Mauricio Pochettino’s reign as United States manager was just a few days old when his players took a night off camp. The first squad of this new era gathered for a meal in Austin. It was all a bit last minute. It proved a bad omen.
‘We went out to some Mexican place,’ goalkeeper Zack Steffen recalls. ‘I can’t remember what it was called, but it was good.’
Pochettino’s players enjoyed some appetizers and then shared some bigger plates. A few days later, they were chewed up and spat out in Guadalajara.
It was only Pochettino’s second game in charge and that 2-0 defeat by rivals Mexico eroded some of the optimism that marked his arrival in the countdown to 2026.
Steffen was back home in Denver by then. The former Manchester City and Middlesbrough goalkeeper had returned to Colorado Rapids for rehab on a minor injury. But he was back in the fold after a tough couple of years which saw him lose his No 1 spot and then miss both the 2022 World Cup and Copa America.
‘I had definitely missed the brotherhood and the bonds that I created with all those guys,’ he says. ‘It was great to reconnect with those guys and just catch up… because some most of them have kids now. And I have a kid.’
So the locker room conversations are a bit different these days. ‘For sure – we’re all grown up,’ Steffen jokes. Life under Pochettino isn’t the same as before, either. Sessions are longer and the standards had shifted, too.
‘Of course it was his first camp. So everybody was going a million miles per hour trying to impress,’ the goalkeeper says. ‘With Gregg (Berhalter, sessions) were still tough, but it was more tactical and more controlled.’
Pochettino was all about reps, making new habits second nature. Before long, the Texas heat and humidity was ‘eating’ players up. Steffen survived and he returned this month as Pochettino’s tenure clicked into gear with back-to-back victories over Jamaica.
He is still awaiting the chance to earn a 30th international cap. But his return to the USMNT squad is reward for reviving a career that had threatened to spiral.
A few years ago, Steffen was struggling for games and he was struggling to get out of bed. ‘I didn’t look forward to training. I didn’t look forward to games… I was just depressed,’ he says. ‘I was very lethargic and down. I just wasn’t myself. I was quiet… it was tough.’
No matter that Steffen was playing for Manchester City, under Pep Guardiola. His mental health deteriorated to the point where, in June 2022, the goalkeeper skipped training camp and four World Cup warmup games. ‘I needed to seek some help,’ Steffen says. He did and now, through therapy and a change of scenery, the 29-year-old is reborn.
‘It’s night and day,’ he says. Steffen has shone since moving back to MLS. He now spends his time off exploring the lakes and mountains of Colorado. And building his VOYCENOW foundation.
Set up in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the venture has given Steffen new purpose and helped transform the lives of young people around the United States.
The foundation recently donated $20,000 to help Florida boys’ and girls’ clubs struggling after Hurricane Milton.
‘I’m at a time in my life where I’m able to give back and be a role model for kids and give kids some hope that they can walk in my shoes some one day, or they can do whatever they want,’ he says.
The hope for Steffen – now a father to a young daughter – is that he will make the difference for America on the field, too. A home World Cup is just around the corner and the early signs from Pochettino are encouraging. ‘You can really go talk to him about anything. He’s an open book,’ Steffen says.
Pochettino has added a South American flavor to the USMNT and down in Florida another Argentinean is trying to take over MLS.
Lionel Messi failed to lead Inter Miami to the championship but Steffen needed only a few minutes on the same field to witness his electrifying presence.
‘It’s crazy, bro,’ he says. Messi sat on the bench for the first half of Colorado’s meeting with Miami in June. None of Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez or Jordi Alba started either. The result? ‘We killed them,’ he says.
Then Messi came on and scored a few minutes later. ‘Dude the demeanor of the fans, the demeanor of the team… they were just a totally different f***ing team. It was f***ing wild.’
There is, really, only one other figure he has come across who had such a magnetic hold on those around him: Guardiola.
Steffen joined City from Columbus Crew in the summer of 2019 and only left the Premier League champions in January.
‘He just wants his players to be brave and have courage,’ the goalkeeper explains. ‘No fear… no doubts.’
Steffen adds: ‘He didn’t care if we lost 3-0 and we played like that. He would rather that than we (win but are) timid and scared, and don’t have the balls.’
The goalkeeper can still remember his baptism of fire. It came after Steffen returned to City in the summer of 2020 following a loan spell at Fortuna Dusseldorf.
‘Dude, the first couple of months,’ he says. Nothing in MLS or Germany had prepared him for the shooting drills. ‘The placement… the consistency,’ he continues.
But Guardiola’s genius lay elsewhere. ‘What Pep demands is that we support each other… through the ups and the downs,’ he says.
‘And that’s ultimately how you create f***ing machines. And that’s what they are -machines doing it, f***ing every game.’
For Steffen, though, that same period – the pandemic and the lockdowns and the distance from his family – sent him to a darker place.
‘I grew up with a with an absent father,’ says Steffen. His mom watched her father die in front of her when she was young. But she never let that trauma show.
‘So throughout my whole life I’ve just kept in a lot of different things, and it finally boiled over.’ Now, with the help of a life coach, ‘I’ve just been working on trying to love myself.’
Meanwhile, with the help of Pochettino, the USMNT is learning to believe in themselves, too.
‘He’s just so calm,’ Steffen says. ‘And that will continue to be passed down to us players from him and his coaching staff – the belief and confidence, and the slight arrogance you have to have when those tournaments and games come.’
