'We're working with a top-notch manager' - Mauricio Pochettino to Manchester United? USMNT players stay focused as familiar rumors threaten to become reality

When he was hired by the USMNT, Pochettino was brought in to lead a reset. There is perhaps no club in soccer more in need of one of those than Manchester United. No club could benefit more from an obvious change of culture.

The truth is that that is what Pochettino does best and why he climbed the ranks to the very top of the managerial hierarchy. His strengths very much center around fixing vibes and, more crucially, getting the most out of young players. He's shown that with players like Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Cole Palmer on the club level. He's done it with Alex Freeman, Malik Tillman and Folarin Balogun with the USMNT. Pochettino has shown that he isn't a manager that needs to buy stars; he can make them, too.

Manchester United, meanwhile, have tried throwing both money and ideas at the problem for years now. Since Sir Alex Ferguson's departure, the club has tried a little bit of everything. They've brought in tacticians and disciplinarians. They've brought in big names and club legends. They've tried to fix vibes, and they've tried to fix player recruitment. None of it has worked. That's why they are where they are now. That's why they're linked with Pochettino.

Is Pochettino the man to fix it? No one really knows. The job has proven lethal for all who have taken it, and none have lived up to the bare minimum of Manchester United's expectations. It's a tough gig, to put it lightly.

So, too, was the USMNT job that Pochettino walked into when he arrived at U.S. Soccer. After the World Cup, he committed to doing that job for four more years, albeit with a significant buy-out clause included in the contract for situations like this.

On Tuesday, Pochettino led USMNT training as normal and, for the players who are a part of his training sessions, that's what the situation itself has to feel like.

Antonee Robinson is no stranger to the Premier League rumor mill. He, too, has been linked with Manchester United at various stages of his career. So, when he reads the headlines, he knows that what you see isn't always what you get. It is sometimes, but not always.

"That news got sprung on us like the rest of the world, I'd say," the defender told the media on Tuesday. "Similar things happened in the past after the World Cup, where huge teams lose their manager, and they start looking at possible candidates. For us to have a manager who's linked with those sorts of jobs means we're very lucky, and we know that we're working with a top-notch manager."

Cavan Sullivan has worked with Pochettino for just a few weeks. The September-October camp was his first under the coach and his first taste of senior USMNT duty. During their brief time together, though, Sullivan says that he has felt Pochettino and his staff take real initiative in working with him and helping him to get better.

"Mauricio's been taking me under his wing in the most tremendous way possible," he said. "I was obviously a young guy coming in, and he told me to just play free and be myself and have confidence in my ability. That didn't mean I was the hook or the standard was lower for me; that standard remained the same for everybody in the camp in every training and every game.

"He really appreciates that and that directness on the field, but there's also the warmth, the hugs. He's a really personable guy off the field."

Neither Sullivan nor Robinson said they've seen a change in Pochettino since the rumors emerged. In the initial days of USMNT camp, it's been business as usual.

"It never seems to leak into the work we do," Robinson said. "Whether it's the World Cup or whether it's going to be this camp, all that sort of noise has nothing to do with him. He's very much focused on getting the best out of the team."

Robinson's right; there is experience to this. And if rumors didn't sink the USMNT's World Cup, they won't alter too much in a November Nations League camp either.

In May, just days after naming his World Cup roster, Pochettino was heavily linked with AC Milan. Reports swirled that he was taking calls from the Italian giants and that his focus was turning away from the USMNT. In a meeting with the media, Pochettino pushed back.

"If I were not committed," he asked, "then what am I doing here? I am here now. I am here, and I'm not going to go away tomorrow."

During that time, though, Pochettino did acknowledge his place in the rumor mill. Yes, he had been linked with jobs and, of course, the people he works with will always have their ears to the ground. As an agent or a representative, your job is to always look for the best possible situation for your client, and Pochettino is a client. There will be times, then, when, at the very least, those who represent Pochettino are in contact with others.

"Of course, we have been approached. I'm not going to lie to you," he said in May of the AC Milan rumors. "Of course, I have met some people from different clubs, but that is a conversation because we have friends in football. We have friends everywhere, and my representative works for me to try to find the best possibility for the future. That is normal. It's normal for all of my colleagues. There are a lot of examples of people under contract at different clubs who meet and talk to other people."

He added: "When I was in different clubs, I was always committed. Of course, there were times when people talked to me. I've seen this when I was at Tottenham, and I received offers and spoke with guys to say, 'I respect my contract with Tottenham'. That, for me, is the way we act."

Pochettino's contract this time does offer a bit of wiggle room. Reports say that a club could buy him out of his deal for somewhere around $10 million. And, from a USMNT perspective, it would almost certainly be better to lose him now than deep into the cycle. It would be uncomfortable, sure, and it would require a shift in preparations, but the truth is that U.S. Soccer is well aware of what it's like playing the Pochettino game, one that could end at any moment.

"We have plans for renewals, we have plans for interims, and we have plans for replacements, because you never know what's going to happen," U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson told media in May. "It's a global sport. There's lots going on, and so that's a standard part of us growing up as U.S. Soccer...We need to make sure that no matter what happens as an organization in our key roles, we have interim plans as well. We have development plans for potential successors over time, and so this is just a standard part of us growing up."

So what will the next phase of this look like? The truth is that U.S. Soccer doesn't know. Manchester United may not either. Ultimately, whether it's this job or the next one, all rests on Pochettino's shoulders.

Even if this job doesn't prove to be the one for Pochettino, there likely will be one that does. The right club with the right prestige will come in some day. They'll offer the right amount of zeroes and the right amount of club control. The question isn't if, but when? Does it happen now? In 2028? After the 2030 World Cup?

It depends on what Pochettino wants, and the truth is that he's generally made that clear. He has said that, at some point, he wants to try to win the Premier League and Champions League. He has also said that he wants to change American soccer for good, too. In a way, those aren't the big-picture goals, but rather pathways. Pochettino's big picture has always been centered around ambition and achievement, wherever that is.

"Always, we grow in a culture of, if you want to get something, you need to be so serious, so responsible, so focused, so concentrated, no pain, no gain," he said during the World Cup. "In football, it's not like this. Football doesn't [always] reward good people; football rewards talent."

Pochettino is one of the world's most talented managers. That's why this keeps happening and why it will keep happening going forward. So what changes? Nothing... at least until everything does.

"Me personally, I don't really look at him being linked to all the jobs as 'Oh this could be the last time he's in front of me'," Robinson said. "It's just focusing on the fact that we've got a game at the weekend and I'm going to do everything I can to be ready to play for him and how he wants us to play until it's all otherwise.

"It's just working with what we've got until things change."