From United States to United’s state
DAN ISTITENE/GETTY IMAGES
Michael Carrick won just one of his last 11 matches as head coach
Tearful Pochettino confirmed as manager at Old Trafford on 2½-year deal – after two final USA games he will start bid to turn things round in Manchester on Wednesday
‘These moments are not easy ...
normally you get sacked and cry’
- Mauricio Pochettino USA head coach
14 Nov 2026 - THE GUARDIAN / Sport
Pablo Iglesias Maurer, Will Unwin
A tearful Mauricio Pochettino said Manchester United were “difficult to turn down” after his switch from the US men’s national team was confirmed on a two-and-a-half-year contract.
Pochettino wiped away tears with a tissue after breaking down during a press conference before today’s USA game against Haiti. He will oversee both legs of the Concacaf Nations League quarter-final, the second on Tuesday, before officially starting with United on Wednesday.
The Argentinian is famously emotional, and nobody in attendance at the national training centre in Fayetteville, Georgia, had to wait long for the waterworks. They came during his introductory remarks, as he thanked the US Soccer executives flanking him for the opportunity to guide the men’s team. Pochettino grew emotional again as he addressed his impending departure for United, announced hours earlier.
“I think [the decision was],” he said, pausing to compose himself, “one of the most difficult decisions of our careers. Thank you guys. Thank you so much.”
Pochettino and the US federation touted his contract renewal in August as the start of something new and significant, with the coach given a larger role in the direction of the USA men at every level. That went by the wayside when United came knocking.
“They know that there are not too many opportunities that can happen in your career like [this one with Manchester United],” Pochettino said. “When they arrive, it’s difficult to turn down. But I want to make it clear, when we decided together to [stay another four years], it was always the commitment for the federation, too. Maybe the four games [in the Septemberoctober window] if we lose them, maybe you start to put pressure on me. And maybe something can go in a different way.
“Or even in the future, things can happen. The federation and maybe new people arrive or don’t, or have different ideas and you say: ‘We are thinking in different directions.’ And maybe they say: ‘Mauricio, maybe you need to go home.’ We cannot think in these extremes – I think we were very committed and never thought this would happen so quickly.”
United made Pochettino their first choice after it became clear Michael Carrick would be dismissed. The club were attracted to him based on his personality and hope he can turn things around by building a strong culture within the dressing room. They also sought a more experienced coach after Carrick and feel Pochettino’s long-term record of player development and clear philosophy would suit their needs.
Pochettino is expected to take his first training session on Thursday in advance of an opening game at Liverpool on Sunday.
The 54-year-old characterised United’s interest and negotiations as having come together at the last minute, with contact between the two sides first made last Sunday.
That was the day of Carrick’s final match, a wild 4-4 draw at home to Aston Villa, though his sacking was not confirmed until Thursday and he continued to attend the training ground each day.
“[Everything] was so quick,” Pochettino said, “because we arrived here last Friday, and Sunday afternoon this situation started to appear and some contact. We were very transparent, we were talking with [US Soccer CEO] JT Batson and the federation.”
Details were quickly ironed out, with the club and federation agreeing Pochettino would remain with the USA for the upcoming matches. “When things were positive in the way the agreement was, we had a meeting and I communicated to the players and the whole staff. I want to say thank you, because they were very supportive and they really understand the situation and they know us – how committed we are for the next two games.
“The decision between the federation and Manchester United, to agree that we’ll continue with our job in the camp; [nothing] can change our commitment and how important the next two games are.”
United have paid the US federation about $10m (£7.5m) for Pochettino, plus an additional fee paid to secure the services of his longtime assistants.
“These moments are not easy decisions,” Pochettino said. “Normally it’s the opposite. Normally you get sacked and you cry because you want to stay. It’s a tough decision but at the same time we are excited for the next step forward.”
Pochettino was reluctant at first to define his own USA legacy, telling reporters he was “not arrogant” before jokingly conceding he is “a little bit arrogant, but not too much”.
He went on: “We don’t take a project to be remembered for ever and to have a picture here at the training centre. It’s the impact on the human being. It’s for us to be a good partner and, through the vision of the federation, to add our quality and knowledge of the game and to be part of this family. I hope, in Manchester United, to do the same.”
He will take over a squad whose captain, Bruno Fernandes, has rejected a second offer of a new contract, though United are confident of getting the midfielder to commit. The 32-year-old’s deal runs until the end of the season but United have the option to trigger a further year.
Fernandes would be allowed to speak to clubs abroad in January if United have not activated that clause. He has previously had interest from Saudi Arabia and Galatasaray. Fernandes took aim at Carrick’s tactics after last month’s defeat by Como in the Champions League but Carrick thanked the players in a message on Instagram for their “efforts and the moments we’ve shared”.
He also praised the fans and staff. “I want nothing but success for Manchester United,” he wrote, saying the “love never dies”.
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14 Nov 2026 - THE GUARDIAN / Sport
Jonathan Wilson
Jonathan Wilson
Magnusson: And your time starts ... now! What is paleontology? Smithers: Yes, absolutely correct. Magnusson: What’s the name of the directory that lists members of the peerage? Smithers: A study of old fossils. Magnusson: Correct. Who are Len Murray and Sir Geoffrey Howe? Smithers: Burke’s. Magnusson: Correct. What is the difference between a donkey and an ass? Smithers: One’s a trade union leader, the other’s a member of the Cabinet …
One of the Two Ronnies’ most celebrated sketches involves a Mastermind contestant whose specialist subject is answering the previous question. History repeats itself: the first time as comedy, the second time as Manchester United, who seem continually to be answering not the question of who would be the best available manager now, but who might have been the best available manager a few years ago.
The problem with football is that it never sits still. What was true once isn’t necessarily true now. What is true now won’t necessarily be true in a season or two. Almost nothing is absolute. What works once might not work in a different context. The key to good recruitment is identifying to what extent somebody’s past success was contingent on their environment, and how they may behave in a different circumstances. And that is very difficult, which is why only four managers have won the English league title with more than one club.
The possibility of José Mourinho becoming manager of United was first raised as Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. Mourinho has recently claimed he turned the job down; other versions of events have him raging in a Madrid hotel as he learned that David Moyes had been hired, seemingly because Sir Bobby Charlton, then a senior board member, was worried about his impact on the image of the club.
It’s impossible, of course, to say whether Mourinho would have been a success had he taken the job then. But he had the ego to ensure he would not have lived in Ferguson’s shadow and, although he had been bruised by the Real Madrid experience, English football still recognised his aura. He was still adept enough to win a third league title at Chelsea.
By the time Mourinho finally took the United job in 2016, though, events in his final few months at Stamford Bridge had undermined him. He seemed weary and fractious, the tactical doubts raised in his final year at Madrid had proliferated and there was a growing sense his methods did not quite work with elite modern players.
There was a lot of talk about him as a guaranteed winner, but there’s no such thing in football. Very few managers last more than a decade at the very top. Only the most driven personalities, the most fecund minds, can endure the process of constant evolution necessary to stay ahead of the pack for more than a few years.
It’s easy to see why a board would have looked at his list of honours and been impressed, but United were appointing a manager on the way down. Was that obvious at the time? Perhaps not, but there were warning signs, and it’s the job of those doing the job of recruitment to identify them.
With every appointment there are mitigations. Given the immense power Ferguson had, it would have been hard not to appoint Moyes when he had backed him. Yet if there was ever a time when he might have been the right man for United, it was surely six or seven years earlier; modern managers tend to peak in their mid-late 40s.
Louis van Gaal was 62 when he landed the United job, enjoying a second coming after winning the Dutch title with AZ Alkmaar and an impressive World Cup campaign with the Netherlands. Perhaps the comparison isn’t fair in that he arrived as an elder statesman; nobody, other than perhaps Van Gaal, thought he would be a long-term appointment. But the idea he would bring calm after a period of turbulence was to ignore everything he had previously done. Van Gaal is many things but he is not a calming presence.
But again, the timing felt wrong. It could never have worked given he was preparing a side for the World Cup, but had he come in to replace Ferguson in 2013, as a hugely respected figure with a robust self-belief that was never going to care about breaking Fergusonian taboos, he might have been the man to see United through the awkward transition.
Erik ten Hag and Ruben Amorim were supposed to be the coming men, on the way up. Both seemed to make sense. Ten Hag’s Ajax had played astonishing football, had beaten Real Madrid thrillingly in the Champions League, had come within Lucas Moura’s implausible hat-trick of a Champions League final. Amorim had ended Sporting’s 19-year title drought.
But it turned out they weren’t right. Ten Hag, skilfully as he managed Cristiano Ronaldo’s exit, seemed overawed by the job; Amorim’s insistence on playing 3-4-2-1 with a squad ill-equipped to play that way was one of the reasons Dan Ashworth expressed reservations, leading to his departure as sporting director.
It is possible, of course, maybe by this point even likely, that there is no right answer, that the mess United are in is insoluble, Old Trafford a meat grinder that will keep chewing up managerial reputations in perpetuity. But United’s board’s attempts to identify the rising star have been no more successful than their habit of appointing fading legends.
Which brings us to Mauricio Pochettino. He has done remarkable things: he may not yet have won trophies in England but he effected such an extraordinary transformation at Tottenham that it seemed not unreasonable they should be part of the Super League project. He found things difficult at Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea, but most people do. A last-16 exit at a home World Cup with the USA was about par. The question, now he is 54, is whether the sense of drift about his career is a temporary state, or evidence that he is not quite what he was.
Perhaps the United job will revitalise him and he will revitalise them. But this feels like another appointment that would have been better made a few years ago; that United, once again, are answering the previous question.
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