Mauricio Pochettino has officially signed a two-year agreement to be the next manager of the United States men’s national team through the 2026 World Cup.
The announcement was made just before the USMNT’s 1-1 draw against New Zealand Tuesday night. The result follows up a similarly disappointing 2-1 loss to Canada on Saturday, showing Pochettino that he has plenty to work on for the next matches in October.
First reports of an agreement being made between the two was posted on X by Fabrizio Romano on August 15, just over a month after former manager Greg Berhalter was sacked.
The extended time between the initial report and the official announcement has given time for the concept of this partnership to be digested, but the verdict is still up in the air.
Mismatch Made in Heaven
The pairing seems to generate more confusion than anything. Both sides are coming in with plenty of turbulence, and any amount of optimism feels more from the fact that it’s not Berhalter anymore than any real excitement for Pochettino.
Pochettino comes to the job with an intriguing CV. While he first made waves with Southampton in 2013, his real breakout was his time in charge of Tottenham Hotspur.
His early success led him to being part of two vastly different projects between PSG and Chelsea. Disappointing results with both the Parisian superteam and the West London lottery system has cast a lot of doubt on whether Pochettino can find the consistency he found early on and push it to tangible success.
In comes the USMNT, fresh off their own arduous journey. They squeaked out a Round of 16 finish in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a bounce back from failing to qualify for the previous iteration of the tournament in 2018.
Since then, they finished 4th in the CONCACAF Gold Cup summer of 2023 and stumbled out of the group stage in this summer’s Copa America. All to say, not a time of glory.
The results have shown that the team doesn’t deserve the lofted ratings and expectations placed upon it, which is what makes this new era so intriguing. Both parties are coming into the arrangement knowing that they need to improve the connotation of their respective names in their respective conversations.
Pochettino proved before that he can make a squad greater than the sum of its parts, but stumbled when given too many pieces. The USMNT has shown flashes of the quality this generation of players can promise, but are far too inconsistent and incongruous to compete at the level that everyone expects them to be at.
Both are imperfect, but they might fit together just enough to work out.
Looking Ahead
The terms of the deal make the objective outlook simple; let’s see how it goes from now through the World Cup. Automatic qualification through hosting takes a good amount of pressure off Pochettino, allowing him time to figure out and fine-tune his roster and system.
That being said, the timing is a bit awkward, as it’s more ideal to have the full four years between World Cups to prepare. The additional delay in making it official cuts Pochettino’s time to less than two years before kick off in 2026.
With that in mind, U.S. Soccer should treat this initial two year stint as a prologue rather than an audition.
Unfortunately, the fact that the U.S. is hosting the next World Cup means that American soccer fans and media alike will have inflated expectations for how the team will perform. Realistically, a quarterfinal appearance would be an overachievement. There is a lot to rebuild and it will take more than a full tournament cycle to figure it out.
Likewise, Pochettino is still a relatively young manager at 52, and has already shown the potential of becoming an all-time great. The environment he excelled in the most was a long term rebuild project.
The USMNT needs to come to terms with the level of quality they really have and understand what it will take to turn it around with Pochettino. I believe part of what it will take is more than four years of development.
