Six months before the 2026 FIFA World Cup, USMNT manager Mauricio Pochettino found himself answering a question from U.S. President Donald Trump.
“What do you think, coach? Can you win the World Cup?” Trump asked during a brief meeting at the tournament draw in Washington, D.C. Pochettino replied: “Of course, Mr. President.”
Now, the Argentine reveals exactly what was going through his mind at the time — and why he felt there was only one possible answer.
Mauricio Pochettino Reveals Why He Couldn’t Tell Donald Trump ‘No’ About Winning FIFA World Cup
Pochettino first made this chat with Trump public on the “High Performance” podcast in February.
“At the draw of the World Cup, I met Donald Trump for a few minutes,” Pochettino recalled. “He asked me, ‘What do you think, coach. Can you win the World Cup?'”
‘I said, ‘Of course, Mr. President.’ Because it’s the USA. The American dream is there. It is about being first. Being the number one. We really believe we can win. We are in a place where, after a year and a half, people are starting to feel that we can win.”
Does Pochettino really believe that the USA can best the traditional powerhouses such as Germany, Spain, Brazil, France, or even his own country, Argentina?
During his recent chat with Spanish outlet El PaÃs before the USA’s 4-1 win over Paraguay in the World Cup opener, the USMNT manager shared why he had to give Trump that answer.
“I answered that way first because I believe it,” Pochettino said. He then explained why anything less than complete confidence would have been unacceptable.
“Second, because when the chief representative of a country asks you that question… If I were the president and the coach didn’t respond with a resounding yes, I would fire him,” the USMNT manager added. “What do you do with a coach who doubts his chances?”
The United States is not considered a favorite to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but Pochettino has long embraced the pressure that comes with leading a host nation.
“From Day 1, when we accepted this challenge, we said: whatever pressure there is, let’s turn it into a source of energy,” said Pochettino, who took charge of the USMNT in September 2024. “Outwardly, there isn’t that pressure because no one talks about the United States as a favorite. But when we accepted, we said: ‘Why not?'”
To support his belief, Pochettino pointed to two of the biggest surprise runs in modern World Cup history. “If you analyze other World Cups, you see cases like Morocco in 2022 or South Korea in 2002, who reached the semifinals.”
Morocco became the first African nation to reach a World Cup semifinal in Qatar, while South Korea famously reached the last four when it co-hosted the tournament in 2002.
The comments echo what Pochettino told The Telegraph in a separate interview last year, where he acknowledged that hosting the World Cup naturally brings expectations and, with it, pressure.
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“The pressure is going to be there, because we are a host,” he said. “It’s a country where the mentality is about winning. In sport, in everything that Americans are involved in, they want to win.”
He even joked back then that Trump, never one to shy away from making big promises, would only add to that pressure.
“Of course, now with our president who likes to put pressure, that is going to be good,” Pochettino said. “Yes, we are ready to deliver.”
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