Mauricio Pochettino asked the United States to believe in his project. Did he believe it himself? | USA

It didn’t take very long for United States men’s national team coach Mauricio Pochettino to make his first big swing.

He had just taken the reins of the program after a disastrous performance at the 2024 Copa América cost his predecessor his job, with the first home World Cup in three decades looming on the horizon. The federation presented it in New York, on the 24th floor of a building overlooking the Hudson River. Before long, he was asked about the culture surrounding the program. In his response, he mentioned the four-time American women’s world champion.

“We have to believe we can win,” Pochettino said that day in September 2024. “We can win not just a game: we can win the World Cup.”

It’s the type of belief that seems almost foreign to observers of the American men, the type of statement that American fans so long to hear from a coach but also roll their eyes at. For years, men’s soccer fans in the United States have been desperate for a taste of glory, and for years they have developed an inferiority complex spurred not only by results but also by international perception. Even today, with American players playing in Europe at the highest levels, the idea that the United States could win a men’s World Cup seems borderline absurd.

That never stopped Pochettino from adhering to his belief that the United States should believe it could pull off a miraculous run in 2026 and win it all. It was a mantra he returned to frequently while leading the team, publicly and privately, even in the weeks leading up to the tournament. Pochettino even told Donald Trump that the United States could win it all, perhaps by sowing the seeds of an assist turned into an own goal.

Belief is something that could attract even the most casual American fans, the type of newcomers whose previous experience with an American football coach came from Apple TV. Unfortunately for American fans, Pochettino’s actions never quite lived up to his inspiring speech.

There was a near constant stream of rumors linking Pochettino with English clubs, rumors which he never really did his best to quell even before linking him with the Manchester United job he has now accepted. In many ways this sort of thing is inevitable and understandable: bringing in a top manager and expecting peace and quiet is the footballing equivalent of dating a supermodel and expecting no one else to progress. Yet, too often, it felt as if Pochettino was the one stoking the fire; it wasn’t uncommon to wake up in the United States and find social media feeds filled with clips of the Argentine espousing the value of the Premier League and even floating the idea of ​​one day returning to it.

It was never really shocking or unexpected and was far from offensive. Professional sports are volatile, and players, coaches and administrators have every incentive to keep their options open and their bridges intact. Still, it was a little infuriating to hear someone being called upon to galvanize American players and fans ahead of a generational event: a home World Cup.

Pochettino also seemed frustrated at times by what had partly led him to contribute to change: the sometimes delicate place of American football in America itself. After losing the 2025 Gold Cup final to Mexico in Houston, he went out of his way to criticize the idea that the United States would play in front of a pro-Mexican home crowd, an issue that predates Pochettino by decades and may never be resolved even the most cursory research would have revealed before his arrival. He rightly criticized the lack of stakes in Major League Soccer and suggested that American players are coddled throughout their youth development while clashing with the media who dared to question the effects of a group stage loss to Turkey in this summer’s World Cup. In reality, he has faced far less pressure as head coach of the USMNT than in most other major soccer nations.

All this has too often left observers with the feeling that Pochettino was never truly convinced. But then there was the whiplash, which was palpable. As soon as it started to feel like that, there was another injection of dopamine – the United States demolishing Paraguay 4-1, for example, by far their best World Cup performance. And there was Poch, almost in tears and singing Country Roads, talking enthusiastically about America, American football and everything that goes with it. A few weeks later, they would suffer a 4–1 loss to Belgium in the round of 16, which will go down as one of the United States’ worst performances ever at a World Cup. Certainly the most traumatic.

Athletes and coaches hate being asked about their heritage in general. The question itself seems moribund, as if the person asked is about to ascend into the ether. Legacies are also tricky things: they often take years to materialize, and they are sometimes just as quickly erased by changes in perception or by the achievements of successors.

Pochettino doesn’t seem like the sort of person who would want to be asked about his heritage; he actually seems more like someone who would already have one in mind before leaving. Yet when the Guardian asked him on Friday to define his lasting impact, he struggled to do so at first. “I’m not arrogant,” Pochettino replied with a smile and a laugh. “Well, not arrogant enough. I’m a little arrogant.”

Finally, he gave in. Pochettino’s lasting impact, the coach said, was largely down to relationships, to doing things the right way, in his mind.

“The most valuable feeling we have is not a win or the fact that we contributed to the program,” he said. “It’s that relationship in the program – even when you cross the sea, you look and smile because I think you share the values ​​that are very important in life, more important than anything else. That’s our principle that we always respect.”

Pochettino has always thought broadly, ambitiously and implemented these visions during his career with varying degrees of success. In the United States, he arrived with varied objectives: to ensure a good performance at a home World Cup, to help change the perception of the game among the general public and to lay the foundations for long-term growth.

In a way, Pochettino has certainly succeeded. In others, he left the whole of American football wanting. It’s a fitting end for a coach who wanted so many people to believe him – but who might never have felt that way himself.