Mauricio Pochettino to Depart as U.S. Men’s National Team Head Coach

Mauricio Pochettino’s time with the U.S. Men’s National Team is ending. U.S. Soccer announced Thursday that he will step down as head coach after the current camp to take over at Manchester United. Before he goes, he and his staff will coach the Americans in two matches against Haiti on November 14 and 17, so he leaves the program on the field instead of from an office in England.

Pochettino was hired in September 2024 and went 21-12-2 across 35 matches. In that stretch he took the program further than it had been in decades. The United States reached the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup Final, then won its group at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on home soil and reached the Round of 16. That run included the team’s first knockout-round win since 2002. His three wins at the tournament are the most of any head coach in USMNT World Cup history.

U.S. Soccer CEO and Secretary General JT Batson said the results were only part of what Pochettino leaves behind. “What we are most proud of goes beyond the wins,” Batson said. “He and his staff raised standards, strengthened our culture and created clearer connections from the Youth National Teams to the senior team. Those changes are now embedded in how we operate, and we will keep building on them as we pursue sustained success on the world stage.”

Those connections show up in the roster. Seventy-five players earned at least one senior cap under Pochettino. In the most recent window alone, 11 players under 21 made their senior debuts, eight of them teenagers. The young players have also produced. During the team’s current four-match winning streak, players who had no caps when the streak began scored seven of its 12 goals, and three of them became some of the youngest goalscorers in program history. The next coach takes over a deeper and younger player pool than Pochettino found.

Pochettino said leaving was not easy. “The opportunity to represent the USA crest was one of the greatest honors of my career,” he said. “We are so grateful to the players for their commitment, to the fans for their belief, and to the Federation for always supporting our staff and creating the opportunities to impact the culture of soccer in this great country.” He thanked U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone, Batson and Chief Operating Officer Dan Helfrich by name. He added that the talent “from the youth teams through to the senior team” is a big reason he believes in the program’s future, and he promised that he and his staff will keep supporting the team.

Pochettino stays in charge of everything until the camp ends. After that, Steve Cherundolo will lead the December camp that was already on the calendar. That roster will be mostly MLS-based players. Because the senior and Olympic programs are now working more closely together, the Federation will not hold a separate Under-23 camp in December.

Parlow Cone thanked Pochettino and his staff for two years of moving the program forward and wished him well at Manchester United. She said the Federation will turn to the coaching search once this FIFA window closes, with the goal of “finding the right coaching staff to help us build on the progress we’ve built.” Batson and Helfrich will lead the search alongside U.S. Soccer’s soccer leadership team, which includes Emma Hayes and Oguchi Onyewu. They will gather input from across U.S. Soccer and the wider soccer world, and they will consider candidates from a broad range of backgrounds.

“With the great combination of veterans, fantastic young talent and a world-class facility, we are confident in the future of this program,” Batson said. “We are looking for a leader with the talent, experience and belief to match our ambition, build on the culture and pathway now in place and help the USMNT take the next step.”

At Manchester United, Pochettino returns to the Premier League and the European game, where he spent more than two decades coaching Espanyol, Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea before he took the U.S. job.