Pochettino’s Final Act: USMNT Opens Nations League Quarterfinal Against Haiti in His Last Window as Head Coach

The U.S. Men’s National Team begins its pursuit of a fourth Concacaf Nations League title this weekend, and the two-leg quarterfinal against Haiti will also close out Mauricio Pochettino’s run as head coach. After the series ends, Pochettino will leave the USMNT to take over as head coach of Manchester United, so the matches on Nov. 14 in Miami and Nov. 17 in Cincinnati will be his last on the U.S. sideline.

The first leg is Saturday, Nov. 14 at Nu Stadium in Miami. Kickoff is 4:30 p.m. ET on TNT, truTV, HBO Max, Telemundo, Universo and Peacock. The series moves to TQL Stadium in Cincinnati for the second leg on Tuesday, Nov. 17, kicking off at 7 p.m. ET on TBS, truTV, HBO Max, Universo and Peacock. Westwood One and Fútbol de Primera will carry both matches on radio.

Pochettino was hired in September 2024 and leaves with a record of 21 wins, 12 losses and two draws over 35 matches. In that time the United States reached the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup Final, then made the Round of 16 at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on home soil. That summer the U.S. won its group and picked up its first World Cup knockout-round victory since 2002. His three wins at the tournament are the most by any head coach in USMNT history. His impact goes beyond results, too. He widened the player pool and tied the youth national teams more closely to the senior side. Seventy-five players earned at least one cap under him, and in the most recent window alone, 11 players under 21 made their senior debuts, eight of them teenagers. Twelve players on the current roster got their first cap from Pochettino.

The final step of his tenure is also the first official competition of the 2030 World Cup cycle. The United States won each of the first three Nations League titles. The first came in 2021 with a 3-2 overtime win over Mexico, when Christian Pulisic scored the winning penalty in the 114th minute and substitute goalkeeper Ethan Horvath saved a late Mexico penalty to seal the trophy. In 2023 the U.S. beat Canada 2-0 on goals from Chris Richards and Folarin Balogun, both set up by Gio Reyna, which made Richards and Balogun the first players to score their first international goals in a final. In 2024 the Americans beat Mexico again: Tyler Adams scored a stunning goal at the end of the first half and Reyna added a second after the break for another Dos a Cero result against their archrival.

Nine players on this roster have won at least one Nations League title: Adams, Balogun, Weston McKennie, Mark McKenzie, Pulisic, Richards, Antonee Robinson, Malik Tillman and Auston Trusty. The other 15 players in the 24-man squad have never been on a USMNT title-winning team, so these high-stakes matches are a real chance for them to make a case going into the new cycle. Eight players earned their first caps in the September and October window: Mathis Albert, Justin Ellis, Julian Hall, Diego Kochen, Adri Mehmeti, Neil Pierre, Brian Schwake and Cavan Sullivan. Santiago Castañeda and Reed Baker-Whiting are uncapped and getting their first call-ups. Sebastian Berhalter, Alex Freeman, Matt Freese and Jack McGlynn were part of the 2025 Gold Cup team that reached the final. Defender Bryan Reynolds returns for the first time since the 2023 Gold Cup semifinal loss to Panama. Getting through Haiti would send the U.S. to the Nations League finals for a fifth straight time.

History is on the U.S. side. The teams have met 19 times since 1954, and the United States leads the series 8-6-5. The last five meetings were all decided by a goal or less, and four of those came in the Gold Cup. The U.S. hasn’t lost to Haiti since a 1-0 defeat in Port-au-Prince on Nov. 5, 1973, and it is unbeaten in 10 straight against Les Grenadiers. Since 2000 the Americans have given up just four goals to Haiti across six matches. The most recent meeting was the final group match of the 2025 Gold Cup on June 22, 2025. Tillman scored in the 10th minute, Haiti equalized in the 19th, and Patrick Agyemang won it in the 75th minute to give the U.S. first place in the group. Eight players from that night are on this roster: Adams, Berhalter, Freeman, Freese, McGlynn, McKenzie, Richards and Tillman.

Haiti arrives with plenty of momentum. In 2026 Les Grenadiers played in their first World Cup since 1974, ending a 52-year absence. They qualified without playing a single home match in Haiti, because their home qualifiers were staged in Curaçao. In Group C they lost 1-0 to Scotland and 3-0 to Brazil, then closed in Atlanta with a 4-2 loss to Morocco in which they led twice. They finished fourth, but the campaign was still celebrated back home as a landmark. After the tournament Haiti named Spanish manager David Badía to replace Sébastien Migné, and he was formally presented in August 2026. It is Badía’s first job at the international level. He previously managed top-flight clubs in Poland, Cyprus and Greece and worked in FC Barcelona’s youth system from 2012 to 2016. Haiti has won three of its four Nations League A matches under him to reach the quarterfinals.

Haiti is still the home team for the first leg, but security concerns at home mean it is being played in Miami. The match was originally set for Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica. The Haitian Football Federation asked to move it, and Concacaf’s Council approved Nu Stadium as an exceptional hosting arrangement. That gives Haiti more than a neutral venue, since South Florida’s large Haitian community is expected to show up for Les Grenadiers. It will also be the USMNT’s first match at Nu Stadium, which opened in April 2026, though seven U.S. players have already played there: Baker-Whiting, Ellis, Freese, Hall, Mehmeti, Schwake and Sullivan.

The two teams have plenty of ties to each other. Neil Pierre and Cavan Sullivan play alongside Haiti’s Danley Jean-Jacques at the Philadelphia Union. Pierre’s parents are both from Port-au-Prince, and his brother Nelson has played for Haiti’s Under-20 national team. Pierre continues a long line of USMNT players with Haitian roots, going back to Joe Gaetjens’ famous winner against England in 1950 and on through Jozy Altidore. On the other side, Atlanta United’s Fafà Picault is an MLS veteran who once played for the United States, making appearances against Puerto Rico in 2016 and Colombia in 2018.

The series finishes in Ohio, a state that has been good to the U.S. The USMNT is 16-3-5 there all-time and hasn’t lost in Cincinnati since 2019. It has played five matches in the city and is unbeaten in four at TQL Stadium. Its first match at the venue was a 2-0 win over Mexico in 2022 World Cup qualifying in front of a sellout crowd of 26,000, a few months after the stadium opened in May 2021. A 3-0 win over Morocco followed on June 5, 2022, the match where Joe Scally, Malik Tillman and Haji Wright earned their first caps before all three went to the 2022 World Cup. On July 9, 2023, the U.S. drew Canada 2-2 there and won 3-2 on penalties to reach the Gold Cup semifinals. The most recent match at TQL was a 1-1 draw with New Zealand on Sept. 10, 2024, the last game before Pochettino took over. That gives the Cincinnati leg a fitting symmetry: Pochettino’s tenure will end in the same stadium where the team played its final match before he arrived.

The roster’s average age is 23 years, 266 days, and its average cap count is 23. Pulisic is the most experienced player with 90 caps, followed by McKennie (71), Adams (62), Robinson (62), Richards (43), Tillman (39) and Balogun (31). Pulisic and Robinson have both scored in a Nations League quarterfinal before: Pulisic against Jamaica in 2024, and Robinson twice against Trinidad and Tobago in 2023. Seventeen players return from the 26-man camp in September and October. Sixteen play in Europe, and eight play for five MLS clubs.

USMNT Roster (Club/Country; Caps/Goals)

GOALKEEPERS: Matt Freese (New York City FC; 20/0), Diego Kochen (Lyngby Boldklub/DEN; 2/0), Brian Schwake (Nashville SC; 2/0)

DEFENDERS: Reed Baker-Whiting (Nashville SC; 0/0), Alex Freeman (Villarreal/ESP; 26/3), Mark McKenzie (Toulouse FC/FRA; 30/0), Neil Pierre (Philadelphia Union; 3/0), Bryan Reynolds (Stade Rennais/FRA; 7/1), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace/ENG; 43/4), Antonee Robinson (Fulham/ENG; 62/5), Auston Trusty (Celtic/SCO; 14/1)

MIDFIELDERS: Tyler Adams (AFC Bournemouth/ENG; 62/2), Mathis Albert (Borussia Dortmund/GER; 4/1), Sebastian Berhalter (Middlesbrough/ENG; 22/4), Santiago Castañeda (SC Paderborn/GER; 0/0), Jack McGlynn (Stoke City/ENG; 13/2), Weston McKennie (Juventus/ITA; 71/12), Adri Mehmeti (Red Bull New York; 3/0), Malik Tillman (Bayer Leverkusen/GER; 39/7)

FORWARDS: Folarin Balogun (Monaco/FRA; 31/12), Justin Ellis (Orlando City SC; 3/2), Julian Hall (Red Bull New York; 4/3), Christian Pulisic (AC Milan/ITA; 90/33), Cavan Sullivan (Philadelphia Union; 3/1)