USMNT Manager Mauricio Pochettino Won’t Rule Out a Job Change

Despite signing a fresh, four-year contract with U.S. Soccer, the U.S. men’s national team manager is keeping his options open.

Mauricio Pochettino has a new four-year contract with the USMNT. | Alex Livesey/FIFA/Getty Images

Mauricio Pochettino may be standing at the helm of the U.S. men’s national team, having inked a fresh, four-year contract with U.S. Soccer just last month, yet he won’t shut down the idea of managing the England national team sometime in the future.

“Maybe, yes ... If you consider in a few years’ time, yes ... if I got an approach,” Pochettino toldThe Guardian this week, before adding that he was merely contemplating a potential future role. “[The] U.S. guys will kill me, if you say the headline is: ‘Mauricio will consider English job.’”

After leading the U.S. to the round of 16 at the 2026 World Cup, Pochettino re-signed with the federation to oversee the USMNT’s journey through the 2030 World Cup, while also taking on more responsibilities within the growth and development of U.S. Soccer’s youth pipeline and various programs.

This month, he will reunite the USMNT for the first time since the World Cup heartbreak and lead the team in the first games of the new quadrennial. He is expected to name his roster for the September-October international window on Sept. 17, picking the 26 men who will take the pitch in four international friendlies against Chile, Peru, Canada and Mexico. Pochettino intends to mix some burgeoning talents with veteran stars, in order to start establishing the new core that will eventually compete at the 2030 World Cup.

“We need to create a group of players that [is] professional and compete in the way that we expect that they need to compete,” Pochettino told U.S. Soccer. “With the talented players and young players that we have ahead, we need to be right and to work with the national team, with all the coaches, youth coaches, all the organization of the coaches ... to integrate in the best way.”

Should Pochettino see through his entire contract, he would become one of the longest-serving bosses in USMNT history and establish himself as just the second manager to lead the nation in two World Cups, after Bruce Arena led the 2002 quarterfinal run and group stage exit in 2006. 

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Argentina, England Tensions Highlighted

Mauricio Pochettino would face international controversy if he coached England. | Catherine Ivill/AMA/Getty Images

Having risen to prominence as Tottenham Hotspur manager from 2014 to 2019 before later taking over Chelsea (2023–24), Pochettino has established himself as a world-class manager in English soccer and worldwide. 

Nevertheless, an Argentine managing the England men’s national team would be an unfamiliar sight, as the team continues to adjust to German boss Thomas Tuchel, only the third non-Englishman to ever lead the team. 

It could also potentially be controversial for England to have an Argentine boss, especially after the 2026 World Cup reignited tensions between the two nations and led to a heated semifinal battle. 

After coming back to defeat England 2–1 in stoppage time, several of the Argentine players unfurled a banner reading, “Las Malvinas son Argentinas,” in reference to Argentinian efforts to claim the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory off the eastern coast of the South American nation that sparked a ten-week war in 1982.

Argentina held up a banner after the World Cup semifinal. | MI News/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Argentina was sanctioned by FIFA following the tournament, which included a $321,000 fine for “using a sports event as demonstrations of a non-sporting nature,” as well as other infractions from players. 

Pochettino understands the controversy his future appointment might stir up. “I am the first to feel for my people in Argentina, but at the end of the day it’s just football,” he said to The Guardian. “The World Cup semifinal was just one game of football, although people wanted to convert it to other subjects.

“It is true that it can be controversial because an Argentinian guy is thinking to maybe one day defend the flag of England, and we were involved in a war.”

“We are very similar, Argentinian and English people, in the way we feel the passion of football,” added Pochettino, who keeps his house in North London, despite his U.S. managerial duties.  “I love the countryside here, too. I think [the English] respect all the things that I also grew up with in my country.”

For now though, Pochettino’s focus remains on the USMNT, while Tuchel’s England look toward their own future, taking on champions Spain, as well as Croatia and Czechia in the fall international window. 

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