If you can't get Jurgen Klopp, you could do a lot worse than hiring the guy he beat in the 2019 Champions League final.
Exactly two months after firing Gregg Berhalter due to the U.S. men's national team crashing out of the group stage of Copa América, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced on Tuesday the hiring of Mauricio Pochettino as the USMNT's new manager. The deal has him at the helm through the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted on American soil.
Yes, U.S. Soccer hired that Pochettino: the former manager of Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, and Tottenham Hotspur. There is no need for nuance: Pochettino is -- by far -- the most accomplished manager ever to coach the USMNT. In fact, there's a pretty good argument to be made that he's the most accomplished manager coaching a national team, anywhere, right now.
Pochettino has been successful, to varying degrees, at nearly every club he has coached, and along with Klopp, he ushered in a new high-pressing tactical era to the Premier League that helped reestablish the league as the most competitive in the world. Some coaches can implement a clear style of play; others can make their teams better. Pochettino has a long track record of doing both, and doing it at the highest levels of the sport.
In terms of realistic coaching options for the U.S. men's national team, Pochettino is as good as it gets. But given how tricky it is to identify and project managerial skill from situation to situation, there's no guarantee that it'll work out. So let's dig into to the questions: How did U.S. Soccer land on Poch, and what makes him such a good hire? And why might it still fail?
