,” Pochettino said. “It’s so disrespectful. We need to give credit to all of the guys.”If you’re looking for an idea of how Pochettino might approach Thursday’s “dead rubber” group finale against Turkey, a match in which both teams have nothing to play for in terms of the standings, that November win, and Pochettino’s mentality around it, is a good place to start.USMNT goalkeeper and Harvard graduate Matt Freese's unique pre-game routineThe U.S. should and will likely rest players on a yellow card — Tyler Adams, Chris Richards, Folarin Balogun and Antonee Robinson — who would risk suspension for the round of 32 if they saw another before the group stage ends. Deciding what to do with Christian Pulisic, if he’s cleared to play, will come down to how Pochettino and the medical team view the risk vs. reward of working him back into the mix vs. a prolonged layoff before the knockout stage. But beyond that, it would not be a surprise to see Pochettino tab a squad of new faces to take the field.That Uruguay result wasn’t an isolated incident. The U.S. coach’s entire ethos since taking the job has been built around the idea that no one player in the pool was better or more worthy than the other. He built a Gold Cup roster around players once considered on the outside of the World Cup picture, then broke down into tears in the locker room after that group lost to Mexico in the final because he believed they “deserved more.”He urged them to commit to the idea of the team first, then doubled down on that with how he approached the Uruguay game. They rewarded him with another win.On the field against Uruguay that day for the U.S. were World Cup players Freeman, Berhalter, Matt Freese, Auston Trusty, Dest, Mark McKenzie, Wright and substitutes Gio Reyna, Brenden Aaronson, Cristian Roldan, Max Arfsten and Folarin Balogun. The bench included Ricardo Pepi, Miles Robinson, Tim Ream and Joe Scally.That’s 16 of the 26 selected for the World Cup.It speaks to Pochettino’s belief in the value each player brings to the squad. His speech after that win was captured by U.S. Soccer’s cameras, and it said everything about how Pochettino operates this national team.“The most important thing is you put the team first,” Pochettino told the players after the win. “You add your quality to the team. You add your quality to the environment. You put your quality, your personality, your way to behave. Always the priority was the team. … That is the design that we have if we want to be successful. That is the hunger that you showed: the team first. Commitment is really important because that is bigger than only player names. It’s bigger because it’s a dream that we were talking (about) in the last few days: to be realistic and then do the impossible. That is our objective. Because I think we need to really believe. … really believe that we can win and beat any team.”Pochettino hasn’t changed. He still wants to infect this team with the same belief. And he wants the country to buy into it, too. His hope is that the American fanbase gets behind the entire team, not just a few “big names” on the squad.It’s core to his approach. And after two group stage wins, the Turkey game is another chance for the coach to have proof of concept. To grow the belief — both inside his locker room and around the country — that the strength of this U.S. team is found in the collective. That the U.S. can gain nothing competitively by winning is to lose sight of Pochettino’s bigger picture.“You have the quality and you have the capacity to face any team and challenge (them),” Pochettino said that night in Tampa. “And then (the job is) to make history, to make memories, to achieve our dreams.”Two games into the World Cup, they’re taking steps toward those dreams. Don’t expect Pochettino to change now.