LONDON, ENGLAND - MAY 17: Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City, reacts during the Emirates FA Cup Final match between Crystal Palace and Manchester City at Wembley Stadium on May 17, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

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When is the best coach of his generation not the best man for a job? It sounds like some sort of riddle, but it could be the reality facing the US men’s national soccer team.

With head coach Mauricio Pochettino packing his bags to leave his role for Manchester United, a vacancy has opened up at the top of the US game and early reports are suggesting Pep Guardiola could be approached to fill it.

On paper, he looks like the perfect candidate. The former Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City boss is widely considered to be the best tactical innovator of the past 20 years and has a list of winners’ medals and personal accolades to back it up.

Yet a step into international soccer may not suit him. In fact, there’s enough evidence to suggest that it might be a bad fit for the USA if it was able to tempt him into taking the job.

Why? Because successful coaches from the club game have historically struggled when they switch codes to take charge of national teams.

That might seem like a bold claim given how many big names with illustrious club resumes are currently taking jobs in the international game.

From Guardiola’s old rival Jurgen Klopp at Germany and Brazil coach Carlo Ancelotti to Thomas Tuchel at England and France’s Zinedine Zidane, the line-up resembles the coaching equivalent of The Avengers. They just won’t be working together to get their hands on the biggest trophies.

Guardiola joining the gang would make sense in some ways. The international schedule is less relentless, there’s more time to come up with new tactical approaches and it’s a new challenge he’s yet to try.

But Pep, as with almost all big-name club coaches of recent years, is a control freak and that doesn’t lend itself well to international coaching. His insatiable appetite to work with his players and come up with new ways to beat the competition is what has made him so successful, so it would take a huge shift in his way of working to adapt.

No longer would he be able to spend time working as closely with individuals or hold long team briefing sessions to get his ideas across. He’d be unlikely to have regular contact with his players outside of international windows due to the nature of the domestic game, either.

Many international coaches I spoke to for my book, How to Win the World Cup: Secrets and Insights from International Football’s Top Managers, acknowledged these issues. Some found different ways to communicate and work, others didn’t and missed the daily cut-and-thrust of the club game. For a coach as intense as Guardiola, my guess would be that he’d be closer to the latter.

Clearly many others disagree. Since he left his job at Manchester City in May, it has been revealed that England previously sounded him out to be its head coach, Italy tried to snare him when their national team job came up a couple of months ago and now he’s being talked about as a possible USMNT boss.

Guardiola has faced hundreds of challenges throughout his coaching career, finding new ways to win and perhaps this would be no different. After all, he’s revered as the best for a reason.

But this wouldn’t be a change that could be solved by making a tactical tweak or dreaming up a new way to unlock a team’s stubborn backline. This would be a material change to the way he’s worked so well for so long.

This is why we’ve seen an increasing number of international-specialist coaches, such as World Cup winners Luis de la Fuente and Lionel Scaloni, being so successful.

International soccer needs a different breed. Guardiola doesn’t appear to fit the mold.