Mauricio Pochettino once again distanced himself from links to a return to Tottenham Hotspur on Monday, while expressing his confidence that his former club will avoid relegation despite a challenging season.<\/p>\n
Pochettino, who led Spurs to some of their greatest successes in the modern era during a tenure from 2014-2019, has often been linked with a return to the club. However, his position as head coach of the US men\u2019s national team has prevented him from taking over this season as Tottenham have floundered<\/a>. Pochettino will not be available for his next job until after this summer\u2019s World Cup, as his US Soccer contract expires in August.<\/p>\n Speaking with reporters ahead of the US\u2019s Tuesday friendly against Portugal, Pochettino said that his \u201cfull focus\u201d is on leading the US at a home World Cup.<\/p>\n \u201cI think everyone knows that I am committed with the national team here,\u201d Pochettino said, adding that nobody has approached him about jobs at Tottenham or Real Madrid, where he has also been linked should the club decide to move on from \u00c1lvaro Arbeloa.<\/p>\n Pochettino also left open the possibility that he could extend his stay with the US.<\/p>\n \u201cWho knows what is going to happen,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are open. We don\u2019t have a contract for the future. But why not? If we are happy and the federation is happy, it\u2019s only about to see \u2026 Never say never in football.<\/p>\n \u201cBut now it\u2019s not time to talk. It\u2019s time to be focusing [on] the World Cup, and after the World Cup, for sure, we will have time to talk in some way or another, depending on the vision of the federation and also our feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked about Tottenham\u2019s recent form, which has the club hovering just one point above the relegation places<\/a> with seven matches to play, Pochettino expressed confidence that Spurs will beat the drop, regardless of who is in charge next. Spurs are targeting Robert De Zerbi to take over, with the club reportedly offering him<\/a> a long-term contract to start immediately.<\/p>\n \u201cI am sure they\u2019re going to stay up, with coach or without coach,\u201d Pochettino said. \u201cBecause of the players, because I think they have unbelievable players, and it\u2019s a club with fans that are going to make everything to create that energy to win. Of course, that is going to be tough, because the energy and the dynamics is difficult \u2026 But if you ask me about that club, it\u2019s a club that I really care [about], and for sure, I really trust that [they\u2019re] going to stay in Premier League<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mauricio Pochettino once again distanced himself from links to a return to Tottenham Hotspur on Monday, while expressing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-555507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}