USSF Jajaki Opsi Perpanjangan Kontrak Mauricio Pochettino Bersama Amerika Serikat

Federasi Sepak Bola Amerika Serikat (USSF) dilaporkan tertarik memperpanjang masa bakti pelatih kepala Mauricio Pochettino untuk siklus empat tahun ke depan demi mempertahankan posisinya dari incaran sejumlah klub Eropa.

Langkah USSF muncul setelah Pochettino menyanggah rumor pertemuan langsung dengan manajemen AC Milan usai sesi latihan hari Kamis di Georgia menjelang turnamen akbar yang dimulai 11 Juni 2026. Klub raksasa Italia tersebut sedang mencari manajer baru pascapemecatan Massimiliano Allegri akibat kegagalan menembus Liga Champions, sementara kontrak sang arsitek asal Argentina bersama USSF akan berakhir selepas final Piala Dunia pada pertengahan Juli seperti dilansir bbc.com.

Meskipun menepis kabar pertemuan personal, mantan manajer Chelsea tersebut memandang wajar jika perwakilan dirinya tetap menjajaki segala kemungkinan profesional di luar tim nasional.

"Mungkin saja, karena mereka perlu melakukan pekerjaan mereka," kata Pochettino saat ditanya mengenai potensi pertemuan perwakilannya dengan pihak AC Milan.

Juru taktik tersebut menegaskan komitmen jangka pendeknya untuk fokus memimpin skuad Amerika Serikat bersaing di fase grup melawan Paraguay, Australia, dan Turki.

"Jika saya bertemu seseorang, apa yang terjadi? Apa yang akan berubah jika saya bertemu seseorang? Kami memiliki teman di mana-mana dan perwakilan saya bekerja untuk saya untuk mencoba menemukan kemungkinan terbaik untuk masa depan. Itu normal," tambah Pochettino.

Di sisi internal federasi, CEO USSF JT Batson disebut menghendaki komitmen lebih lama dari Pochettino untuk mengawal ekosistem sepak bola negara tersebut.

"He asked if we are open to listen [to] the project of the federation for the next four years," kata Pochettino terkait pembicaraannya dengan CEO USSF JT Batson.

Pochettino menyatakan kesediaan untuk mempelajari rencana jangka panjang dari federasi asalkan terdapat keselarasan visi yang sama.

"And we said of course we are open. Do you think that if we have a commitment with another people, we are going to waste time to listen?" lanjut Pochettino.

Sikap terbuka mengenai minat dari klub-klub top Eropa sebenarnya telah disampaikan oleh Pochettino sejak awal pertemuannya dengan pihak USSF.

"We are open," kata Pochettino dalam kesempatan berbeda pada bulan Maret lalu mengenai peluangnya bertahan di posisi pelatih kepala USMNT pasca-Piala Dunia.

Pihak federasi tetap menaruh optimisme besar bahwa sang pelatih memiliki keyakinan terhadap proyek sepak bola yang sedang berkembang di Amerika Serikat.

"We don’t have a contract for the future but why not if we are happy and the federation is happy?" ujar Pochettino menambahkan.

Situasi masa depan kursi kepelatihan ini turut memicu perhatian dari mantan penjaga gawang tim nasional Amerika Serikat, Brad Friedel, yang memberikan analisisnya melalui media GOAL.

"I think he’ll have offers anywhere in the world. He’s a tremendous manager. It really depends on what he wants to do and probably how successful the team is," tutur Friedel kepada GOAL.

Friedel menilai tantangan terbesar di Amerika Serikat bukanlah masalah fasilitas melainkan budaya sosiologis, karena sepak bola belum menjadi olahraga utama di negara dengan populasi besar tersebut.

"One interesting anecdote to this is that Matt Crocker, who was the sporting director at U.S. Soccer, basically built this four-year cycle, then left for Saudi, another nation in the World Cup, but for the World Cup. So I read that as two ways: like they’re all leaving at the end, or that maybe they’ll give more now that Mauricio has been on the ground for two-and-a-half years or whatever it is and he’s started to understand the landscape of the culture of football around maybe a joint sporting director/head coaching role after and really help the U.S. Personally, I would love it if he stayed on. Because the culture in the United States is the thing that’s lacking, but it’s the hardest thing to overcome," jelas Friedel panjang lebar.

Friedel menambahkan bahwa negara dengan populasi masif seperti India, China, atau Pakistan tidak otomatis dominan di sepak bola karena faktor kultur sosiologis yang berbeda dari negara tradisional seperti Brasil.

"Our stadiums are fantastic, training grounds are fantastic, coaching education is better, coaches are better. You know, the sport is growing amongst the amateur levels at a huge pace, all that stuff. But it’s still not the main sport in the U.S. And until it’s the main sport in the U.S. we will never have a golden generation because we’re never going to get all the top athletes and, even more than athletes, the people that just want to die for the sport. Until we have that, we just have to keep trying to build the sport as much as we can. The argument people bring to me all the time, and even my friends that are pundits in the game that I played with, they’re all saying: ‘Yeah, but we should be much better with 350 million people’. I say to them: ‘No, if it were population-based, then India would be killing it. China would be killing it. Pakistan would be killing it’. There’s only one, out of the top 10 most populous countries in the world, there’s only one footballing nation in there, and that’s Brazil. And one of the reasons why they’re the best is because they are a footballing nation, and they have 215 million people or whatever it is who are all crazy for football. If the US were a footballing nation, a cultural footballing nation that had 350 million people, yes, we would be very dominant in tournaments. But we’re not," pungkas Friedel menyudahi analisisnya.

Sementara perbincangan mengenai masa depan pelatih terus berkembang, para pemain timnas Amerika Serikat seperti Tyler Adams dan Tim Weah dilaporkan tetap fokus menjalani persiapan laga uji coba melawan Senegal dan Jerman.