Why Mauricio Pochettino's résumé is better than any USMNT manager ever
According to reports that have been confirmed by FOX Sports' Doug McIntyre, Mauricio Pochettino is expected to be the new coach of the U.S. men's national team.
The 52-year-old most recently led Chelsea to a sixth place finish in the English Premier League, and formerly was the manager at Paris Saint-Germain, Tottenham, Southampton, and Espanyol. Pochettino has been a head coach since 2009, but this will be his first chance to lead a national team.
FOX Sports Research broke down the résumé of each of the previous five managers of the USMNT to highlight just how prestigious Pochettino's background is in comparison.
Let's take a look:
It's not often that coaches are fired, re-hired, and then fired again by the same team — but this was the case for Gregg Berhalter and the national team. While he did finish his managerial career with a 68.2% win rate (44-17-13, W-L-D) — the highest of any manager in the team's history (min. 20 games coaches) — Berhalter failed to lead the U.S. to the knockout stages of this past Copa América, and his team was eliminated by the Netherlands, 3-1, in the Round of 16 at the 2022 World Cup.
The former was particularly damning, as the U.S. became the first host nation not to advance to the knockout stage of Copa América since the group stage was introduced in 1975. Entering that tournament, the U.S. had not been eliminated from the group stage in 19 previous continental and global tournaments played at home. Berhalter also was just 2-6-7 (W-L-D) vs. top 25 teams when excluding Mexico, and 0-5-5 (W-L-D) against top 15 teams when again excluding continental rivals.
At the club level, Berhalter coached at Columbus Crew and Hammarby, the latter being a Swedish club. He had just 92 wins in 239