The United States men’s national team got egg on its face earlier this summer, as the team was eliminated from the Copa America on its home soil in the group stage. It was the sort of result that led to a change at the top of the program, as the decision was made to sack manager Gregg Berhalter, who was in his second stint at the helm.
After it was reported last week that former Tottenham, PSG, and Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino was a prime candidate for the position, on Wednesday night, reports began to trickle out that the federation made a decision, and planned on giving him the job. And in the early hours of Thursday morning in the U.S., David Ornstein of The Athletic, Fabrizio Romano, and Mark Ogden of ESPN all reported that a deal was done.
Hiring Pocchetino is a coup for US Soccer, which made a similarly gigantic move under its current leadership when its women’s team needed a new manager — the Federation hired revered Chelsea manager Emma Hayes, who just led the team to a gold medal at the Olympics. The Argentine is revered for the work that he did at Tottenham from 2014-19, when he was credited with developing some of the young talent that led them to its best period in recent history, which included a second-place finish in the Premier League in 2015-16, and an appearance in the Champions League final in 2019, their best ever result in the competition.
His times at PSG, where he was able to win Ligue 1 once, and Chelsea both ended with him getting sacked, although both are clubs that are known to fly through managers — his time coming to an end at Chelsea, in particular, came after the club showed progress under him during the latter portion of the Premier League season last year. Prior to his time with these three clubs, Pochettino managed Espanyol and Southampton, the latter of which paired him up with current US Soccer technical director Matt Crocker, who reports indicated wanted to hire a high-profile manager with European experience to fill the role.
Crocker managed to get exactly that in Pocchetino, and while he has no experience managing at the international level, he brings the exact sort of gravitas and profile that can lead the team into the 2026 World Cup, which the United States is going to host alongside Canada and Mexico. He’ll be tasked with getting the most out of a group of players that felt like it had plateaued under Berhalter. It’s fair to wonder how much of that was Berhalter’s fault — the club situations and the inability to stay healthy for a number of key players in the team were not exactly ideal — but there aren’t many things that are more results-based than international football, and the lead-up to Copa America mixed with the outcomes at the tournament itself spelled the end of Berhalter’s tenure.
Will Pochettino do any better? Who knows! He won’t have a ton of time with the players due to the way the international calendar shakes out between now and the World Cup, while the U.S. earns an automatic berth in 2026 as the host nation, which hurts the ability to play games with any sort of stakes. Regardless, if the goal was to hire a high-profile manager with a reputation for being one of the best in the world, US Soccer managed to do that. Now, he has to figure out how to get the team to a point where it can build on its 2022 World Cup result when the biggest tournament in the sport comes to the States.