Mauricio Pochettino began his tenure as coach of the U.S. men's national team by saying his players should aspire to achieve as much as the American women.
“We are here because we want to win,” he said at his introductory press conference on Friday. “We have many examples at our side that we must follow.”
While the American men have not reached the World Cup quarterfinals since 2002 and have never won the sport's premier tournament, the American women have won four World Cups and five Olympic gold medals.
“We need to believe that we can win the World Cup,” he said.
Pochettino, a 52-year-old Argentine, will coach a national team for the first time, becoming the 10th American coach in 14 years and its first foreign-born leader since Jurgen Klinsmann from 2011 to 2016. He was hired to replace Gregg Berhalter, who was fired from his second stint on July 10, a week after the Americans were eliminated in the first round of the Copa America.
Emma Hayes, who coached at Chelsea before becoming coach of the U.S. women's team this year, helped recruit her former club colleague.
“I didn't have to ask her anything. She explained everything to me,” Pochettino said.
Dressed in a dark jacket, a white shirt with no tie and a pocket square, Pochettino was flanked by U.S. Soccer Federation president Cindy Parlow Cone, chief executive JT Batson and sporting director Matt Crocker, who knew Pochettino from their time together at Southampton a decade ago.
While some have proclaimed the current group to be the most talented the United States has ever produced, Pochettino was a bit more measured in his assessment, calling it a “very good generation of players.”
“We have to show that we play as a team on the pitch,” he said.
Pochettino arrived in the United States on Wednesday, a day after his deal was announced, and had dinner with American soccer stakeholders on Thursday night.
His press conference (on Friday the 13th, for those superstitious) was at a Warner Bros. Discovery screening room at 30 Hudson Yards, on the far west side of New York City’s Manhattan borough, just eight blocks from where Berhalter was introduced at Glasshouse Chelsea on December 4, 2018.
Pochettino managed Espanyol in Spain (2009–12); Southampton (2013–14), Tottenham (2014–19) and Chelsea (2023–24) in England; and Paris Saint-Germain in France (2021–22), leaving after winning a Ligue 1 title.
Pochettino has 637 days until the opening match of the World Cup of the Americas in Inglewood, California, on June 12, 2026. His first matches will be friendlies against Panama on Oct. 12 in Austin, Texas, and in Mexico three days later, and his first competitive matches will be in a Concacaf Nations League quarterfinal, two-legged tie in November.
Pochettino is likely to have his full squad available for just eight one-week training sessions before the team assembles ahead of the World Cup. The Americans are shorthanded in goal and central defense and have struggled to maintain discipline on the field.
