The USMNT erected blacked-out fences at their training base in Seattle – two weeks after Mauricio Pochettino said he was on the hunt for spies.
The United States face Belgium in a huge World Cup clash on Monday night, with a place in the quarterfinals on the line at Lumen Field.
The US is training at Husky Soccer Stadium at the University of Washington – just as Pochettino’s team did before facing Australia in Group D.
The day before that 2-0 win, the USMNT manager was spotted climbing a bank and filming the field on his phone.
When asked about it, he said: ‘I wanted to see because we are in an era of spies… it was a good opportunity to see.
Pochettino continued: ‘I was doing a video, not a picture, all around to share after with Jerry (head of security).
The USMNT erected blacked-out fences at their training base in Seattle over spying fears
The US is training at the University of Washington before playing Belgium in the last-16
It comes just two weeks after coach Mauricio Pochettino said he was on the hunt for spies
‘To share a little bit to see things like this. I only wanted that – to see how was the view from outside and [it] only was this.’
It is said the Argentine manager was only joking.
But on Saturday, the team erected five tarpaulin-covered fences ahead of training in an attempt to block any lines of sight of the field, having noticed some vulnerabilities.
Husky Soccer Stadium is surrounded by hills on one side, with many buildings overlooking the field.
The US has spent most of this World Cup in Southern California, where the team’s training base was encased by blacked-out fences and an exhaustive security operation.
It comes after a spying scandal recently rocked English football involving Southampton – one of Pochettino’s former teams – and Middlesbrough during the Championship playoffs.
Southampton were expelled from the playoffs after an analyst was caught filming their rivals’ training session.
At last year’s Gold Cup, meanwhile, Pochettino’s team had a brief security scare after an unaccounted-for drone was spotted in the skies over their HQ. It turned out to be a false alarm.
