Just three months after signing Mauricio Pochettino to a four-year extension, the U.S. men’s national team is looking for a new manager.

Pochettino is leaving the program after the current international window to take the open job at Manchester United, according to multiple reports, with an announcement set for Friday. The Athletic reported that his deal with United will be for 2 ½ seasons after the English giants made the ouster of Michael Carrick official on Thursday morning.

Pochettino will reportedly coach both of the USMNT’s games against Haiti, the first of which is Saturday afternoon in Miami.

The U.S. Soccer Federation hasn’t yet given official comment, but players were put in the awkward situation Thursday morning of answering questions about a move that everyone knew was coming, but which wasn’t yet official.

“Him leaving, him staying, he’s just created a great foundation and a great base for this team,” Sebastian Berhalter told reporters at the team’s training base in Fayetteville, Ga. “Even though he’s an Argentinian coach, he made us even more proud to be American, and I think that speaks volumes of who he is as a person and as a coach.”

The 54-year-old Argentine was quickly identified as the frontrunner to replace Carrick before his firing was even made official, with a litany of British media outlets reporting he was atop the club’s list on Monday night. United, whose 20 Premier League titles are more than any other club, went into the international break in the relegation zone and are off to a shocking 1-5-4 start. 

Despite the seeming abruptness of the move, it is not all that stunning. Pochettino has been open about his desire to return to the Premier League, and even over the summer, was evasive-at-best in responding to reports connecting him to the open job at AC Milan. He’s long talked about Manchester United as a dream job, and had a well-publicized meal with the club’s legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson in 2016 that was seen as an endorsement of his eventual accession to the job.

Given that he is, by far, the biggest swing the men’s national team has ever taken in a head coach hire, Pochettino’s tenure ranks as somewhat of a disappointment, or at least a missed opportunity. He never won a trophy with the national team, finishing fourth in the 2025 Concacaf Nations League and second in that summer’s Gold Cup.

Last summer’s World Cup team showed great potential and got the country’s backing, but ultimately fell to pieces in a 4-1 Round of 16 defeat to Belgium amid the white-hot controversy of Folarin Balogun’s red-card suspension being overturned. 

Pochettino has been connected to the Manchester United job on three separate occasions before, reportedly interviewing for the opening in 2014, 2016 and 2022. In a September roundtable with British media, he openly entertained the idea of taking another job before his current contract — which contains a break clause reported by multiple outlets to be approximately $10 million — expires. United will need to pay an additional sum to bring along Pochettino’s staff, including assistants Jesús Pérez and Miguel D’Agostino.

“Now is a different thing,” he said, per The Guardian. “When we gave our word to the federation [in August 2024], it was about starting and finishing after the World Cup. For us, it was the moment to say: ‘If some club comes, it’s impossible.’ Always you can break a contract, say you stop and that’s it … you agree something. But in the moment it wasn’t right for us to create all these situations and expectations.

“Now it’s a four-year contract, it’s different. We can, next season, lose the Copa America or the Gold Cup, they’re not happy with us and they can sack us. Or we can say: ‘OK. It’s not in the way that we think.’ Four years is different. Maybe now if someone calls in the future, it’sd a different, different type [of thing]. We are excited, we are thinking to spend four years to the next World Cup. But now it’s a long period.”

As for immediate ramifications, the USSF will need to dive headfirst into its third coaching search since 2023. There are four months between the end of this window and the next senior camp in March, with a mid-December friendly against Jamaica scheduled outside an official FIFA window expected to feature an MLS-only squad.

Steve Cherundolo, who was hired to coach the U.S. Olympic team over the summer, is an obvious candidate to coach next month’s match, and figures to be in the mix for the permanent job as well.

Whether there’s another big European name the U.S. could lure is an open question. Would there be donor support for such a move after billionaire Ken Griffin financed Pochettino’s contract? Would U.S. Soccer feel burned by the way Pochettino left? Pep Guardiola, the former Manchester City manager, is a free agent at the moment and would be the only no-doubt, slam-dunk hire available.

Though Guardiola reportedly declined an approach from Italy over the summer, he’s been connected with the USMNT in the past, and reports have already swirled this week over the federation’s interest in the Catalan.

Within the American sphere, names like Nashville SC coach B.J. Callaghan and San Diego FC coach Mikey Varas, a former USMNT interim coach, could be candidates. Pellegrino Matarazzo, an American, is currently the coach of Real Sociedad but was reportedly a candidate in the past.