There is something properly strange happening in English football this weekend. A Premier League club has a brand new manager, the ink barely dry on his contract, and he will spend Saturday evening on a touchline in Florida, in charge of somebody else's national team.
Manchester United confirmed on Friday that Mauricio Pochettino will become their new head coach on a two and a half year contract, running through to the summer of 2029. It comes less than 24 hours after United sacked Michael Carrick, who had returned to Old Trafford in January only to see this season collapse into a genuine relegation fight. The timing has produced one of the oddest handovers English football has seen in some time, because Pochettino is not reporting for work yet. He remains, for now, head coach of the United States men's national team, and on Saturday evening he leads them out against Haiti in the first leg of a Concacaf Nations League quarter final, a fixture that was arranged long before anybody at Old Trafford picked up the phone.
A tearful goodbye that had nothing to do with football
Pochettino's exit from the USMNT job was confirmed in an emotional press conference on Friday, and by most accounts it was not an easy one to sit through. He described leaving as the most difficult decision of his career, telling reporters it was a very sad moment for him personally, and thanked US Soccer chief executive JT Batson for the way the process had been handled. Pochettino had signed a new four year contract with the federation as recently as August, intended to run through the 2030 World Cup, which only added to the sense that this was not a decision he had gone looking for.
Batson said Pochettino "has left a lasting mark on US Soccer", praising the connections his staff had built between the youth system and the senior team. Federation president Cindy Parlow Cone was similarly warm, telling him simply that the USMNT would miss him. None of that sentiment changed the outcome. Pochettino himself put it plainly: "There are not too many opportunities in your career the size of Manchester United." It is the kind of chance that does not arrive often, and one that becomes very difficult to turn down once it does.
Why United moved so fast
Carrick's second spell in charge had started promisingly enough. Appointed in January to replace Ruben Amorim, he won 12 of his first 17 league games and steered United to third place and Champions League qualification by the end of last season, form that persuaded the club to make the job permanent. This season fell apart almost from the start. United won only once in their first ten Premier League matches, slipped into the bottom three, and a 4-4 draw at home to Aston Villa, in which they twice surrendered a two-goal lead before Patrick Dorgu's stoppage time equaliser, was widely reported as the moment the board's patience ran out. Carrick leaves with 15 wins from 32 games in total, the third manager to lose his job since Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS took charge of football operations at the club.
Pochettino had been talked about as a candidate for days before Friday's confirmation, with reporting from Fabrizio Romano describing him as increasingly convinced he could succeed where others had struggled, and United reportedly agreeing a release fee in the region of £7.4 million to free him from his USMNT contract early. Once Carrick's exit was confirmed on Thursday, the Pochettino deal followed within hours.
One match left to finish before the next one starts
Saturday's first leg against Haiti was originally scheduled for Kingston, Jamaica, before Concacaf moved it to Nu Stadium in Miami because of the security situation in the host country. The return leg follows on Tuesday at TQL Stadium in Cincinnati, with the aggregate winner securing a place at next spring's Nations League Finals and an automatic berth at the following year's Gold Cup. Pochettino and his coaching staff will see out both legs before he officially joins United, with his first session at Carrington expected around 18 November. His first match in the Manchester United dugout is away at Liverpool on 22 November, a fixture that already carried enormous weight before any of this and now arrives as his opening audition.
US Soccer's attention has, inevitably, already turned to who replaces him. Steve Cherundolo is set to take interim charge for next month's camp, but the name generating far more interest is Pep Guardiola, reportedly discussed internally as the federation's dream appointment according to The Athletic. It is worth treating that report with some caution. Guardiola left Manchester City at the end of last season after a decade in charge and has since spoken about wanting a break from the game rather than a quick return to it, having already turned down an approach from Italy's national team over the summer. US Soccer have tried to tempt him before, after both the 2022 World Cup and the 2024 Copa America, without success. There is no indication yet that this attempt will end any differently.
For now, the stranger story is the one playing out this weekend. A manager already contracted to one of England's biggest clubs will spend Saturday night nowhere near Manchester, trying to help the country he still technically coaches reach a tournament he will not be around to see through, in a role that has nothing to do with the job he has just agreed to do. Carrick's successor will not take his first United training session for several more days yet, and the Liverpool fixture that will define the start of his reign is still more than a week away. Old Trafford, for once, is going to have to be patient.
It has been a dramatic few days either way for anyone following this club, and there will be plenty more to come once Pochettino actually arrives. If you want the next twist as it happens, It Was Always... Football is the place to follow it from.