INGLEWOOD, Calif. — The U.S. men’s national team received a presidential phone call of support on Thursday night, 24 hours before kicking off its World Cup against Paraguay.
Andrew Giuliani, the White House’s World Cup czar, was pictured in a 45-second video released on X by the men’s national team’s official account, taking a call from President Trump, who encouraged the team ahead of what will be arguably the biggest moment in its history.
Manager Mauricio Pochettino and captain Tim Ream are the only members of the team visible in the video, though Giuliani says that all 26 players are in the room before handing the phone off to Pochettino.
“I just called to say you’re a fantastic guy, a fantastic coach,” Trump tells Pochettino, who pulls a face after receiving the compliment. “I know about your record, your success and how great the players are. I think you’ve got a really good chance of going all the way so I just wish you a lot of luck.”
“Thank you so much for your support Mr. President,” Pochettino said. “We are going to do everything to make you proud and all the people here in this country.”
The video then cuts off, seemingly before the conversation ends.
Trump is not expected to attend the match on Friday night, though Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Paraguay’s president, Santiago Peña, will be at SoFi Stadium, renamed Los Angeles Stadium for the World Cup.
Though Trump has been highly visible in connection with the World Cup — FIFA president Gianni Infantino has become a frequent Oval Office visitor, and even showed up in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, when Trump was negotiating a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas — he’s not the first president to call the national team ahead of a World Cup.
Joe Biden did so in 2022, getting on FaceTime with then-coach Gregg Berhalter and encouraging the USMNT to “shock ‘em all.”
In 2014, Barack Obama called Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard to congratulate them after the tournament ended, saying they “did us proud” in a run that ended with a Round of 16 loss to Belgium.
And, though he was out of office at the time, Bill Clinton visited South Africa in 2010 to support the USMNT at that tournament, meeting with Nelson Mandela and expressing fondness for the vuvuzelas that provided a soundtrack for that tournament.
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