Each teaching rent in sports activities represents a level of threat. That is very true in soccer, the place trendy managers are anticipated to fashion themselves as ideologues, imposing a definite tactical aesthetic. As such, the variance from one coach to a different tends to be larger than in most different sports activities, and so the implications of switching managers are additionally bigger.
However U.S. Soccer isn’t simply taking a bet by appointing the Argentine Mauricio Pochettino to succeed Gregg Berhalter as supervisor of the lads’s nationwide workforce, lower than two years earlier than a World Cup performed on dwelling soil. The federation has in actual fact pushed all its chips to the middle of the desk, paying Pochettino—who most lately coached European juggernauts Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, and Tottenham Hotspur—$6 million per 12 months, per ESPN, a a number of greater than any of his predecessors. He would be the highest-paid coach within the historical past of the nationwide workforce.
Pochettino is definitely probably the most pedigreed supervisor the USMNT has ever employed. Jürgen Klinsmann was a superb participant and, as a coach, led Germany to the 2006 World Cup semifinals, nevertheless it’s most likely truthful to say he was by no means famend as an elite tactician. He introduced pleasure to the U.S. program upon his hiring in 2011, however he by no means actually delivered on the hype. The eccentric Serb Bora Milutinović, tasked with guiding the U.S. on the 1994 World Cup—additionally performed stateside—was well-known, however as a peripatetic specialist in managing underdog nationwide groups. Pochettino is one thing else solely, an undisputed member of the worldwide teaching elite.
Even making an attempt for Pochettino was seen as an audacious attain for U.S. Soccer, and touchdown him is the teaching equal of when the New York Cosmos coaxed Pelé out of retirement in 1975 or the L.A. Galaxy bagged a still-in-his-prime David Beckham in 2007.
Pochettino identifies as a so-called Bielsista, a disciple of fellow Argentine Marcelo Bielsa—the influential and intense coach who additionally impressed Pep Guardiola, the foremost supervisor of his era. Earlier than Bielsa hit the massive time himself, he found a 13-year-old Pochettino, the son of a farmworker in rural Argentina. Because the story goes, Bielsa knocked on the Pochettinos’ door at 2 a.m. and demanded to see the sleeping boy’s legs, curious whether or not his limbs had the power and form of a footballer’s. When younger Mauricio awoke, he discovered he had been signed to play beneath Bielsa for Newell’s Previous Boys, a membership some 90 miles from dwelling. As knowledgeable, Pochettino spent a lot of his lengthy profession as a hard-nosed central defender at Espanyol, the place he would briefly reunite with Bielsa, who additionally introduced him to the 2002 World Cup when Bielsa was answerable for the Argentina nationwide workforce.
(Paradoxically, it was Bielsa’s Uruguay—sure, he has modified jobs fairly a bit—that knocked the U.S. out of the Copa América in July, thus dooming Berhalter and making a emptiness for Pochettino. Bielsa has additionally been linked with the U.S. job himself prior to now, however he doesn’t communicate English—an computerized deal-breaker for the federation.)
Bielsa’s hallmark is a system of suffocating urgent and attacking. Pochettino blended this philosophy with robust motivational abilities and a flourish of the occult. He has spoken of energía common (common vitality) and believes that if you happen to channel a “superior vitality,” you possibly can join with one thing that “makes you are feeling invincible.” That is reportedly why Pochettino stored a bowl of lemons in his workplace, to soak up unfavorable vitality.
In his first managerial job, Pochettino took over an Espanyol workforce on the verge of relegation in 2009 and put it on strong footing. Subsequent, at Southampton, he recorded the workforce’s highest-ever factors tally on the time within the Premier League. Then, he turned Tottenham Hotspur from serial underperformers into Premier League title contenders whereas additionally reaching the 2019 Champions League ultimate. 5 months after that sport, and after 5 years on the membership, he was fired resulting from a decline within the workforce’s efficiency. A little bit over a 12 months later, Pochettino joined Paris Saint-Germain, the place he managed Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Kylian Mbappé to a French league title. In the end, that wasn’t sufficient for an bold membership searching for to win its first Champions League trophy, and after 18 months, Pochettino’s identify was added to the lengthy listing of dismissed PSG managers.
In 2023, Chelsea tempted the supervisor again to the Premier League; the membership was determined for somebody to construct a cohesive squad out of an infinite, younger, and comically costly roster. After a turbulent begin to the marketing campaign, wherein Chelsea sat in tenth place on the midpoint of the season, Pochettino managed to coax some precise consistency out of the workforce. The membership received its ultimate 5 video games of the season and earned a decent sixth-place end, all issues thought of. After which, simply because it appeared Pochettino had lastly gotten the workforce to jell, he left after just one season. The coach and membership had clashed over recruitment technique, squad administration, and coaching strategies; his departure was described as being by “mutual consent.”
If that rundown of Pochettino’s profession exemplifies something, it’s that, for all his achievements, he doesn’t come with out query marks. Regardless of the massive groups he has coached, his trophy cupboard is naked—he has that lone Ligue 1 title and a pair of lesser trophies with PSG, whose monetary dominance over the French league all however ensures silverware. And he has but to educate within the worldwide sport, the place the stop-start cadence of competitors places such a premium on the time spent with gamers.
Pochettino drills his groups to press their opponents excessive up the sector, win the ball rapidly, and bomb ahead in assault. He likes to work with younger, energetic gamers, molding them in his strategies. And whereas his muscular model of soccer ought to swimsuit the athletic American participant pool, he might be severely hampered by time constraints. The form of depth and positional play Pochettino will little question look to copy with the U.S. takes limitless hours on the observe pitch to refine. It really works solely when 11 gamers transfer as a tightly organized unit slightly than as a cluster of careering projectiles. But the brand new head coach will doubtless have not more than 10 worldwide home windows—if that—to work along with his gamers, and far time in these camps might be misplaced to jet lag, restoration, and match preparation. Solely subsequent summer time’s 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup will give him an prolonged interval to work. After that, it’s on to the 2026 World Cup, the place he’ll be anticipated to subject a squad able to reaching the latter rounds of the primary 48-team event, delivering some form of crowning achievement to mark the USMNT’s plodding upward march. (The U.S. hasn’t featured within the semifinals because the inaugural, 13-team World Cup in 1930.)
In worldwide soccer, you possibly can’t merely purchase new gamers if those obtainable to you received’t do. Pochettino might be working with the identical expertise Berhalter did and should patch the identical gaps. For all of the upside on this still-youngish American workforce, and for all of the gamers energetic in Europe’s main leagues, few are distinction makers for his or her golf equipment. Christian Pulisic is, at current, the one standout participant on an elite European workforce. Tyler Adams has misplaced the previous season and a half to accidents. Weston McKennie has been forged onto the scrap heap as soon as extra at Juventus after he fought his method again into the lineup but once more final season. Gio Reyna, for all his presents, has but to reclaim the constant minutes which have eluded him at Borussia Dortmund since his breakout 2020-21 season. Goalkeeper Matt Turner doubtless received’t be the primary alternative at Nottingham Forest. We might go on like this for some time.
However then, Pochettino can even be constructing on what his predecessor put in place. Although their résumés aren’t fairly in the identical league, the 2 coaches aren’t all that completely different of their managerial types. Like Berhalter, Pochettino is taken into account a gamers’ coach who values tradition, communication, and workforce bonding; on that rating, a lot work has already been completed within the half decade beneath Berhalter. Even if you happen to’re beneath the impression that Berhalter didn’t do a lot proper—and he did an incredible many issues nicely, because it occurs—it’s laborious to disclaim that he constructed a good, younger workforce when he had inherited an previous and rancorous one. In that sense, Pochettino is hardly ranging from scratch.
When U.S. Soccer technical director Matt Crocker rehired Berhalter final summer time—when Crocker himself was simply months into the job—he spoke of an intensive, analytics-based hiring course of from which Berhalter emerged because the winner. That Berhalter was dismissed only a 12 months later should have been painful for each of them.
If each teaching rent is a threat, it is usually a response to the final coach. This time, Crocker appears to have merely chased after the largest names within the sport. After newly retired former Liverpool supervisor Jürgen Klopp turned U.S. Soccer down, Crocker didn’t should look a lot additional down the unstated managerial energy rankings to seek out his man.
This time round, U.S. Soccer went after probably the most well-known coach it might signal. Now, it’s going to hope for a payoff.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is an everyday contributor on soccer toThe Ringer.The Lengthy Recreation, his e-book on america males’s nationwide workforce, might be revealed by Viking Books forward of the 2026 World Cup. He teaches at Marist Faculty.
