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United States men’s national team coach Mauricio Pochettino has admitted he misses the Premier League and would like to return there in the future.
“The Premier League is the best league in the world,” he told the BBC in an interview published on Thursday. “Of course I am missing it. I am so happy in America but also thinking one day to come back to the Premier League. It’s the most competitive league.”
The Argentinian managed Southampton, Tottenham and Chelsea before he took up his role with the USMNT in 2024.
The US will co-host next year’s World Cup with Canada and Mexico, and Pochettino, who also managed Paris St-Germain and Espanyol, admitted it has been a challenge adjusting to life as the coach of an international team.
“The intensity is completely different because you need to arrive for a few days to prepare the game and play, prepare another game, play, and go back,” Pochettino said.
“After November, we are going to have three months until March to prepare another game. In a national team you are desperate to coach the players. You feel empty because after the second game you cannot have communication and you cannot keep working on improving things.”
There will be significant pressure on Pochettino as the US host a men’s World Cup for the first time since 1994. But he believes the sport – which he said his bosses have told him to call “soccer” to avoid confusion with American football – has a healthy future in the US. He said that is partly thanks to his compatriot, Lionel Messi, who joined MLS’s Inter Miami in 2023.
“I think players like Messi are helping the kids, not only when the kids want to play basketball or American football or baseball, they now want to play also soccer,” Pochettino said.
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He added: “I think after one year [in charge of the USMNT] we are making great progress. We are building [ideas] with people that the language of football is only one and it doesn’t care if you are American, Brazilian or English. Our football is [to] compete in the way that you need to compete, if you want to win.”
Pochettino also spoke of his frustration at missing out on a title at Tottenham. “I think we were so close in Tottenham … nearly [winning the Champions League and Premier League]. That is a thing that I would want to achieve,” he said.
