Mauricio Pochettino would have gone back to Spurs even if they were playing Championship football. Let that land for a second.

Not some freshly relegated side on a bounce-back mission with money to spend. Spurs, in the second tier, a club that could genuinely have been staring up at the likes of [Wrexham and Burnley](/uprise/football/wrexham-held-at-home-by-struggling-burnley) on a Saturday afternoon. And he would have taken the call. That tells you everything about what that club means to him, and arguably everything about where Spurs have drifted as a proposition when he is choosing them over nothing rather than over better alternatives.

The timing never worked out

The story is pure Pochettino. Spurs sacked Thomas Frank in February, installed Igor Tudor on an interim basis, and intended to sit back until the summer when they could assess their options properly. The plan was to go for Pochettino, but he was contracted to the United States through the World Cup and there was no pulling him away from that. Fair enough.

Then Tudor fell apart completely, leaving Spurs a single point above the drop zone with seven games remaining. The plan changed. Roberto De Zerbi was their first choice before Frank even left, and now they went back to him with a long-term offer serious enough that he took it. [De Zerbi is now at the club](/uprise/football/premier-league-news-richarlison-refused-new-contract-alonso-backs-james), the door closed, and Pochettino was left to manage the US through a World Cup semi-final against Argentina, a 2-1 defeat, then sign a new four-year deal taking him to the 2030 World Cup.

"When I was free, I never received a contact," he says. "And then when I was working, I received a contact but I cannot make the decision to come back. It was a little bit unlucky." You could call it unlucky. You could also call it the story of the last decade of his career, where the big opportunities and his availability have been perpetually out of sync.

The England question

The part that will generate noise is what he says about England. He was in the conversation when the FA were looking for a Gareth Southgate replacement after Euro 2024, but he had already committed to the US before their search got serious and it ended with Thomas Tuchel getting the job. That is on the record now.

Would he consider it one day? He thinks so, yes, but stresses he means in future and not now, and he is self-aware enough to anticipate the obvious objection. An Argentinian managing England is politically loaded at the best of times. They met in the World Cup semi-final this summer, Argentina winning 2-1, and the Falklands conflict does not get forgotten simply because one man wants to coach a football team. Pochettino does not dismiss the sensitivity but he does not accept it as a permanent barrier either. He still has his family home in north London. He says England and Argentina are not as different as the politics suggest.

At 54, with Spurs, England, Madrid and Manchester United all having had him in their thoughts at various points, the pattern is not going to change. He is not shy about any of it, which is what makes him so good to listen to in a game full of coached non-answers. [In an era when managers tend to give you nothing](/uprise/football/champions-league-is-fertile-ground-for-new-managers-but-knowhow), Pochettino gives you the actual thought.

Whether the stars ever align with Spurs again is another matter. But he will be ready when they call.