While Germany were falling apart in a penalty shootout — four players reportedly refusing to step up, leaving Jonathan Tah to take a kick he'd never attempted professionally and miss it — Mauricio Pochettino was being asked how the USMNT approach the same situation. The contrast couldn't be sharper.
"It is going to be the coaching staff's decision, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5," Pochettino said. "We try to arrive in this moment and not ask the player if he feels confident or not confident." That's not just a philosophical preference. It's a direct rejection of the approach that cost Germany their World Cup.
Two companies, 18 months, and brainwave tracking
US Soccer confirmed that Pochettino's staff formed a working group 18 months ago specifically to improve performance on set pieces and penalties. They brought in two outside companies: Neuro11, which uses real-time EEG brainwave tracking to study how players respond under pressure, and Trackman, which applies radar and sensor data to analyze ball movement in granular detail.
This isn't a last-minute panic response to watching the Netherlands and Germany get eliminated on Monday. This has been built over a year and a half. The penalty sessions are now a standard part of training, and several US players watched Monday's shootouts as a group — studying, not just spectating.
The USMNT have never been in a World Cup penalty shootout. Their penalty history at major tournaments is almost blank, with Brad Friedel's save against South Korea in 2002 the one moment worth referencing. So there's no trauma to overcome, but also no real experience to lean on. That's where the preparation becomes the thing.
Who actually takes them?
Christian Pulisic leads the list on form and track record. Seven senior international attempts, zero misses. Rarely missed at club level with Milan either. Ricardo Pepi hasn't missed a penalty since leaving MLS in 2022. Haji Wright has converted 17 of 19 over the past seven years. Folarin Balogun has experience from club football. That's a credible top four right there.
"It is an extremely hard thing to do, go up and take penalties," Pulisic said. "For the people who go up and shoot it takes a lot of courage." He's not wrong — but he's also one of the few on this squad who's genuinely equipped for it.
Further down the order, it gets thinner. Defender Chris Richards laughed off the question entirely. "I'm a defender for a reason, man." That honesty is refreshing, and also a reminder that if the US end up in a shootout against Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday and it goes deep into sudden death, the margin for error evaporates fast.
Pulisic dismissed the idea that watching Monday's chaos — the stutter steps, the posts, the dragged shots across the body — would change anything about his own technique. "I don't think you watch and can take so much away, or try and change your style in one day." At this stage of a tournament, he's right. Wholesale changes to penalty mechanics the night before a knockout game is how you manufacture a miss.
Germany had no plan. The US have had one for 18 months. Whether it holds up under actual tournament pressure is a different question — but the preparation gap between these two teams on this specific issue is not small.
