Mauricio Pochettino’s tenure as coach of the US men’s soccer team is over.
Whatever happens when the USA face Haiti on Saturday and again on Tuesday in the Concacaf Nations League quarter-finals, the 54-year-old Argentine – who led the Stars and Stripes to the round of 16 at the 2026 FIFA World Cup – will become Manchester United’s new manager after the Red Devils officially parted ways with Miche on Thursday.
Whether Poch will be sidelined for the Americans in these next two games, which was the plan before the Carrick news broke, doesn’t really matter.
With the Nations League and Gold Cup trophies to play for next year and the 2030 World Cup qualifiers starting after that, US Soccer needs to hire a replacement soon. This process is probably already underway. Here is a not so short list of possibilities.
Pep Guardiola
(Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images)
Arguably the best manager in football history, Pep is every team’s dream candidate. More importantly, the 55-year-old Spaniard has been unattached since leaving Manchester City last spring after 10 trophy-laden seasons. Is he really available? Guardiola has said he will never manage another club after tremendous successes at City, Bayern Munich and Barcelona, and he may not want to jump into international management so soon; in July, he rejected four-time World Cup champions Italy.
He has long had an affinity for America, however, having lived in New York in 2012-13 between club jobs. A source who claims to have knowledge of Guardiola’s thinking told me that jobs in England and the US are particularly tempting for him.
“The USA is fascinating to try to build a project for many years and to be able to take the national team to the next step,” Guardiola said shortly after US Soccer appointed Pochettino. “The potential with the US is there.”
Pellegrino Matarazzo
(Photo by Juan Manuel Serrano Arce/Getty Images)
The best American coach working today, the New Jersey native, the Ivy League-educated 48-year-old, was in the conversation before Pochettino was hired in 2024. Two years later he is considered a rising star in Europe after leading Real Sociedad to the Copa del Rey title over Atlético Madrid in May. Matarazzo, who has also managed Bundesliga sides Hoffenheim and Stuttgart.
Roberto Martinez
(Photo by Wu Xiaoling/Xinhua via Getty Images)
The classy Martinez, 53, resigned as Portugal coach after a 1-0, holiday defeat by his native Spain – the eventual 2026 FIFA World Cup champions – in the round of 16. Last year, he beat La Roja in the UEFA Nations League final – only the third international title Portugal have ever won. With plenty of experience at international level, he previously led Belgium to third place at the 2018 World Cup, the highest finish in that country’s history. He also has experience working for the Americans, having appeared as a star analyst during ESPN’s coverage of the 2014 World Cup.
Steve Cherundolo
(Photo by Todd Kirkland/USSF/Getty Images)
Named coach of the 2028 U.S. men’s Olympic team — known as the under-23 team — last summer, Cherundolo is clearly overqualified for the job. An assistant with two Bundesliga teams before taking over LAFC, he won the 2022 MLS Cup in his first full season with the club and qualified them for last year’s FIFA Club World Cup before leaving at the end of 2025. If the Olympic gig goes well, the 47-year-old from San Diego will be the front-runner to take the 30 spots.
BJ Callaghan
(Photo by Jeff Dean/MLS via Getty Images)
After winning the MLS Supporters Shield and setting a new single-season points record with Nashville SC, Callaghan’s stock could rise higher if he leads the club to the championship in December. Callaghan also won the 2025 US Open Cup with Nashville, plus a Concacaf Nations League title as US interim coach in 2023, keeping clean sheets against rivals Mexico and Canada before lifting the trophy. If you include World Cup group stage wins over Paraguay and Australia (under Pochettino), it was perhaps the team’s best two-match stretch of the entire 2026 cycle.
Rudy Garcia
(Photo by Paul ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)
Another Spaniard, Garcia parted ways with Belgium after leading the Red Devils to the World Cup quarter-finals, where they lost 2-1 to La Roja – the only side to score against Spain during their eight-game march to the title. The 62-year-old badly exposed Pochettino’s flaws in the Round of 16, changing personnel and tactics for which the paid-up Argentine had no answer en route to the Americans’ heaviest knockout defeat in nearly a century.
Thierry Henry
(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images for the Laver Cup)
The former World Cup-winning striker and global icon became a household name in America this summer as part of FOX Sports’ core studio team. He is one of football’s top analysts, but he has also been a coach, having guided Les Bleus to an Olympic silver medal at the Paris 2024 Games. Before that, Henry managed perennial Champions League participants Monaco, as well as a stint with Montreal in the MLS. He was also an assistant under then-Belgium coach Roberto Martinez at the 2018 World Cup, a role he could reprise if Martinez succeeds Poch. Henry has deep ties to the US beyond his television work, having spent the last five seasons of his legendary playing career with the New York Red Bulls.
Hervé Renard
(Photo by Issouf SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images)
If international experience is high on American Soccer’s list of preferred qualifications, the 57-year-old Frenchman has plenty. He led Saudi Arabia to a historic upset of Argentina at the 2022 World Cup, the only country to beat Lionel Messi & Co. on their way to glory in Qatar. He qualified the Saudis for 2026 and coached Tunisia for 18 days at the main event. Previously, Renard managed Morocco, Angola and Zambia, as well as Ligue 1 sides Sochaux and Lille. He is currently in his second stint with Ivory Coast.
Brian Schmetzer
(Photo by Alika Jenner/MLS via Getty Images)
Easily the longest-serving boss in MLS, the affable, bespectacled 63-year-old has, in his decade in charge of the Seattle Sounders, won two MLS Cups, a League Cup and a CONCACAF crown – the only American club to claim regional supremacy in the past quarter-century. This is a record that no active American coach can achieve.
Bob Bradley
(Photo by Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images)
There is no doubt that the elder Bradley is qualified; since being fired as USA coach in 2011, just a year after presiding over a World Cup that included England, he has managed Egypt’s national team, clubs in France and Norway and in the Premier League. He also won the MLS Supporters’ Shield with LAFC in 2019, but the 68-year-old has not coached since leaving Norwegian club Stabæk two years ago.
Michael Bradley
(Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
The former USMNT captain and midfield legend (and son of Bob) just completed his first full MLS season with Red Bull New York. Only 39, Bradley already has a trophy under his belt; he led the Red Bulls’ reserves to the MLS Next Pro title in 2025 before being promoted to university, although he missed the play-offs in his top-flight campaign.
Jesse March
(Photo by Omar Vega/Getty Images)
Although Marsch is the only American to have coached in the Premier League, Champions League, Bundesliga and MLS, he is under contract with Canada – which he led to the round of 16 at the 2026 World Cup – until 2030. A finalist for the US job in 2023, Marsch has been highly critical of the current administration, making him very unlike the federation’s administration. In any case, Marsch insists on this it will “never” happen coach of the USA.