IRVINE, Calif.— In 2024, Mauricio Pochettino was looking for a job.With a resume like his, it was not going to be difficult: As a defender, Pochettino played in major professional soccer leagues in Spain and France, and represented the Argentinian national team at the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
Then, as a coach, he had managed some of Europe's most recognizable clubs — Tottenham Hotspur, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea — and worked with stars like Harry Kane, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé.By contrast, the U.S.head coaching job was seen by many in the soccer world as a step down in prestige.For decades, the U.S.
has been the supposed "sleeping giant" of international soccer that could never seem to wake up — a country with the population and resources to compete with the powerhouses of the sport in Europe and South America but lacking the culture to do so.The 2026 World Cup, hosted on home soil, represented a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take a big step toward changing that status quo.The stakes were through the roof, but the team was stumbling: In the summer of 2024, with less than two years to go before the World Cup, the squad was unceremoniously bounced from the Copa América, a disaster that led to the firing of the head coach.With the help of deep-pocketed donors, U.S.Soccer swung big and landed the big-name hot-shot coach whose resume was by far the most prestigious — and salary by far the highest — of anyone hired to the position.Yet it would not be simple to turn things around on such a short timeline.
Pochettino acknowledged as much in his introductory press conference, referring to the "amazing project and challenge that we have ahead."Once he arrived, Pochettino found the situation was worse than he had realized, he recently told reporters.Players did not seem ready or excited about the upcoming World Cup, and much work remained to identify new talent.Most worrying, he has said, was a culture of complacency among players, especially those ...