The U.S. males’s nationwide soccer workforce obtained an enormous enhance on Thursday morning when Mauricio Pochettino agreed to change into their subsequent head coach.
The Athletic revealed that Pochettino, who had been a prime goal for the opening, had come to a cope with U.S. Soccer, the game’s governing physique. Pochettino has by no means managed at worldwide stage, however he’s a really well-respected identify within the membership recreation.
It is a big-name arrival forward of a males’s World Cup that the U.S. will co-host with neighbours Canada and Mexico in 2026, staging the majority of the video games together with all matches from the quarter-finals onwards. However simply who’s Pochettino? How a lot of a coup is that this? What’s his fashion of play?
Right here, The Athletic’s Jack Pitt-Brooke solutions every part you could know concerning the 52-year-old Argentinian.
So, who precisely is Mauricio Pochettino?
Mauricio Pochettino is taken into account among the best managers in European soccer.
As a participant, he was a really aggressive centre-back, leaving his native Argentina at age 22 to play for Barcelona-based Espanyol in Spain, earlier than transient spells in France with Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Bordeaux, then returning to Espanyol to complete his enjoying profession. He performed for Argentina on the 2002 World Cup, and gained 20 caps general.
Pochettino, left, enjoying for Espanyol (Luis Bagu/Getty Photos)
Pochettino additionally began his teaching profession at Espanyol, in 2009, incomes a fame for taking part in courageous high-pressing soccer with younger gamers, turning the fortunes of the workforce round and saving them from relegation to Spain’s second division. His subsequent job was at Southampton in England’s Premier League in 2013, the place he took the workforce to new heights along with his energetic fashion of play. Then he stepped as much as Tottenham Hotspur the next 12 months, the place he oversaw their biggest sustained run of the fashionable period, ending third, second and third within the Premier League in successive seasons, in addition to attending to the ultimate of the 2018-19 Champions League.
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Since then, Pochettino has managed PSG, profitable a French Cup and a Ligue 1 title, after which spent final season as Chelsea head coach, the place he guided them to sixth place within the Premier League, sufficient to qualify for European soccer within the coming marketing campaign, and into the Carabao Cup remaining.
How a lot of a coup is that this for the USMNT?
It’s enormous to land among the best coaches from the membership recreation to handle the lads’s nationwide workforce.
The closest comparability is likely to be Jurgen Klinsmann, the previous Germany striker who coached the USMNT from 2011 to 2016, however Pochettino involves the job with way more of a monitor file in European membership soccer administration than he did. Klinsmann had solely had one disappointing season at Bayern Munich (2008-09) earlier than he obtained the USA job, in addition to taking hosts Germany to the semi-finals of the 2006 World Cup.
Pochettino, in contrast, has been one of the vital spectacular coaches within the European membership recreation for the previous 15 years.
What he did at Tottenham stays one of many best-sustained spells of administration in recent times, even when it didn’t find yourself with them profitable any trophies.
Why would Pochettino take a world job?
Pochettino has at all times been a romantic with a love for the sport’s historical past.
He is aware of the World Cup is the top of the sport. He remembers as a boy watching Argentina win the 1978 (as hosts) and 1986 World Cups, the latter of which made Diego Maradona his hero for all times. He’s vastly happy with enjoying within the 2002 World Cup, even when he’s remembered by some for freely giving the deciding penalty in a 1-0 group-stage loss in opposition to England — he nonetheless has a photograph of that doubtful ‘foul’ he dedicated on Michael Owen, signed by the England striker, up on a wall at house.
Pochettino ‘fouling’ Owen on the 2002 World Cup (Alex Livesey/Getty Photos)
He advised me in an interview in 2022 how a lot the World Cup means to him. “You don’t take into consideration something, you don’t take into consideration cash, you assume solely to ship your finest, and to make the individuals pleased,” Pochettino mentioned. “As a result of very nicely your nation is behind you. The sensation is totally totally different from different competitions. That’s the reason the gamers really feel so totally different.”
Pochettino advised me he would “after all” need to handle in a World Cup at some point, and never essentially with Argentina, saying: “You by no means know what occurs. I’m open to every part.”
What about membership soccer?
Since being sacked by Tottenham in November 2019 after they started that season poorly, Pochettino has labored for 2 of the best profile and wealthiest golf equipment in Europe, PSG and Chelsea.
In Paris, he obtained to handle Neymar, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe, one of many highest-quality entrance traces ever assembled at membership stage. In the end, he carried out in step with most PSG coaches, each earlier than and after him, and was launched on the finish of the 2021-22 season.
He was introduced in at Chelsea final summer time to impose a brand new fashion of soccer onto their outsized squad and after a troublesome begin, he obtained there ultimately, setting them up for a terrific end to the season (they gained their remaining 5 matches, scoring 14 objectives) and profitable over followers who had doubted him originally due to his connections to London rivals Tottenham. In the long run, he left Chelsea in June along with his fame improved.
However each of those have been troublesome experiences at factors, with loads of inside politics to handle. European membership soccer is in an odd place proper now, with not many golf equipment providing their managers/head coaches the prospect to construct one thing.
That might be a part of the attraction of taking a really totally different problem with the USMNT.
What sort of soccer does he play?
All through his managerial profession, Pochettino has tried to get his groups enjoying a courageous, aggressive, high-pressing fashion.
It’s a positional recreation, centered on sustaining a very good construction out and in of possession, so the gamers are in the precise locations to win the ball again shortly — ideally inside three seconds — each time his workforce lose it. He desires his sides to dominate the ball and defend excessive up the pitch.
Pochettino’s Tottenham mastered this fashion of soccer, taking the north London membership to new heights.
At their finest, a Pochettino workforce are bodily relentless, highly effective and dominant, not giving the opposition any room to breathe. With PSG, it was not at all times potential to play precisely like this due to the big-name personnel up entrance who didn’t at all times need to press from the entrance. However within the second half of final season, Chelsea began to appear to be a Pochettino workforce, and the wins adopted.
Are these strategies suited to worldwide soccer?
Health work is vastly necessary to Pochettino and his teaching employees however the nature of the worldwide recreation is that coaches don’t get to work with their gamers for that lengthy. It’s more durable for them to enhance their gamers as people, one thing that Pochettino has at all times been massive on, throughout these quick intervals collectively earlier than they return to their golf equipment.
Pochettino along with his gamers at PSG (Franck Fife/AFP through Getty Photos)
One factor that has at all times been necessary to him has been bringing by means of younger gamers, proper from the time he was beginning at Espanyol after which Southampton.
When he was mentioned not so way back as a possible England supervisor, the purpose was made what number of of their present squad owe their profession to their improvement below Pochettino: Luke Shaw (Southampton), Harry Kane, Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier (Tottenham), Conor Gallagher and Cole Palmer (Chelsea). He’ll hope to develop the same technology of children now he has the USMNT job.
How will he cope with the scrutiny that comes with this function?
Pochettino is used to the media highlight, particularly after these spells at PSG and Chelsea. However worldwide soccer is totally different. There can be much less day-to-day consideration than his days at these golf equipment, definitely, however there can be occasions when Pochettino has the eyes of lots of of thousands and thousands of People on him. The U.S. public are unlikely to be forgiving in the event that they really feel the workforce usually are not on track as that 2026 World Cup looms bigger.
However that can also be a part of the attraction, given what an enormous occasion will probably be in two years’ time. Teaching that workforce of their house World Cup, in entrance of 70,000 individuals for his or her opening group-stage match at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on June 12, 2026 would be the equal of standing in entrance of the eyes of the entire world.
Does it matter he’s not an American?
The workforce had non-American coaches earlier than, and never simply Klinsmann. There was Bora Milutinovic, from Serbia, within the early Nineteen Nineties, the final time the U.S. staged the World Cup. Males from Poland, Greece, the UK and extra have additionally had the job. There isn’t any cause that nationality needs to be a barrier to Pochettino within the function. He has labored for 3 totally different Premier League golf equipment and whereas he initially had an interpreter at Southampton, his English is now definitely adequate to work within the States.
An important factor can be to reveal a dedication to U.S. soccer, and a deep data of all of the gamers at his disposal, whether or not they play in MLS, Europe or elsewhere. This may imply a number of laborious work, and air miles, attending to know all of them.
How a lot does this enhance USMNT’s possibilities on the 2026 World Cup?
It’s laborious to understand how confirmed membership managers will fare within the worldwide recreation. They’re successfully two totally different codecs of the identical sport.
Antonio Conte, a serial title winner at membership stage, improved Italy however may solely get them to the quarter-finals of Euro 2016. Luis Enrique had a terrific European Championship with Spain in 2021, reaching the semis, however they have been knocked out of the next 12 months’s World Cup within the spherical of 16 by Morocco. Hansi Flick gained the treble with Bayern in 2020 however couldn’t even get Germany out of the group in Qatar.
Making predictions about worldwide tournaments is nearly unattainable, given how high quality the margins are between success and failure at that stage. However we are able to say Pochettino will deliver contemporary concepts, vitality and confirmed strategies to the U.S. job, in addition to a way of confidence and optimism the entire nation can feed on.
(High photograph: Getty Photos; design: Eamonn Dalton)