On the same day that U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson told me and a handful of other national reporters that the federation remains in “active discussions” to bring Mauricio Pochettino back as the U.S. men\u2019s national team coach, Pochettino said Thursday his decision on whether he’ll stay coaching the Americans or move on is just a few days away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking to a Spanish radio station on Thursday, the 54-year-old manager \u2014 who was offered a contract extension through the 2030 World Cup, despite the USA\u2019s shocking 4-1 loss to Belgium in the round of 16 in the ongoing 2026 World Cup tournament \u2014 confirmed that he still isn\u2019t sure he wants to return. His current contract expires after Sunday\u2019s World Cup final between Spain and Pochettino\u2019s native\u00a0Argentina.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0“They made me an offer to continue, and we\u2019ll see,”\u00a0said Pochettino, who is, far and away, the highest-paid coach in U.S. Soccer history with a salary north of $6 million. “We’re evaluating it. Next week, we\u2019ll [make] a decision.”<\/p>\n
(Photo by Doug Zimmerman\/ISI Photos\/ISI Photos via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Hired to replace Gregg Berhalter in 2024, the former Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain manager had a rocky first 18-months in charge, losing to Germany, Canada, Panama, Switzerland, South Korea, T\u00fcrkiye, Portugal and twice to Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n But he helped the World Cup co-hosts win their World Cup group by beating Paraguay and Australia before a round of 32 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, he was badly out-coached by Belgium\u2019s Rudi Garcia in the USA\u2019s most important match, the only one the Americans played against a FIFA top-10 opponent. The 4-1 defeat was the most lopsided loss for the U.S. in a World Cup knockout game since a 7-1 loss to Italy in 1934. That failure against Belgium was seen live by more than 50 million Americans, the most ever to watch a soccer game in U.S. history.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY On the same day that U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson told me and a handful of other national reporters that the federation remains in “active discussions” to bring Mauricio Pochettino back as the U.S. men\u2019s national team coach, Pochettino said Thursday his decision on whether he’ll stay coaching the Americans or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}