Former Tottenham and Chelsea head coach Mauricio Pochettino is a top target for the U.S. men’s national team opening, according to multiple sources briefed on the coaching search.

The sources said that the federation was still considering multiple candidates as of last week, but Pochettino is seen by some as the favorite in the pool, and U.S. Soccer is engaged in conversations with his camp.

U.S. Soccer has declined to comment on any specific candidates for the job.

Hiring Pochettino would be seen as a huge splash, especially at a time the U.S. fanbase is looking for a big-name manager. The Argentine has never managed a national team, but has had plenty of success at club level. He guided Southampton to an eighth-place finish in the Premier League in 2013, achieved record league finishes with Spurs, including a Champions League final appearance in 2019, and secured a Ligue 1 title with Paris Saint-Germain. Most recently, Pochettino led Chelsea to a sixth-place finish and European qualification before departing at the end of the 2023-24 season.

U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker and Pochettino overlapped during the Argentine coach’s year at Southampton. Crocker led Southampton’s academy at the time, and left in November 2013 to join the Football Association.

Argentine outlet Olé previously reported Pochettino was a candidate for the job.

While it is possible that U.S. Soccer could make and announce a hire before the September window, the federation is planning to have former U.S. under-20 men’s national team coach and current USMNT assistant Mikey Varas to lead the senior team in friendlies against Canada and New Zealand on September 7 and September 10, respectively, according to sources briefed on the program’s planning.

The USMNT have been without a coach since firing Gregg Berhalter after a group-stage exit in the Copa América this summer. Berhalter served as the manager from December 2018 through to December 2022, taking the U.S. back to the World Cup after they failed to qualify for the tournament in 2018, and then again from June 2023 until July 2024.

The U.S. fell flat in the Copa, beating Bolivia in their opening group game before losing to Panama after playing a man down for more than an hour following a red card to winger Tim Weah. The U.S. then lost 1-0 in the group finale to Uruguay.

GO DEEPER

Pochettino’s Chelsea departure won’t see him left on the scrapheap

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Pochettino would be the highest-profile coach of the U.S. since Jurgen Klinsmann, a World Cup winner. While Klinsmann coached the German national team and Bayern Munich before taking on the U.S. job, his fame came more from his on-field accomplishments as a player. Pochettino has made his name as a manager, with teams that use positional play to try to dominate space, but that also like to press and attack opposition.

The 52-year-old will likely command a top-level salary, as reports have indicated he was one of the highest-paid coaches in the world at PSG and Chelsea. However, Crocker has said the federation won’t be limited by financial restrictions.

“It’s a really competitive market out there, salary-wise, and we have to be competitive to get the level of coach that I believe can take the program forward in terms of achieving the results that we want on the field,” Crocker said. “It’s a priority. It’s something we’re prepared to invest in and something that we will be investing in.”

(Top photo: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)

PARIS — Stephen Curry just wanted to feel like one of the Olympians.

During the July 26 opening ceremonies, he was floating down the Seine River on the Team USA boat, surrounded by hundreds of elite athletes. But the Golden State Warriors star’s celebrity status kept getting in the way of this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“I didn’t feel like just one of (the athletes) at first, because people were coming up to me saying, ‘Can I have a picture with you?’” said Curry, who, at 36, is competing in his first Olympics. “It was that type of vibe. I had to actually stop and tell them, like, ‘No, I want to know who you are, what you do and level the playing field, because you’re here for a reason too.’”

Hours later, Curry had taken more than 200 pictures with other athletes on his phone while learning all about the timeless tradition of Olympic pin-trading. This would become Curry’s favorite off-court moment of them all.

“I got to be a fan,” he said. “It was special.”

For the players on this American men’s Olympic basketball team — who are among the most famous athletes on the planet, and whose collective star power is the primary reason they stay away from the athlete villages during the Games — they’ve cherished these chances to connect with and marvel at their contemporaries these past few weeks.

And as the Games near an end, with Team USA set to play in a semifinal Thursday against Serbia and the potential gold-medal game two days later, the reminiscing has already begun.

When Kevin Durant was asked to pick his favorite memory of these Games, the answer came without hesitation.

”Seeing Simone,” he said with a smile.

Much like LeBron or KD or Steph, legendary American gymnast Simone Biles is one of the few athletes here whose Q rating is so astronomical that no last name is needed. So on Aug. 1, one night after the men’s basketball team beat South Sudan in pool play and two nights before the Americans would rout Puerto Rico, a group that included Durant, Curry, Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday and Tyrese Haliburton went to watch Biles in action.

She won her sixth gold medal that night, winning the all-around event while fellow American Suni Lee took bronze.

“I’d never been to a gymnastic event up close like that,” said Durant, the Phoenix Suns star and three-time gold medalist who is hoping to become the program’s first ever to win a fourth. “Obviously I’d watched (gymnastics) on TV, but it’s different when you’re there. And just to see her greatness, along with the other girls who put so much time into their craft, it’s just amazing to see how great they’ve become.”

But Durant’s observations went well beyond the thrilling result.

Until that evening, he wasn’t aware that gymnastics is such a youthful sport. He heard all about how the 27-year-old Biles is considered “old” in her sporting space, and how there are so many gymnasts — like 16-year-old American Hezly Rivera — who become elite before they can vote.

He heard the widespread criticism Biles received back in 2021, when she pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics despite being a gold-medal favorite in most of her events while citing a condition known as “the twisties.” Biles, who would later open up about the mental health challenges she was facing at the time, would become disoriented in the air and chose to shut it down as a result. To Durant, that decision — and the roaring comeback that has unfolded since — are just as much of a part of her legend as everything that came before.

But what Durant admires most about Biles, it seems, is how unafraid she is to tell the world how she feels, no matter what scrutiny comes her way. In front of the cameras. On social media. Wherever it may be.

Durant, no stranger to scrutiny himself, is notorious for engaging with fans and media members on public platforms. Biles, in that way and so many more, is now one of his inspirations.

“When people see so much potential in you at an early age, you’re gonna get nitpicked like that, and she’s been through it at the highest of highest levels,” Durant said. “For her to continue to come out and showcase the brilliance every day, and also let people know that they sound crazy talking against her? To be able to do both is inspiring.”

Durant paused.

“So yeah, she’s inspired me to keep tweeting and keep doing what I do on the court too,” he said with a laugh.

Of all the American hoopers creating memories, Booker is the most qualified to actually document them. Way back in 2016, when he was looking for creative methods of chronicling his first-ever All-Star experience in Toronto, Booker decided to go the vintage route and use a camcorder rather than a cell phone.

“I have some really good friends of mine who introduced me to cameras in my rookie year, and they were like, ‘Yo, keep a handycam on you (because) it feels more authentic than an iPhone,” said Booker, the 27-year-old who won a gold medal in the Tokyo Games and is in his second Olympics. “You get that old-school-style feel. It makes you pay attention to it more, makes you listen a little bit more. With an iPhone camera, the camera’s too good.”

Fast-forward to these Paris Games, two of Booker’s friends who assist with the production of his online content came along with him, and he has been sharing high-quality, well-edited video that routinely goes viral on his Instagram feed.

“We watch all the video back, then just cut it up,” Booker said. “The handicam is easy. We just take the coolest moments, and put them all into one.”

Like Durant, Booker said the chance to see Biles up close ranks at the top of his personal list. But there were plenty more.

On Sunday afternoon, Booker went to watch his “good friend,” the American fencer Miles Chamley-Watson, in a bronze-medal team match against France, then made the trek out to Stade de France to witness Noah Lyles’ stunning 100-meter final victory that required a photo-finish.

If he had to choose a favorite experience besides Biles — that was Durant’s pick, after all — Booker said it was the July 29 trip to La Concorde when his passion for skateboarding was fulfilled like never before.

“Seeing (American skateboarders) Nyjah (Huston), seeing Jagger (Eaton), Yuto (Horigome) from Japan — who all went top three — those are guys I admire,” Booker said. “I’ve tried to be on a skateboard, and I grew out of that very quick. But I’m in tune with skate culture, and how they go about their business, and I f— with it.

“The experience has been second to none for me. It’s getting around all the other events and seeing all the other talented people in the world at the same time. It’s something that I’ll pass down to generations of mine. I’ll send my handycam footage down to my kids’ kids’ kids, and hopefully they feel it.”

As Curry thinks back on all the different interactions that brought him joy, he starts listing the mementos that came his way during some of those moments. None of them would compare to the gold they’re all striving for, of course, but they’re still special.

He had a pingpong ball signed by the American women’s table tennis team when they came to watch the men’s basketball team practice. And yes, for those who wondered, that’s the same group of women who told Minnesota Timberwolves star and self-proclaimed table tennis extraordinaire Anthony Edwards that he wouldn’t be able to score a single point against any of them during their opening ceremonies boat ride.

Anthony Edwards thinks he can compete with the USA table tennis team 😂 pic.twitter.com/30GdJOmR3G

— Sideline Sources (@sidelinesources) July 27, 2024

And then there are the pins. So many cool pins.

“My (USA) skateboarding one is my favorite,” Curry said. “I got one from Team Jamaica, which was cool since I’ve got a lot of family on my wife’s side that’s from Jamaica. Pistol shooting too.”

He has a plan for the pictures too.

“I’m sentimental like that,” he said. “So once I get the prints, I might actually archive this and put it in a way where you pull out a bottle of wine six months from now, or six years from now, and just go through them and reminisce a little bit. I just want to have all those memories, to be able to relive it.”

Required Reading

(Top photo of Steph Curry cheering on Simone Biles: Jean Catuffe / Getty Images)

Follow live coverage of Day 12 of the 2024 Paris Olympics, with 21 gold medals on offer

PARIS — It’s a Saturday morning at the Team GB Olympic House and Andy Macdonald is wearing one of the two suits he owns. This is the new one, but it doesn’t really fit. A little loose in the middle, a little long in the sleeves. There’s also the issue that, despite being 51, Macdonald looks ridiculous in a suit. That’s not an insult. It’s an abject truth.

“Skateboarders wear suits to weddings and funerals, that’s it,” he says.

Macdonald is in a new world, so he’s dressed for the occasion. As a member of the Great Britain Olympic Team, he was given an entire kit of new gear and instructions. Here’s what to wear at the opening ceremony. Here’s what to wear for the closing ceremony. Here’s a load of official Adidas gear. And here’s a suit for formal gatherings. You know, in case the king invites him for tea.

“But I don’t think the king is going to invite me to tea,” Macdonald says, “so I figured I’d wear the suit to this press thing.”

Macdonald’s laugh lines are deep, the collateral of a lifetime spent having a good time. The suit is meant to be a joke, he says. A nod to all the illogical lines that needed to cross in order for him to be here. That he’s the old one — born in July 1973 — in a sport often dominated by teenagers. That he was one of the central figures in the early movement to have skateboarding added as an Olympic sport, and he did so in the early 2000s, before his current Team GB skate teammates, Sky Brown and Lola Tambling, both 16, were born. That he’s competing for the English, despite being born and raised in the United States. That he, one of the sport’s true originals, is about to drop into an Olympic park blocks away from the Eiffel Tower and the Grand Palais.

Macdonald is aware of his age. He’s asked about it every day. He’s asked to rattle off a long, wretched list of brutal injuries. A personal wiki page of broken this, shattered that. He’s asked about having an 18-year-old son while competing with 16 and 17-year-olds.

But then Macdonald flips everything around.

The injuries? In 35 years of skating, he’s broken an ankle, once, and a patella, once. He’s had his knee scoped once and his ankle scoped. That’s it. “Very lucky,” he says.

And why should he feel weird? He’s not old. He’s just been at the skate park longer than everyone else, is all.

“Look at it this way — I was already there when the teenagers showed up,” Macdonald says. “I was there when they were figuring out where to put their feet on the board. Chances are, I taught them how to drop in for the first time. Some of the first tricks that they learned? I probably invented some of them. Or I was there when someone else invented them.”

This is Macdonald’s charm. A narrator in a sport steeped in oral history, he’s competing in these Olympics as a sort of patron saint. He’ll be there — Wednesday, men’s park prelims, fourth heat, fifth and final run. Andrew Macdonald from Great Britain.

Sort of.

Macdonald was born and raised around Boston. He fell into skateboarding early. His first driveway ramp was a quarter pipe, 8 feet wide, 8 feet high. He built it with ramp plans ordered from a magazine and soon emerged as a serious skater living on the wrong side of the country. He moved to San Diego to pursue the lifestyle.

That’s where the legend grew. At the same time “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater” was hitting the shelves as a video game that every person of a certain age remembers, Macdonald had his own video game being released for PlayStation 1. “MTV Sports: Skateboarding Featuring Andy Macdonald.” The game looked an awful lot like Pro Skater and came with a musical accompaniment that was extremely Year 2000. System of a Down, Cypress Hill, Deftones, Pennywise, Goldfinger.

You might not remember Macdonald’s version because Hawk’s was comically better.

“It kind of vanished into the ether,” Macdonald says with a laugh.

But this was a time when skateboarders were going mainstream and the X Games were bringing action sports into people’s homes. Macdonald was in the middle of all of it. He was involved in an Olympic skating movement that began around 2003 or 2004, after NBC took over Olympic broadcast rights. He was a founding board member of USA Skateboarding not because he wanted to be an Olympian, but because “I just wanted to have some involvement as our sport went in that direction.”

The sport would have to wait until Tokyo 2020 before finally debuting.

Macdonald watched those Games from afar, seeing a long line of friends get their Olympic moment, albeit in a setting sapped by the pandemic. After the Games, he heard story after story about what it felt like to be an Olympian. One skater, Amelia Brodka, an American with parents from Poland, who competed in Tokyo under the Polish flag, suggested Macdonald look at his options.

As it turns out, Rodrick Macdonald, Andy’s father, was born in Luton, England, about 30 miles north of London.

So Macdonald looked into getting a British passport.

Then he looked into Paris 2024.

Last July, shortly before his 51st birthday, Macdonald made it through the Olympic Qualifier Series in Budapest.

“By an act of God,” he says.

“Some of the first tricks that they learned? I probably invented some of them,” Macdonald says of competing against teenagers in the Olympics. (Barrington Coombs / Getty Images)

Now he’s here, ready to compete in an event against a field led by defending gold medalist Keegan Palmer, a 21-year-old Aussie. The top American is 17-year-old Gavin Bottger.

Skill-wise, Macdonald remains among the best skaters in the world. Physically, things are a little different.

“They take a slam on cement and are back on their feet,” he says of his teenage competitors. “They get up and are like, ‘Where are we skating this afternoon!?’ I’m like, ‘Eh, I’m gonna go pick up my kids from school. Like, this is it for me skating today.’”

Macdonald has been jumping into the air and landing on his feet or his knees since about 1990. He’s avoided major injuries, but not defied time. His body is 51. Cartilage is calcified. Ankles are worn. Knees are worn. Lower back is wrenched.

His contemporaries are coaches. Sam Beckett, the British national team coach, had a long career in vert and park disciplines. He and Macdonald go way back, mainly because Macdonald was Beckett’s cabin counselor at the annual Woodward Camp near State College, Pa.

Macdonald, see, is 19 years older than Beckett.

That’s what happens when you’re a walking history book.

“The last time I was here was 16 years ago, and I was doing a demo with Tony Hawk inside the Grand Palais,” he said this week. “There was like 5,000 people in the Grand Palais, and Tony did a 900, which bought the house down, obviously.

“But that wasn’t even the end of the show, because he grabbed the mic and he was like, ‘And now, everyone watch Lin-Z Adams do the women’s first ever 540!’ Then she dropped in and did the first ever female 540, right in the Grand Palais. So that’s a little Parisian skateboard history for you.”

There’s more coming on Wednesday. Macdonald, who Hawk says is a “prime example of how much discipline can pay off,” will get a prologue to his own story.

It’s one all those younger guys might tell someday.

(Top photo of Andy Macdonald practicing ahead of the Paris Olympics: Garry Jones / Getty Images)