Mauricio Pochettino and Manchester United: A Destiny Unfulfilled
For years it felt less like speculation and more like fate. Mauricio Pochettino and Manchester United: a union that was always just over the horizon, always about to happen, and yet never did.
Twice he stood at the front of the queue for the Old Trafford job. Twice the door opened a fraction, only for United to step in a different direction.
The one that slipped away
The first near miss came in 2018/19. Pochettino, then at Tottenham, had built a side that pressed, passed and punched above its financial weight. Inside Old Trafford, his name rose quickly to the top of the shortlist as Jose Mourinho’s reign unravelled.
United’s solution was to buy time. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer arrived as the smiling interim, a club legend asked to steady the ship while the hierarchy positioned themselves for a summer move. Pochettino was the long-term target. Everyone knew it.
Then Solskjaer started winning.
Six games, six victories, including a pivotal 1-0 at Tottenham in mid-January. That afternoon at Wembley did more than dent Spurs’ season. It tilted the narrative. The caretaker had outfoxed the favourite.
When United produced that wild, scarcely believable comeback away to Paris Saint-Germain in March, the mood turned. The club removed the “interim” tag and handed Solskjaer the job. Pochettino, who would go on to reach the Champions League final with Spurs that same season, suddenly found his moment gone. By November, he was out of Tottenham.
United had chosen romance over the long courtship. The Argentine moved on. The sense of inevitability took its first hit.
A second shot, same ending
Fast-forward to 2022 and Pochettino was at PSG, chasing a Ligue 1 title in a spell that never quite caught fire. United, again in transition, again using an interim in Ralf Rangnick, lined up another two-horse race: Pochettino versus Erik ten Hag.
From the outside, the story was that football director John Murtough had been won over by the Dutchman’s clarity and vision in talks. Ten Hag, the Ajax architect, got the nod. United went for the project coach from Amsterdam, not the Premier League-proven operator in Paris.
Pochettino offers a different angle. Under contract at PSG, he says he was never truly free to engage.
“United have always shown interest, but the ideal scenario to manage there has never quite materialised,” he told Four Four Two last month.
After PSG’s Champions League exit to Real Madrid, the pressure in Paris spiked. The minimum requirement was the league title. There was no room for distraction, no space for secret negotiations.
United, meanwhile, wanted certainty. “United were in a hurry to announce their new manager before the end of that season because the situation had become unsustainable. I couldn't negotiate, whereas Ajax gave Ten Hag the flexibility to do so,” Pochettino explained.
Once again, timing betrayed him. Once again, Old Trafford turned elsewhere.
Ferguson’s favourite that never arrived
Inside United’s corridors, Pochettino has long had a powerful admirer. Sir Alex Ferguson saw his Southampton side up close and liked what he saw: intensity, organisation, bravery on the ball. The Scot went as far as seeking out Pochettino’s number and inviting him to dinner. It felt like an anointing.
For a while, that endorsement carried weight. Pochettino became the manager United never quite had, the name that hovered over every debate whenever another reign faltered.
But football moves quickly. His stock dipped after leaving Tottenham, dulled by the perception that he had not fully imposed himself at PSG. Even his single season at Chelsea, chaotic at the time, now looks more respectable in hindsight. Still, the aura of inevitability around Old Trafford faded.
Reinvented on the world stage
Now, at 54, Pochettino has gone somewhere few expected: back to the very top of the conversation via international football.
His United States side at this home World Cup has crackled with energy. They press like a club team, attack with purpose, and carry an intensity and aggression that has outstripped most of the field. While other nations drift in and out of games, the hosts have played with a clear, club-style identity.
Momentum is building. Keep this level up and the USA look well placed to reach at least the quarter-finals. On home soil, with a team playing this front-foot football, that kind of run would echo around Europe’s boardrooms.
Suddenly, Pochettino is no longer the man whose best days were supposedly tied to White Hart Lane. He is the coach reminding elite clubs what his sides can look like when they truly buy into his methods.
His contract with the USMNT ends with this tournament. He has said he is “open” to extending, but the logic is brutal. Nothing will match leading the host nation through a World Cup on American soil. The Gold Cup will not stir the same emotions. The next natural step feels like a return to the club game, at the highest level.
United move on, again
And yet, back in Manchester, the timing is off once more.
United have just handed Michael Carrick a two-year deal after his impressive work in the second half of last season. The former midfielder has steadied the club, sharpened their structure and, crucially, delivered results when the mood around Old Trafford risked turning toxic again.
Right now, it looks a smart appointment. It also closes the door, at least in the short term, on any renewed Pochettino conversation.
Had Carrick stumbled, had United delayed their decision until after the World Cup, the storyline might have been very different. A resurgent Pochettino, fresh from a deep run with the USA, suddenly available. A club searching, once more, for a defining manager. The stars could have aligned.
Instead, United have chosen their man. Pochettino, again, stands on the outside looking in.
The romance of that long-mooted partnership has drained away. What once felt like destiny now looks like a sliding-doors tale that will never be rewritten.
