Multi-million transfer fee heads to the US: Pochettino takes charge at Man United

Negotiations had been ongoing for days, and both sides have now reached an agreement: Mauricio Pochettino will succeed Michael Carrick as head coach of Manchester United.

Mauricio Pochettino is set to move from the US Football Federation to Manchester United. As the Red Devils announced on Friday afternoon, the 54-year-old Argentine will take up his post on 18 November. An agreement has been reached with the US Football Federation, under which “Pochettino and his staff will be released from their duties with the US men’s national team once they have fulfilled their commitments”.

This marks the culmination of years of attempts to bring the two parties together. After all, Pochettino’s name has not just been doing the rounds for the past few days, nor did it first emerge following the run of defeats under his predecessor Michael Carrick at Old Trafford.

Rather, it has been since 2016, when Pochettino met with Manchester United’s legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson at a restaurant in London. Pochettino was quoted at the time as saying it had been “a meeting between a genius and an apprentice”.

Since then, he has regularly been linked with the Red Devils whenever the manager’s position has become vacant: He was tipped as a candidate when Louis van Gaal was forced to step down in May 2016, and again in December 2018, when José Mourinho met the same fate.

He was also in the running to succeed Erik ten Hag in October 2024. It is almost logical, then, that his name has come up again now that Carrick’s succession is being discussed. The difference is that both sides are finally set to come to an agreement.

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For the 54-year-old, it marks a return to the UK, where he has previously managed Southampton FC, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea FC. He made a name for himself particularly during his time at Spurs from 2014 to 2019, when he led the London side to the Champions League final in 2019. There, however, Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool FC denied him the big win (0–2).

A tough task awaits Pochettino, though, as former serial champions Manchester United have fallen on hard times and are currently in a relegation battle in the Premier League. The Red Devils have been in a downward spiral for years, and with Pochettino at the helm, the Man United bosses are hoping to return to their former glory days.

To this end, they have dug deep into their pockets: a reported nine million euros will be paid to buy Pochettino out of his current contract as US national team manager.