U.S. Soccer announced Monday that Mauricio Pochettino will remain the men's national team head coach, the parties agreeing to a new deal that will run through the 2030 World Cup.
Pochettino's main task will be to lead the senior team for the next four years, but he will also take on an advisory role with U.S. Soccer on several related topics, including the pathway to the national teams, the youth game at large, coaching education and collaboration between the U.S.' professional leagues.
"Working together with U.S. Soccer over the past two years, it has become clear to us that there is tremendous potential to make the Men's National Team program even stronger," Pochettino said in a statement. "The passion we experienced from the fans throughout the World Cup only strengthened our belief in what is possible here. We are excited by the opportunity to bring all our experience and knowledge to even more areas of U.S. Soccer while helping strengthen the pathways for players, coaches and teams across the Federation. We want to try to have a lasting impact on the sport in the country that has welcomed us so warmly and for that impact to extend beyond results on the field."
Details of Pochettino's salary were not confirmed, but his return comes through what U.S. Soccer described as a "a philanthropic leadership gift" from federation donors including Kenneth C. Griffin, the hedge fund billionaire, Scott Goodwin and Adam Freede as well as several commercial partners. Griffin and Goodwin were also involved in U.S. Soccer's initial attempts to sign Pochettino in the summer of 2024.
Pochettino was one of the highest-paid national team coaches in the world before the new deal with an annual base salary of around $4 million, per U.S. Soccer's most recent publicly available documents, but the bonus structure at the time allowed for significant increases.
Multiple reports last week suggested that the parties were close to agreeing a new deal. Though negotiations picked up after the USMNT's run in this summer's World Cup was complete, U.S. Soccer formally offered Pochettino and his staff a new deal before the tournament began. Pochettino also admitted pre-tournament that he heard U.S. Soccer's pitch for the next four years over dinner at Jean-Georges, a restaurant located inside Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York on May 24.
"[U.S. Soccer CEO J.T. Batson] asked if we are open to listen [to] the project of the federation for the next four years and we said, of course, we are open," Pochettino said days later. "It's true until last Sunday, we didn't have an idea if the federation was happy with us, not happy, wanted us for the future."
Pochettino originally took the USMNT job in Sept. 2024, his sole focus on preparing the team for this summer's World Cup on home soil. They were eliminated in the round of 16 after a 4-1 defeat to Belgium, marking the team's fourth successive World Cup exit at that stage of the tournament.
