Mauricio Pochettino, the Builder the US Asked to Stay Until 2030

Mauricio Pochettino

Photo: Bryan Berlin / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Born	March 2, 1972 Santa Fe Province
Occupation	Footballer
Honours	Ligue 1 2021 · Coupe de France 2020 · Copa del Rey ×2 · Argentina Cup 1990 · Trophy of Champions
Individual awards	London Football Awards Manager of the Year · Trophée des Champions · Argentine Primera División Player of the Year

In Seattle, with Belgium pulling away and a home World Cup slipping out of reach, Mauricio Pochettino stood on the touchline looking, in NBC’s description, confused. Less than a month later, U.S. Soccer handed him a new contract anyway, longer than the first and wider in scope, with a brief that now reaches into youth development and coaching education. For a manager whose reputation rests on teams that came close, that signature is the twist: a federation asking the builder to stay for the finishing.

The builder label is not a compliment he invented. It follows him from Murphy, a farming town in Argentina’s Santa Fe province where his grandfather served as the local sheriff, which is where the nickname “El Sheriff” came from long before Spanish dressing rooms adopted it. He was born there and taken into Newell’s Old Boys in Rosario as a teenager, the club where Marcelo Bielsa was turning a group of local kids into league champions.

He played centre-back in that side, won the 1990–91 Argentine title with Newell’s and reached the 1992 Copa Libertadores final before moving to Espanyol in Barcelona, where he spent most of his career and lifted the Copa del Rey in 2000 and again in 2006. Paris Saint-Germain and Bordeaux filled the gap in between. He won 20 caps for Argentina, and the one moment English fans still replay came at the 2002 World Cup in Sapporo, when he clipped Michael Owen in the box and David Beckham scored the penalty that decided the match.

His coaching career began in a crisis. Espanyol gave him the first team in January 2009 to escape relegation; he kept them up and stayed almost four years, leaving in November 2012 with the side bottom of La Liga. Southampton took a chance on him two months later, while he was still taking press conferences through an interpreter. His high-pressing side finished eighth in 2013–14, level with the club’s best Premier League finish, and Tottenham Hotspur came calling.

The five years at Tottenham are the reason most people know his name. He turned Harry Kane from a loan-circuit striker into England’s centre-forward, gave Dele Alli his platform and made Son Heung-min a fixture of a side that pressed from the front. Spurs finished second in 2016–17, and in 2019 they reached the Champions League final after a comeback in Amsterdam against Ajax that still gets replayed. Liverpool beat them 2–0 in Madrid. Five months later, with the team 14th, he was sacked.

Paris Saint-Germain followed, and with it the only major trophies of his coaching career: the Trophée des Champions, the 2020–21 Coupe de France and the 2021–22 Ligue 1 title, won with Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Neymar in the squad. A single season at Chelsea in 2023–24 brought sixth place, a League Cup final lost to Liverpool in extra time and a departure by mutual agreement.

Read quickly, that record files him as the nearly man. Read slowly, it says something less comfortable. The titles came at the club where his influence over the squad was weakest, the near misses at the clubs he shaped most. The American job sharpened the question in its first year. In March 2025 Panama knocked his team out of the Nations League, and he called it a debacle. That June he left Christian Pulisic out of the friendlies before the Gold Cup after the forward had asked to skip the tournament itself, and defended the decision bluntly: “Players cannot dictate the plan,” he said, adding that he was the head coach, “not a mannequin.” Pulisic said anyone questioning his commitment was “way out of line.” His side lost both of those friendlies, to Turkey and Switzerland, and the Gold Cup final went to Mexico, 2–1.

The home World Cup answered part of it. The United States won Group D, opening with a 4–1 win over Paraguay in Los Angeles and beating Australia 2–0 before a rotated side lost 3–2 to Turkey. A 2–0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32 was the program’s first knockout victory since 2002, the World Cup at which Pochettino had played for Argentina. Three wins set a USMNT record for a coach at a single tournament. Then came Seattle on 6 July 2026: Charles De Ketelaere scored early, Malik Tillman equalized on 31 minutes, De Ketelaere struck again barely a minute later, and Belgium won 4–1.

On 3 August 2026 the federation extended his contract through 2030. His long-time assistants Jesús Pérez, Miguel D’Agostino and Toni Jiménez stay, and his son Sebastiano joined the staff as a fitness coach. The first window of the new cycle went four from four: Peru 4–1, Chile 4–2, Mexico 3–0 in Glendale and, on 6 October, Canada 1–0 in St. Paul, settled by a goal from 19-year-old Justin Ellis. Tyler Adams wears the armband now, and teenagers Cavan Sullivan and Mathis Albert have made their debuts. After the Canada match Pochettino said he was not happy simply because his team had won.

Now 54, born on 2 March 1972, he is married to Karina Grippaldi and holds both Argentine and Spanish citizenship. Their younger son, Maurizio, plays club football in Andorra for Inter Club d’Escaldes.

A Concacaf Nations League quarterfinal comes in November. The real deadline sits further out: the 2030 World Cup, the first finish line in his coaching life that was drawn specifically for him to reach.

Tags: sports, athletes, 2026 FIFA World Cup, football managers, Paris Saint-Germain, Harry Kane, Mauricio Pochettino, Tottenham Hotspur, Christian Pulisic, USMNT