After a weeks-long wait, Mauricio Pochettino is finally, officially, the new head coach of the U.S. men’s national team.
U.S. Soccer announced the hire Tuesday evening, two days after the federation’s board of directors formally approved Pochettino’s contract, which will run through the 2026 World Cup.
Pochettino will not coach the USMNT in Tuesday’s friendly against New Zealand. But he will fly to the U.S. this week and appear at an introductory news conference in New York on Friday. He’ll then take charge of the team for the first time in October.
Why the Pochettino deal took so long to finalize
The announcement had been on hold nearly a month, ever since Pochettino reportedly decided to take the job on Aug. 14. U.S. Soccer executives spent that month involved in and waiting out negotiations with Pochettino’s camp, lawyers, and officials at Chelsea, the English Premier League club that parted ways with Pochettino in May after just one season.
Chelsea still owed him millions of dollars, for what would have been the second guaranteed year of his contract. The exact severance terms, and the exact nature of this summer’s negotiations, were unclear. But all sides eventually reached a deal, one that relieves Chelsea of a chunk of its remaining financial obligations, while also allowing U.S. Soccer to pay a less-than-full price for Pochettino.
The messy nature of the situation ultimately precluded Pochettino from making his USMNT coaching debut in September. But, according to reports, it never jeopardized his eventual appointment.
Pochettino will instead debut next month, when the U.S. plays friendlies against Panama (in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 12) and Mexico (in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Oct. 15).
Billionaire helps U.S. Soccer pay for Pochettino
U.S. Soccer did not release any specifics of Pochettino’s contract. But the federation did say in its release that “Pochettino’s appointment is supported in significant part by a philanthropic leadership gift” from Ken Griffin, a billionaire hedge fund manager and one of the 100 richest people in the world.
The release also revealed that “additional support has been provided” by Scott Goodwin, another hedge fund manager, plus “several commercial partners.”
Those financial contributions will likely help U.S. Soccer make Pochettino the highest-paid USMNT coach ever. He reportedly made upward of $10 million per year at his last two clubs, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain. His USMNT predecessor, Gregg Berhalter, made roughly $1.6 million annually. His USMNT salary will be somewhere in between those two numbers.
Pochettino’s résumé
Pochettino will also be the most accomplished coach to ever lead the USMNT. He succeeds Berhalter, whose only two previous head coaching jobs were at the helm of Swedish club Hammarby and Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew.
The 52-year-old Argentine will be compared to Jürgen Klinsmann, previously the biggest name to ever take the U.S. job. But Klinsmann was known primarily as a player; his only prior coaching gigs were short stints with the German national team and Bayern Munich. He was not a tactician. “He specialized in fluff and philosophical rhetoric,” former USMNT goalkeeper Tim Howard recently wrote. “But there was zero soccer.”
Pochettino, on the other hand, is very much a tactician. As a player, he spent most of his 17-year career in the center of defense for Spanish club Espanyol — which is where he began his coaching journey in 2009. He made his name, though, in England, first with Southampton in 2013, then with Tottenham Hotspur, which he took to a Champions League final and the upper echelons of the Premier League.
His five-plus years at Tottenham remain the peak of his coaching career. Since his sacking a few months into the 2019-20 season, he has taken charge of two more prestigious clubs, PSG and Chelsea; but failed to exceed expectations as he did at Spurs. He guided PSG to the semifinals of the Champions League, and to one French title, but departed after Round of 16 exits in both the Champions League and Coupe de France in 2021-22.
Before taking the Chelsea job last summer and after leaving in May, he was linked with other plum jobs, such as those at Real Madrid and Manchester United. But neither became available. Other top clubs, such as Bayern Munich, looked elsewhere.
So Pochettino was available when the USMNT flopped at Copa América, and Berhalter was fired, and U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker went looking for a signature hire.
How U.S. Soccer wooed Pochettino
Crocker, who’d overlapped with Pochettino at English club Southampton, reached out to his former colleague in July, and arranged a meeting with Pochettino and his right-hand man, assistant coach Jesús Perez, in Barcelona.
Crocker and U.S. Soccer CEO J.T. Batson flew to Spain to “outline the project.” The meeting, originally scheduled for two hours, lasted five. “It was a big sales pitch,” Crocker said in a Tuesday interview on TNT. “And I think we hooked him in from there.”
He was also impressed by Pochettino’s knowledge of the USMNT. “What was really interesting, straight away, is the questions he asked, the detailed questions, his understanding of the squad,” Crocker recalled. “He’d done his homework as well.” Pochettino and Perez, according to Crocker, “were just as quick to do a detailed presentation on our strengths, weaknesses, as we were.”
They continued speaking for weeks, and met again in person with Pochettino at least two more times, according to The Athletic. A week after the second of those two, in August, Pochettino agreed to take the job.
Pochettino, in a statement within Tuesday’s news release, said: “The decision to join U.S. Soccer wasn’t just about football for me; it’s about the journey that this team and this country are on. The energy, the passion, and the hunger to achieve something truly historic here — those are the things that inspired me. … I see a group of players full of talent and potential, and together, we’re going to build something special that the whole nation can be proud of.”
Pochettino’s USMNT staff
Pochettino will likely bring with him a core group of assistant coaches: Perez; Miguel D’Agostino, another assistant and also a former teammate; and Toni Jimenez, a goalkeeper coach. All three have followed Pochettino from Espanyol to Southampton, Tottenham, PSG and Chelsea. Sebastiano Pochettino, Mauricio’s oldest son, has also worked under him at Spurs, PSG and Chelsea as a fitness coach.
What those arrivals mean for the USMNT’s current staff is unclear. Berhalter’s top assistant, B.J. Callaghan, left shortly after the Copa América to take a head coaching job at Nashville SC. Mikey Varas, the interim coach, is reportedly in talks to became MLS expansion club San Diego FC’s first head coach. But entire departments of analysts and performance coaches remain in place, for now.
Pochettino’s USMNT work begins
Pochettino, meanwhile, will reportedly remain based in Europe outside of training camps. In recent years, many U.S. Soccer coaches have been required to move to Chicago, the site of the federation’s headquarters; but that requirement has been relaxed. Pochettino will apparently be allowed to spend most of his time overseas, in part due to his stature, in part because a vast majority of the USMNT’s players are now based in Europe as well.
He could meet some of them individually between now and his first training camp. And his work outside of camps could be critical. All told, between now and the USMNT’s 2026 World Cup opener, they will only be together as a group for around 120 days, at most — the equivalent of less than four months. They will have a few dozen legitimate, non-game-specific training sessions, and 20-25 games, mostly friendlies, to prepare for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: a World Cup on home soil.
