The rumors seem very true. Talks of the current United States Men's National Team (USMNT) manager Mauricio Pochettino leaving for Manchester United are picking up steam by the day. Fortunately, with the next men's World Cup not for another four years, the Americans have an ideal opportunity to really swing for the fences at the start of a new cycle.
They're clearly not wasting this chance.
According to The Athletic, the USMNT program has set its (extremely ambitious) sights on the legendary Pep Guardiola as its potential replacement for Pochettino. Guardiola is widely regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, managers in soccer history. Getting him to coach the American men would be a grand slam, and the possibility doesn't seem all
that crazy if both parties can work out the finer details and if the 55-year-old Guardiola decides to come out of managerial retirement.
More from The Athletic:
The pursuit would not be straightforward nor easy. Guardiola would be a leading choice for many of the biggest jobs in football but has shown little recent interest in an imminent return to management.
After Guardiola turned the Italy job down earlier this year, Italian football federation president Giovanni Malago told La Repubblica: “Pep was honest. He took a sabbatical, partly for family reasons, but if he’d done anything, he would have done it with us.”
Nonetheless, Guardiola has had dialogue with U.S. Soccer in the past, and has long been intrigued by the prospect of working in America. Guardiola lived in New York City during a year-long sabbatical after he left Barcelona in 2012, where he enjoyed relative anonymity living in a luxury apartment off of Central Park with his family.
Guardiola would likely command by far the highest salary for a national team's manager. However, in addition to currently living in New York City, he has expressed an interest in potentially building the USMNT into a powerhouse in the past. With no other serious managerial openings likely available for the foreseeable future (Spain and Barcelona, for example), the right amount of zeroes on a check could indeed be enough to get him to lead the Americans.
As a manager, Guardiola had tremendous success with Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Manchester City. On top of his laundry list of domestic titles across Europe's big three leagues (La Liga, the Bundesliga, and the Premier League), Guardiola has three Champions League titles. Only Carlo Ancelotti and Bob Paisley have ever won more. He has never coached a national team.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: USMNT has an extremely ambitious top choice if Mauricio Pochettino leaves for Manchester United
