I hope, in this lifetime, you find someone who loves you the way Mauricio Pochettino loves Tottenham Hotspur. The grip Spurs have on his heart seems the stuff of a literary classic: his imperfect partner who called things off at the first sign of trouble must merely check in on him occasionally to rekindle hopes of a reunion. Perhaps a bit extreme, but this week’s revelation – that he’d return to Tottenham even if they were relegated and chalking his absence up to imperfect timing, not the part about handing the club a decade-old title – has implicity laid out the terms of his return as United States manager.
Others may always have interest in his services, and a certain North London suitor will never get the door slammed in their face outright. It’s not in the way that we think.’ Four years is different. Maybe now if someone calls in the future, it’s 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.” If you’re a Spurs fan, it warms the heart to revisit last decade’s glory days. If you’re a US fan, you’re quite sick of hearing so much about a team besides the one he’s managing.
If you’ve been cursed to support both, this must be a very confusing time. And if you’re US Soccer, you know that you no longer have an ace in the hole to outflank any outside interest. One can’t undersell the appeal of coaching a World Cup host team, with a direct path to Pot One and raucous support for every match.
Already a familiar face to Americans who follow the sport, Pochettino became a genuine sensation in the broader sports landscape. Millions of Americans had parallel thoughts that he, clad handsomely in a $500 safari shirt, resembled Russell Crowe – perhaps tacitly revealing that millions of Americans have long undersold the appeal of Russell Crowe. Compared to his previous post at Chelsea, the US job offered relative reprieve.
Never before has Pochettino been such a prolific fixture on hours-long podcasts. The stop/start cadence of international management is appealing for the football men who have grown weary of the meticulous corporatization of the club game. In that sense, Pochettino is among esteemed company.
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