SEATTLE — Mauricio Roberto Pochettino Trossero grew up on farmland in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, surrounded by cows on a multi-hundred-acre ranch, 200 miles west of Buenos Aires and a world away from America.Now, at age 54, he is America’s coach.He has led the U.S. men’s soccer team to the World Cup’s round of 16. He has endeared himself to an American public that has heeded his one-word commands: Dream. Believe.But then, as the son of a third-generation cattle farmer near the tiny town of Murphy (pop. 3,000), he knew the United States only as the foreign land whose dollar helped set the market price for livestock.Pochettino dealt with pigs and other chores on the family farm, “where Saturdays and Sundays don’t exist,” he once wrote. He’d watch his father toil ’til dusk, inhaling the ethos of hard work. Eventually, he grew from humble boy into soccer star, and the game took him everywhere — to Spain, to France, to England and beyond. But Argentina never left him. He’d find happiness and comfort in the smell of Argentinean wine. He still identified with the country’s fútbol culture.When he chose to take charge of the U.S. men’s national team in 2024, he was very much a foreigner. He continued to live in London and Barcelona. He had been to the U.S. on preseason tours with English clubs Tottenham and Chelsea, but he was largely unfamiliar with the country whose team he signed up to lead.And so, over the past 21 months, he learned it.He leaned into it.“It feels like he’s really in tune with it,” U.S. star Christian Pulisic said last month.From college football to country music, from “Country Roads” to Friday’s ceremonial first pitch at a Major League Baseball game, Pochettino has embraced some of the most quintessential — or stereotypical — aspects of American culture.And America, in return, has embraced him.Pochettino's lucky World Cup fitAn introduction to AmericaBefore Pochettino touched down at LaGuardia Airport in mid-September 2024, his impressions of the United States had developed as a visiting coach or from the outside. With Tottenham, he had been to Seattle and Chicago in 2014; to Denver in 2015; to Orlando, New Jersey and Nashville in 2017; and to Southern California then Minneapolis the following summer. He enjoyed the trips — the nice hotels, the glistening facilities — but he didn’t exactly know the country.He arrived in New York in 2024, sporting a BOSS hat and sunglasses, with eyes wide. He peered up at skyscrapers and snapped pictures. He popped into a Nike store. He rode through Manhattan in a midsize yellow cab and a black car. He met with businessmen.Then, after an introductory news conference, he flew back to Europe.His indoctrination was gradual and piecemeal. He’d come for training camps — the first was in Austin, the second in St. Louis — but those were largely consumed by work, by getting to know his players. It was other trips, before or in between camps, when he tiptoed into this love affair and got to know America.In December of 2024, while in Southern California for MLS Cup, he took in a Los Angeles Rams NFL game from the owner’s suite at SoFi Stadium — and ate a hot dog.He got and wore a Shellback Tavern hat — which has become something of a phenomenon among celebrities and others who visit the Manhattan Beach dive bar.On at least one occasion, he has eaten at Chick-fil-A; and in April of 2025, on a visit to Georgia, he got breakfast with Chick-fil-A chairman Dan Cathy.