FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. – U.S. men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino denied he met with executives at AC Milan last week and criticized those who questioned his commitment to World Cup hosts in the days leading up to the tournament.
Pochettino said it was possible his representatives took a meeting that has been the subject of multiple reports, days before Milan fired Massimiliano Allegri, among several other high-ranking officials at the club. The USMNT boss insisted it was normal for his representatives, in part because it is public knowledge that his current deal expires after the World Cup.
“Possible because they need to do their jobs, my representatives, no?” Pochettino said Thursday. “Do you think all the people that represent different coaches have no conversations with different clubs for different reasons?”
He also said he has met people from other teams during his tenure with the USMNT, which began in the fall of 2024, but has maintained loyalty to the project at hand.
“I’m not going to lie to you, of course, I met some people [at] different clubs, but that is a conversation because we have friends in football,” he noted. “We have friends everywhere. My representatives work for me to try to find the best possibility for the future. That is normal. That is normal for all my colleagues. There’s a lot of examples of people under contract met another people … But if I [have] no commitment, what [am] I doing here? I had the possibility to stay in another club? No.”
The coach was quick to point out — and reiterated several times — that the links are not a distraction for him with the USMNT’s World Cup opener now just 16 days away.
“What I am going to tell you, I think it’s transparency,” he said. “We commit, commit with the national team, the U.S. men’s national team until we finish the World Cup and in these nearly two years, we’ve had so many approaches and we always say, ‘We finish [our] contract in July, after the World Cup.'”
Pochettino said he has not committed to his post-World Cup plans, continuing to leave the door open for a potential extension with the USMNT once his current deal is up. U.S. Soccer CEO J.T. Batson said Pochettino and his coaching staff were amongst the last people to leave the new national training center on Wednesday evening discussing topics like the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the youth national teams and coaching education. The coach admitted it was a continuation of a conversation from Sunday night, when Pochettino and his staff had dinner at Jean-Georges, a restaurant located inside Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York.
“He 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. “Do you think if we are [in a] commitment with other people, we are going to [be] wasting time to listen or being [here] yesterday until 7:00 [PM]? No … 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 said he has previously turned down job offers while under contract, both during his spell with the USMNT and over the course of his coaching career.
“Myself or my representative listen if [the offer is] after the World Cup,” he admitted. After the World Cup, it’s also to give the possibility to the federation maybe be interested in us or not but that is my commitment. It’s to show my commitment.”
He also admitted this is not the first time in his coaching career that he was linked to other posts while already being gainfully employed, adding that he turned down multiple offers.
“If you see my CV, in different clubs [as] a player, a coach,” he said. “Do you think that it’s going to affect us? It’s a motivation. It’s a motivation. … It’s a normal thing to be motivate[d] to do well but for us, it’s to respect the people. When we received the offer from USA, we received also a few offers for different [teams] — in that moment, bigger offers — and we wanted to come here. Do you think that now we are going to change when we are so close to [being] in the World Cup?”
Pochettino also pushed back against the idea that he lacks focus as he enters the final stages of the USMNT’s World Cup preparation.
“People that question my commitment [are] people that want to create some problems,” he said. “I think that is normal. It is a thing that is not affecting me. We have [the] experience to live this type of thing when I was in Espanyol, when I was in Southampton, when I was in Tottenham [Hotspur], when I was in Paris Saint-Germain, when I was in Chelsea. Even in clubs like this with [a] contract, I had offers. I had approach[es]. I had comments in the media. That’s it. Some were true. Another were not true but it doesn’t affect our commitment. Our commitment is the World Cup …
“it’s disrespectful. For me. For my way to think because I am here. I am here. I’m not going to go away tomorrow. If some club come and say, ‘Mauricio, we want you but you need to start tomorrow,’ I say, ‘Sorry. I commit[ted] to the national team.’ The best in the world clubs and I don’t know which clubs give me all that promise and everything? I’m not going to change. For me, it would be very disrespectful. When I was in different clubs, always, I was [committed] with my club, of course, with the people that trust me. The thing is, when I was in Tottenham a few times I received offers and I spoke with [those] guys and said, ‘I respect my contract with Tottenham and I think it’s, for me, in the way that we are, it’s disrespectful to say or to question — you met that guy. If I met you or another guy, what happens? My focus is here.”
He emphasized that contract discussions are part of the cadence of the sport, rather than the sign of an underlying problem in his current setting.
“Our commitment is the World Cup. We are focused [on] the World Cup. This things can happen, can happen in the future. I don’t know but I told you in March — I can extend the contract here if they want me and we agree or we can finish the World Cup or go to another place or I stay at home because maybe we don’t receive any offers. I think it’s not to create a problem unless to say — If people talk, [it] can affect you, our focus and our commitment, it’s not football people. It’s people that like to talk but no one pays attention [to] that. They don’t have no clue about what we are doing.”
He has ultimately decided to take the links to Milan as a compliment.
“That is a good thing that my name [appears] related with big clubs. Means that we are something good, we are doing something good.”
