Mauricio Pochettino and Manchester United: A Missed Opportunity
For years it felt inevitable. Mauricio Pochettino and Manchester United, bound to cross paths at Old Trafford sooner or later. The right man, the right club, just waiting for the right moment.
That moment never came. It probably never will.
Twice, Pochettino stood on the brink of the United job, only to watch the door close at the last second. First at Tottenham, then at PSG, he found himself perfectly placed and yet somehow out of reach, a nearly-man for a club that kept talking about long-term vision while making short-term choices.
He knows it too. Speaking to Four Four Two before leading the United States into a home World Cup, he put it plainly: United’s interest was real, the timing never was.
Solskjaer’s surge and a sliding door
The 2018/19 season was supposed to be his opening. Pochettino had taken Spurs into the elite, playing front-foot football, blooding young players, and operating under financial constraints that would have broken lesser managers. When Jose Mourinho left Old Trafford, the Argentine instantly became the favourite to take over at the end of the campaign.
United, though, reached for nostalgia. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer arrived as interim boss, a caretaker with a connection to the past rather than a blueprint for the future. It was meant to be a stop-gap.
Then he started winning.
Six victories on the bounce, including a pivotal one away at Tottenham in mid-January, changed everything. That game, in particular, felt like a job interview played at full speed. Solskjaer’s United beat Pochettino’s Spurs, and the mood music in Manchester shifted.
By March, after that wild comeback in Paris against PSG, United made the call. Solskjaer was given the job permanently. Pochettino, still at Spurs, pushed on to a Champions League final. It should have strengthened his case. Instead, it closed his window. A few months later he was out of Tottenham, his moment at Old Trafford gone with him.
Ten Hag, PSG and a race he could never run
The second chance came in 2022, this time with Pochettino at PSG. On paper, he was exactly what United claimed to be looking for: experienced at the top level, used to handling big personalities, still young enough to build something over years rather than months.
Again, United had an interim in place, this time Ralf Rangnick. Again, they talked to candidates. It quickly became a two-man race: Erik ten Hag versus Pochettino.
United picked Ten Hag. History has not been kind to that decision.
The official line was that football director John Murtough had been impressed by the Dutchman in talks. Pochettino offers a different angle. He was still under contract at PSG. After a brutal Champions League exit to Real Madrid, his task was clear: secure Ligue 1 and steady a fragile dressing room. He could not walk away, not mid-season, not without a fight.
United, he says, were in a rush. The situation had become too volatile to drift into the summer without a confirmed manager. They wanted a deal done before the season ended. Ajax, crucially, allowed Ten Hag the flexibility to negotiate. PSG did not. The choice, in the end, was as much about timing and availability as philosophy.
United went one way. Pochettino stayed in Paris, his reputation dented by a spell that never quite matched the weight of its squad.
Ferguson’s favourite, the job that never came
Inside Old Trafford, though, Pochettino always had a powerful admirer. Sir Alex Ferguson saw something in him early, back in the Southampton days. The intensity of his pressing game, the clarity of his structure, the way his teams played without fear. Ferguson liked it enough to seek him out, to sit down to dinner, to keep the line open.
That endorsement fed the sense of inevitability. Pochettino looked like a United manager in waiting. Young, demanding, charismatic. A coach who could build and rebuild.
Yet football rarely obeys the script. His stock dipped after leaving Spurs, dulled by the perception that he had failed to convert promise into trophies. The Chelsea stint, messy and short, looked underwhelming at the time. Only now, with the benefit of hindsight, does that single season at Stamford Bridge appear more respectable, even progressive, compared with what followed.
For a while, it felt like his window at the very top had closed.
Reinvented with the United States
Then came the World Cup on American soil, and with it a very different stage. Pochettino’s United States side have not played like a cautious host nation easing their way through. They have attacked the tournament with a ferocity and organisation that stands out.
Intensity. Aggression. A pressing game that would not look out of place in the Champions League. Among the international field, the US have resembled a European club side more than a traditional national team, drilled and relentless.
Momentum is building. If they keep this level, a run to at least the quarter-finals feels realistic. That sort of performance, in a home World Cup, resets reputations quickly. Pochettino is no longer the nearly-man from Tottenham or the underwhelming figure from Paris. He is once again the coach who can shape a project, lift a club, and demand more from players and boardrooms alike.
His contract with the US ends when the tournament does. He has said he is “open” to extending it, but the logic points elsewhere. You do not top leading a host nation through a World Cup on home soil. The Gold Cup will not carry the same electricity. The club game will call again, and this time his phone will ring from the top end of Europe.
United move on – and so does he
By then, United will already be locked in. Michael Carrick, fresh from a strong second half of last season, has a two-year deal and, for now, the full backing that comes with it. He looks the right appointment at the right time, a steadying figure who understands the club’s modern realities as well as its history.
If Carrick had stumbled, if United had delayed, if they had allowed the post-season to breathe, Pochettino would have been impossible to ignore. A resurgent coach, a free agent, a long-time target. The stars might finally have aligned.
Instead, it feels like the story has run its course. The dream pairing that always sat just over the horizon now belongs to the realm of “what if” rather than “what next”.
Pochettino will walk away from this World Cup with his name back in lights and a clear path back to the European elite. United, under new leadership and a new head coach, will go in another direction.
The Old Trafford dugout he seemed destined to occupy may stay out of reach forever. The question now is not whether he missed his chance with United, but which club will be bold enough to make sure they do not miss theirs with him.
