The good, the bad and the average possibilities when predicting Pochettino’s USMNT future

After months of speculation, Mauricio Pochettino was confirmed as the new manager of the United States men’s team earlier this month, signing a reported $6million deal to guide the Stars and Stripes into a World Cup they will co-host in 2026.

And now that the former Chelsea, Tottenham and Paris Saint-Germain boss has officially been in the job for a couple of weeks, work will be well underway for the 52-year-old as he draws up a two-year plan to mould the USNNT into contenders on the highest international stage.

With that in mind, we’ve dusted off our crystal ball to offer a glimpse into three potential futures for Pochettino’s US reign, mapping out what realistic success, failure and par for the course look like for the Argentinian.

Predicting Pochettino’s American Dream

The USMNT return to competitive action in mid-November against a yet-to-be-determined opponent in the quarter-finals of the CONCACAF Nations League.

Kept apart from the other seeded sides – Canada, Mexico and Panama – Pochettino has to wait for the conclusion of group-stage play to find out who he will first face as US boss. But with the pool of possibilities including the likes of Costa Rica, Jamaica and Guatemala, anything short of a comfortable passage to the last four would be a monumental shock.

And as the States have won the Nations League for the last two seasons and in three of the last four campaigns, any best-case scenario for Pochettino’s early reign has to see the USMNT cruise to another title; they’d likely see off Canada or Mexico in the final next March to restore confidence that was crushed by an embarrassing group-stage elimination at the Copa America on home soil in July.

A prestige Stateside friendly with England in 2025 has been mooted in recent weeks. A victory over the Euro 2024 finalists would rubber-stamp Pochettino’s US reclamation effort and show that the 2026 World Cup co-hosts are ready to rub shoulders with the elite of the international game.

And in July they’d secure a record-extending eighth triumph in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, a first win in the biennial tournament since 2021.

Now, let’s be real: the US are unlikely to win the World Cup in 2026. They say anything can happen in tournament football, but in 22 editions of the game’s grandest showpiece, only eight different nations have lifted the famous gold trophy. One of the usual suspects – Argentina, Spain, Brazil, Germany – will ensure that number stays the same in two years’ time.

But success for the States at their second-ever home World Cup doesn’t have to extend to the ultimate fairy-tale ending. Their stretch goal should be to replicate their best run in the tournament from almost a century ago, when they reached the semi-finals in Uruguay at the first-ever World Cup in 1930.

Lock down third place and get ready for President Pochettino in 2028. Four more years! Four more years!

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…and Nightmare
Given the way things have gone for the United States men’s team so far in 2024, failure is much easier to envisage for Pochettino’s side than top-end success.

The reasonable worst-case scenario would start with a Copa-esque upset elimination at the hands of a CONCACAF minnow in the Nations League.

Then, the visit of Frank Lampard’s Three Lions in 2025 would see the States beaten heavily, reminding the Stars and Stripes how far from the competitors for top international honours they remain, while also showing Pochettino what might have been had he remained unemployed long enough to throw his hat into the ring for the England job.

And if their World Cup warm-up couldn’t get any worse, the US would not only fall short of Gold Cup glory in the summer of 2025, but they’d also have to watch on as one of their co-host neighbours – Mexico or Canada – triumph.

At the World Cup itself, any realistic worst-case scenario would be an improvement on their 2018 campaign, when they failed to qualify for the tournament in Russia. By virtue of staging the competition, their place in the expanded 48-team format is set in stone.

But the nightmare outcome is one that is all too familiar. In the nine World Cup finals the US have been involved in, they’ve been dumped out at the group stage four times. Here, Pochettino takes their early exit rate to a clean 50 per cent, falling short and falling from grace as he’s dumped post-tournament.

Par for the course
Avoiding such ignominy should be pretty straightforward. And Pochettino doesn’t have to turn Christian Pulisic into peak Cristiano Ronaldo and make association football more popular than it’s helmeted, egg-slinging American equivalent to guide the US through the 2026 World Cup with his reputation intact.

Firstly, a Nations League win is expected. As last month’s friendly loss to Canada showed, the States’ North American supremacy is anything but assured at present. But restoring the USMNT to top-dog status within their continent should be the new manager’s immediate aim.

Pochettino doesn’t have to claim England’s scalp in next year’s rumoured friendly, either. A draw would be a more-than-respectable result, but more importantly the States need to put in a performance that demonstrates progress has been made since the Copa America and traditional international powerhouses should not be feared.

For a manager who has been criticised for an inability to deliver trophies for much of his coaching career, it’s big ask to demand the former Spurs and PSG tactician lands two pieces of silverware in his first year at the US helm. But it is fair to expect that a Nations League triumph should be married with Gold Cup glory.

After the US reached the last 16 in 2022, a quarter-final exit four years later might feel like, if not treading water, something of a lazy doggy paddle when World Cup fever has the nation hoping for a Michael Phelps-style front crawl to the final.

But this is, after all, a restoration job for Pochettino. Given how far they have fallen after their Copa America debacle, getting the States to last eight of the World Cup would represent a job well done.

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