Lionel Messi is helping to change American sports culture, says USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino
Lionel Messi joined Inter Miami in the summer of 2023 and immediately turned the club into one of the most popular in the world. That influence has also extended to Major League Soccer, which has since seen its overall level rise — as well as to sports culture across the United States. On that topic, USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino shared his thoughts.
“I think players like Messi are helping the kids,” Pochettino reflected during a recent interview with the BBC, discussing the Argentine star’s impact since his arrival in the U.S. “Not only do kids want to play basketball or American football or baseball, they now want to play soccer too.”
Indeed, Messi has helped MLS grow significantly in terms of quality and global visibility. Other major soccer stars have followed his path from Europe to the U.S., including Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez, Jordi Alba, Rodrigo De Paul, Heung-min Son, Hirving Lozano, and Thomas Muller.
That growth has been reflected in the league’s popularity as well. “MLS averaged 3.7 million gross live match viewers per week across streaming and linear platforms — a 29% increase over 2024,” the league revealed in a report published recently on its official website.
The same trend can be seen in stadiums across the country. The 2025 season has recorded the second-highest total attendance in MLS history, with 11.2 million fans overall and an average of nearly 22,000 per match. “Total MLS attendance has increased 12% since 2022,” the same report stated.
Pochettino knows Messi well
Mauricio Pochettino not only brings vast experience as both a player and a coach, but he can also speak about Messi with authority — having worked directly with him for a season at Paris Saint-Germain.
In fact, Pochettino was PSG’s head coach in the summer of 2021, when Messi left Barcelona to begin his journey in Ligue 1. They shared the 2021–22 campaign, during which they won the domestic title, although the club’s elimination in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 against Real Madrid led to Pochettino’s departure the following summer.
Pochettino on the challenges of American soccer
Despite the major progress seen in recent years, Mauricio Pochettino acknowledged that soccer in the United States still has a long way to go before it can compete with other major footballing nations. “Sometimes you feel that people don’t understand too much,” he said in the same BBC interview.
“You find some coaches that say, ‘Oh, you need to know the culture of the American player.’ I say, ‘No, I know the most important thing — the culture of football and soccer.’ We need to translate the culture of football to the American player,” Pochettino explained.
Reflecting on his first season in charge of the USMNT, the Argentine coach was candid. “I think after one year we are making great progress,” Mauricio said. “We are building ideas with people who understand that the language of football is only one — and it doesn’t matter if you are American, Brazilian or English. Our football is about competing in the way you need to compete if you want to win.”