The U.S. men’s national soccer team received a huge boost Thursday when Mauricio Pochettino agreed to become its next head coach.
Pochettino, who would replace Gregg Berhalter, agreed to a deal with U.S. Soccer, the sport’s governing body in the United States, according to people familiar with the situation. Pochettino has never managed at the international level, but he is a respected coach in the club game.
This is a big-name arrival ahead of the 2026 World Cup, which the United States will host with Canada and Mexico. The bulk of the games will be in the United States, including all matches from the quarterfinals onward.
Who, exactly, is Mauricio Pochettino?
Pochettino, 52, of Argentina, is considered one of the best managers in European soccer.
As a player, he was a competitive center back, leaving his native Argentina at age 22 to play for Espanyol in Barcelona, Spain, before stints in France with Paris St.-Germain and Bordeaux. He returned to Espanyol to finish his playing career. He played for Argentina at the 2002 World Cup, and won 20 caps overall.
Pochettino also started his coaching career at Espanyol, in 2009, earning a reputation for playing brave high-pressing soccer with young players, turning the fortunes of the team around and saving it from relegation to Spain’s second division. His next job was at Southampton in England’s Premier League in 2013, where he took the team to new heights with his energetic style of play. Then he stepped up to Tottenham Hotspur the next year and oversaw its greatest sustained run of the modern era, finishing third, second and third in the Premier League in successive seasons as well as getting to the final of the 2018-19 Champions League.
Since then, Pochettino has managed PSG, winning a French Cup and a Ligue 1 title, and then spent last season as Chelsea’s head coach. He guided that team to sixth place in the Premier League.
How big is this for the US team?
It is huge to land one of the best coaches from the club game to manage the men’s national team.
The closest comparison might be Jürgen Klinsmann, a former Germany striker who coached the men’s team from 2011 to 2016, but Pochettino comes to the job with far more of a track record in European club soccer management than he did. Klinsmann had only one disappointing season at Bayern Munich (2008-09) before he got the U.S. job, as well as taking host Germany to the semifinals of the 2006 World Cup.
Pochettino, by contrast, has been one of the most impressive coaches in the European club game for the past 15 years. What he did at Tottenham remains one of the best-sustained spells of management in recent years, even if it did not end up with any trophies.
Why would Pochettino take an international job?
Pochettino has always been a romantic with a love for the game’s history.
He knows the World Cup is the pinnacle of the game. He remembers as a boy watching Argentina win the 1978 (as host) and 1986 World Cups, the latter of which made Diego Maradona his hero for life. He is proud of playing in the 2002 World Cup, even if he is remembered by some for giving away the deciding penalty in a 1-0 group-stage loss against England — he still has a photo of that dubious foul he committed on Michael Owen, signed by the England striker, on a wall at home.
What about club soccer?
Since being sacked by Tottenham in November 2019 after it began that season poorly, Pochettino has worked for two of the wealthiest clubs in Europe: PSG and Chelsea.
In Paris, he got to manage Neymar, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé, one of the highest-quality front lines ever assembled at club level. Ultimately, he performed in line with most PSG coaches, both before him and after him, and was released at the end of the 2021-22 season.
He was brought in at Chelsea last summer to impose a new style of soccer onto their oversize squad, and after a tough start, he got there in the end, setting the team up for a great finish to the season (it won its final five matches, scoring 14 goals) and winning over fans who had doubted him at the beginning because of his connections to London rival Tottenham. In the end, he left Chelsea in June with his reputation improved.
But the two experiences were difficult at points because of internal politics. European club soccer is in a strange place now, with not many clubs offering their managers the chance to build something.
That would be part of the attraction of taking a different challenge with the U.S. men’s team.
What kind of soccer does he play?
Pochettino has tried to get his teams to play an aggressive, high-pressing style.
It is a positional game, focused on maintaining a good structure in and out of possession, so the players are in the right places to win the ball back quickly — ideally within three seconds — whenever his team loses it. He wants his sides to dominate the ball and defend high up the field.
At its best, a Pochettino team is physically relentless, powerful and dominant, not giving the opposition any room to breathe.
How will he deal with scrutiny?
Pochettino is used to the news media spotlight, especially after those spells at PSG and Chelsea. But international soccer is different. There will be less daily attention, but there will be times when he has the eyes of hundreds of millions of Americans on him. They are unlikely to be forgiving if they feel the team is not heading in the right direction as the 2026 World Cup looms larger.
But that is also part of the attraction, given what a huge event it will be in two years. Coaching that team in its home World Cup, in front of 70,000 people for its opening group-stage match at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, on June 12, 2026, will be the equivalent of standing in front of the eyes of the whole world.
Does it matter that he is not an American?
The team has had non-American coaches before, and not just Klinsmann. There was Bora Milutinovic of Serbia in the early 1990s, the last time the United States staged the World Cup. Men from Poland, Greece, Britain and more have had the job. There is no reason that nationality should be a barrier to Pochettino in the role. He has worked for three Premier League clubs, and although he initially had an interpreter at Southampton, his English is now good enough to work in the United States.
The most important thing will be to demonstrate a commitment to U.S. Soccer. He will also need a deep knowledge of the players at his disposal, whether they play in MLS, Europe or elsewhere. This will mean lots of hard work, and air miles, getting to know them all.
How much does this improve the US team’s chances at the 2026 World Cup?
Making predictions about international tournaments is almost impossible, given how fine the margins are between success and failure at that level. But Pochettino will bring fresh ideas, energy and proven methods to the U.S. job, as well as a sense of confidence and optimism the country can feed on.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2024 The New York Times Company