For Mauricio Pochettino, it all comes down to human connections.
That is how he sees the world, sees football, and sees his own role in it. All of the best work of his career has been built on that foundation; making players work together, making fans believe in the team, trying to leave a legacy bigger than just wins and losses.
That is how Pochettino wants to look back at his summer, when he took the United States to the last 16 of their home World Cup, invigorating a football nation, before it all ended acrimoniously.
It is why Pochettino says he recommitted to the job, signing a new four-year contract, to repay the trust he feels from U.S. Soccer, and from the American public. There was some surprise in September 2024 — four months after he left Chelsea — when Pochettino was announced as the new head coach of the U.S. side. Before then all five of his jobs were in club football.
But he was recruited, after a huge effort by U.S. Soccer, to take the team into the World Cup. When Pochettino signed that contract, as he explained in detail to reporters in central London earlier this week, he knew that he was fully committed until after the tournament. He wanted to be a man of his word.
“When we gave our word to the federation, it was about starting and finishing, after the World Cup,” Pochettino said. “For us, it was impossible to think about coming back, or going to another club. Because we received some calls from different clubs. But we cannot go away. First, because we didn’t want to go. But in the moment I think it wasn’t right for us to create all these situations and expectations.”
Pochettino is determined to keep the good feelings from the summer going. It was because of that sense of trust and human connection that he decided, against expectations, to sign a new deal last month. It had widely been assumed he would return to the club game this summer instead.
“The one thing that changed our mind: the people,” Pochettino said. “The human beings in the federation.” Even before the World Cup kicked off, the U.S. Soccer board offered him a new deal as a sign of trust in his work. As Pochettino tells it, they respected the fact that he gave them his word and stayed, even when he was attracting interest from the club game. “This type of people, I like to be with them.” Even Pochettino did not expect to generate this much enthusiasm from players and fans, but now he wants to build on it.
Pochettino still clearly values his unique bond with Tottenham Hotspur fans, a relationship that means the world to him. But you can detect some of the same sense of pride when he talks about his bond with the fans Stateside. The way his team played in the World Cup, especially in those thrilling wins over Paraguay, Australia and Bosnia and Herzogovina, was integral to generating a sense of public momentum behind his team. Pochettino feels that his team helped to “change the view” of the American public, to feel that soccer is no longer “a boring game.”
“I think, through our messaging for nearly two years, people started to buy that this is completely different,” he said. “You can feel proud to be American, to show your flag, your country. It’s a sport that is about being brave. We started to provide them the possibility to see that sport in a different way. They started to see in a different way, they started to buy the idea. Amazing.”
The U.S. campaign ended in controversy and disappointment, though, with Folarin Balogun’s overturned suspension dominating the build-up to the last-16 game, in which Belgium was clearly the superior side. Pochettino denied again that it was why the U.S. lost. “What I don’t like is to put an excuse,” he said, “Belgium was much better.”
This is a delicate political matter, and Pochettino acknowledged that it was a “rare” and “unique” situation, but pointed out that this was not the only time FIFA overturned a suspension for this World Cup. Cristiano Ronaldo got the same treatment, too.
But there is now a chance to start fresh, with plenty to play for over the next four years. There will be a Concacaf Gold Cup next year and potentially a Copa America the year after, which would help to fill the buildup to the 2030 World Cup. But Pochettino also made clear that while his first contract, leading up to this summer, was unbreakable, this situation is slightly different.
Simply put, there are circumstances under which he could leave between now and June 2030.
“Now it’s a four-year contract, it’s different,” Pochettino said. “We can next season lose the Copa America, or the Gold Cup, and they’re not happy with us, they can sack us. Or we can say ‘OK, it’s not the way that we think.’ Four years is different. Maybe now if someone calls in the future, it’s a different type (of situation). We are excited, we are thinking to spend four years, to the next World Cup. But now it’s a long period.”
But before any of that, Pochettino is ready for the USMNT’s four high-interest friendlies this forthcoming international break, against Peru, Chile, Mexico and Canada. It already feels very different from Pochettino’s start in the job, when it was a struggle to always get U.S. fans into home games. But this was always part of the attraction, “to make history, to change football there.”
After so much time working in club football, this is why the international game is so appealing. “It’s more pure,” Pochettino said, because the players are more motivated and less distracted. “The players are not toxic, they come because they want to enjoy, they want to enjoy, they don’t have time to become upset or disappointed.” And for Pochettino, who sees himself as a manager born in an analogue era, now working in a digital one, it allows him to build those human relations, to work on the chemistry of football, that means so much to him.
While Pochettino and his staff were working hard to prepare the U.S. for the World Cup, Tottenham, the club closest to his heart, was in crisis. The appointment of Thomas Frank had not worked and Spurs were, in the winter and spring of last season, heading for relegation. For many fans, Pochettino was the saviour, the king over the water, and his name was often sung last season, including during Frank’s final game, a 2-1 defeat to Newcastle United in February.
There have been various points in recent years when it felt as if a Pochettino return to Tottenham might happen. Perhaps the closest was in May 2021, when there was a push at Spurs to bring him back, only for PSG to say no, just six months after Pochettino started there. Then two years later, after Pochettino had left PSG but before he signed for Chelsea, there was plenty of public enthusiasm for him to return, but no approach from Spurs chairman Daniel Levy. And then most recently earlier this year, when Pochettino says that he got a call about the Tottenham job, but at a moment when his full focus was on the World Cup. There was never any prospect of his walking out before the tournament.
“The problem was that the timings were never the best,” Pochettino said. “When I was free, I never received a contact. And then when I was working, I received a contact, but I cannot make the decision to come back. It was a little bit unlucky. Maybe one day the stars will align, and it can happen. But the problem was that when we wanted and we were free, we didn’t receive the approach. When we were working, we received the approach.”
In the end, Spurs sacked Frank in February, tried and failed to get Roberto De Zerbi, appointed Igor Tudor and then sacked him when De Zerbi became persuadable to take the job. And the only way to get someone of De Zerbi’s calibre was with a five-year contract. “They were under pressure to bring another coach, to give him the possibility to stay for a long period like happened with De Zerbi,” Pochettino explained. “It was an obvious situation.”
Pochettino joked that there was nothing special about him getting a call. “In this moment they called everyone, they called all the coaches! Free and not free!” But when De Zerbi signed that deal in March, the prospect of Pochettino taking over even after the World Cup was gone. But Pochettino leaves no doubt that he would have been delighted to take over had he not been committed to the U.S. “If I was free, of course I come,” he said. “But I wasn’t free, I was preparing for the World Cup.”
During this period of uncertainty there was a question about what Spurs would do if they were relegated, and who might manage them in the Championship. In the end it remained a hypothetical. But Pochettino does not mind this sort of speculation, and he jumped at the chance to clear it up. So would he have taken it in the second tier? “Yes of course,” he said. “It’s the only club that always I am open to help. Whatever division. Another club, no. But Tottenham, yes.”
Clearly that connection for Pochettino is as strong as ever. (That in part is why he believes that Tottenham ought to be awarded the 2016-17 Premier League title, given Chelsea’s breaches of rules over payments between 2009 and 2022.) But he also knows Tottenham is a very different place from the club he left in 2019. In part because Levy, who ran everything at Spurs throughout Pochettino’s tenure, was dismissed one year ago. Pochettino and Levy are still close. And so it was with genuine kindness rather than any schadenfreude that Pochettino said that Levy must now know what it is like to be sacked, with the sudden switch-off that implies.
“Now he knows the feeling,” Pochettino said. “The way that I felt in this moment, that we felt, you receive the letter, you are sacked, pick up your things and you can never come back. And the people, maybe 200, 300 people that were your family, you cannot say goodbye, you cannot send a text, you cannot do nothing. That was really, really tough for me. I was talking with him about that. Of course I am not happy that now he feels the same. Because I am not a person who has bad feelings. I am so sorry for him and for everyone.”
The post-Levy changes at Tottenham led to the club embarking on their boldest transfer window, spending more money on fees and wages this summer than ever before. It is a far cry from the era during which Pochettino worked, when Tottenham famously did not sign a single player in the 2018 summer window. But Pochettino’s love for Tottenham, his enthusiasm for them to do well, means that he is pleased that De Zerbi has this opportunity to build the team that he wants.
“I am happy if Tottenham now have the possibility to spend and to bring proven players, who have already played in the Premier League,” he said. “It’s good for the club. Because after the last two or three years, what the club is trying to find, is to improve, and not suffer. Now it’s about performing. I am happy because I feel Tottenham. It’s still my club and I want the best for them. And if that happens, it’s good. I’d be so happy for the fans and for the people.”
