Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic app.In June and July of 2024, frustration burned through American soccer. The U.S. men’s national team had just crashed out of the Copa América, a prestigious continental tournament. As bitter fans trudged down ramps at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, some chanted for the firing of head coach Gregg Berhalter. In group chats across America, others vented. They felt the team had plateaued. Some felt a world-class coach was needed to revive potential ahead of the 2026 World Cup.There were, however, a few longstanding problems with that plan.The United States had never produced a world-class men’s soccer coach. And in theory, it had neither the soccer prestige nor the players to woo one from abroad. Historically, the U.S. Soccer Federation also lacked the necessary budget. Big names seemed like longshots.What the U.S. did have, though, was ambition — plus billionaires and corporations willing to fund it.They, the benefactors, became a key piece of the puzzle when U.S. Soccer did fire Berhalter and went in search of a successor. As federation executives advanced in talks with Mauricio Pochettino, a renowned coach who’d recently parted ways with English club Chelsea, they also spoke with sponsors and potential donors. They worked out a deal that would ultimately pay Pochettino several million dollars annually, a deal that U.S. Soccer said was “supported in significant part by a philanthropic leadership gift from Kenneth C. Griffin,” the founder and CEO of hedge fund Citadel.“Additional support,” U.S. Soccer added, was provided by Scott Goodwin, the co-founder of Diameter Capital, another hedge fund; and by “several commercial partners.”Without them, the hire “absolutely” would not have happened — “well, unless [Pochettino] was willing to work for much less,” U.S. Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone said.And with them, the trajectory of the USMNT changed.It has not necessarily been linear and ascendant. Pochettino’s 20 months in charge have been rocky. The 54-year-old Argentine coach has spoken about how he “identified problems … destroy(ed) the things that we needed to destroy, and start(ed) to build the house from the ground up.” Doing so took pain, losses and time.But if the U.S. succeeds at the 2026 World Cup, which begins Thursday, Pochettino will get plaudits; and his wealthy backers will look back on their investments as worthy ones. Because they saw the donations as more than just a boost to help a team win; they saw an opportunity to elevate soccer in America.Ken Griffin (L) and Scott Goodwin (R), U.S. Soccer’s benefactors who helped the federation hire Mauricio Pochettino (Krisztian Bocsi / Bloomberg ; Michael Nagle / Bloomberg / Getty Images)‘I’ll pay’Berhalter, who was hired back in 2018 and then re-signed in 2023, made around $1.7 million per year, including bonuses. That was a record for a U.S.-born men’s national team coach. Bob Bradley, the previous one, made less than $1 million per year back in the late 2000s. Jürgen Klinsmann, a high-profile German coach who led the U.S. team from 2011-2016, was the exception: he made more than $3 million by the end of his second contract, according to U.S. Soccer tax filings.Klinsmann, though, was not an accomplished club coach. To lure one with both a big name and a lengthy coaching résumé, in 2024, U.S. Soccer knew it would need an unprecedented financial outlay.Executives were undeterred.“We started (the search) with a list of who we thought were the world’s best coaches,” U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson tells The Athletic.Among the ones they approached was Jürgen Klopp, who won a Champions League and English Premier League title at Liverpool. And when that approach leaked to the press, one day after Berhalter had been fired, the same fans who’d fumed in group chats during the Copa América suddenly began dreaming.One of those fans was Goodwin.Goodwin, who was born in France and spent time in Spain, had stayed in tune with soccer as he rose in the finance industry. In a text thread with three friends, two of them former professional players who still work in soccer, he’d been ranting about the woes of the USMNT. When he saw names like Klopp’s, Goodwin wrote to the group: “Let’s get these guys.” When one former pro told him that the top coaches might be unaffordable, he responded: “I’ll pay.”And he meant it.One of the former pros connected him with U.S. Soccer, and before long, he was meeting via Zoom with Leah Burton, the federation’s chief advancement officer.Soon after that, he was meeting with Batson over breakfast at Locanda Verde in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan.They spent two hours talking through visions for the future of American soccer, and Batson, in a way, made the same pitch that he’d been making to coaches.If they — donors or coaches — leapt on board and drove the USMNT deep into the 2026 World Cup, the pitch went, they could help change the course of soccer in the U.S. They could inspire enthusiasm and participation among American kids. They could leave a legacy.“By the end of breakfast,” Batson recalls, “Scott was like, ‘I’m in — and I’ll get other people in.’”But with a catch, of course: Batson and U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker had to land a coach worth the money. To Goodwin, there were three names that fit the bill: Klopp, Pochettino and Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola.Batson and Crocker chased at least two of them. They first met Pochettino in mid-July at a hotel in Barcelona. Over the coming weeks, they jetted around Europe, from the U.S. women’s national team’s run to Olympic gold in Paris back to Barcelona, where Pochettino lives. By early August, they felt confident they’d convinced Pochettino. Then they had to figure out how to pay him.That’s when they went back to Goodwin. There was a gap, Goodwin recalls, between Pochettino’s salary expectations and what U.S. Soccer felt it could pay. Sponsors would fill half the gap, he was told; could Goodwin cover the other half?Goodwin says he balked at the price, but had a solution. He phoned Griffin, whom he’d gotten to know in South Florida. When they sat down for lunch months earlier, they’d chatted about soccer culture, everything from the youth landscape to Lionel Messi at Inter Miami. Griffin had a longstanding interest in the sport, and had donated $8 million to the U.S. Soccer Foundation, a charitable organization, to fund the building of 100 mini-pitches in Chicago and Miami-Dade County.So, Goodwin asked, would Griffin donate to the hiring of Pochettino?The gist of Griffin’s answer was: I’m in.Their reasons were similar. “You have a two- or three-year window now to try to make a difference in U.S. Soccer for the next five, 10, 15, 20 years,” Goodwin told The Athletic in 2024. He felt that a coach “at the top level” — just like Emma Hayes, who received a record-breaking salary to lead the USWNT and almost instantly led the women to Olympic gold — could “be a catalyst for long-term positive benefit, even if it’s a short-term agreement.”Griffin did not agree to an interview, but Cason Carter, the head of public affairs at his company Citadel, told The Athletic in a statement: “Ken did this out of a deep love for soccer and a commitment to growing the game in the United States. He believes in inspiring more children to play, fostering the joy of competition, and advancing the values that make sports meaningful.”After a series of conversations, including with U.S. Soccer, the two made firm commitments. None of the entities involved have disclosed the size of their donations, but they were sufficient. Weeks later, after negotiations that were complicated by Pochettino’s messy separation agreement with Chelsea, U.S. Soccer announced “Poch” as its new men’s head coach.Mauricio Pochettino addresses USMNT players at World Cup training in Irvine, Calif. (Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)Getting their money’s worth?In his first seven months on the job, from September 2024 through March 2025, Pochettino made roughly $5 million, according to tax filings. His signing bonus alone was $2.5 million. Although he is making less than he reportedly did at Chelsea or his previous club, Paris Saint-Germain — and less than some other top coaches in Europe — he is, by far, the highest-paid employee in U.S. Soccer history.At that seventh-month mark, he was also struggling. Many outsiders were questioning whether he was worth the hefty investment. Consecutive losses to Panama and Canada in March 2025 ended his honeymoon period. By the summer, he seemed to be at odds with his star, Christian Pulisic. The team was still underperforming. Those who argued all along that coaches are overvalued in international soccer seemed to have their case in point.Then, however, Pochettino’s value began to show. His teardown-to-buildup bore fruit. The youngsters and fringe players he empowered became contributors. They spanked Uruguay 5-1 in November. The tactical flexibility and man management that had won Pochettino acclaim in England, especially at Premier League clubs Southampton and Tottenham, were starting to take hold.After that November win, Goodwin, who has grown close to Pochettino, recommended that the Argentine watch “Miracle,” the 2004 film that dramatizes the 1980 U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team, its upset of the Soviets and its miraculous gold medal. Pochettino watched the film, cried, and began quoting the 1980 hockey coach, Herb Brooks. When he gathered players at the start of their next training camp in March, he asked them: “Why not us? Why not us?”A week later, Belgium and Portugal answered. Those two European heavyweights, with a pair of multi-goal defeats, brought the USMNT back to earth. But a May 31 win over Senegal, and a promising performance against Germany, recharged belief. Pochettino, it seems, has the USMNT prepared for the brightest spotlights it will ever experience.And that is precisely why U.S. Soccer, with help from deep pockets, went and got him.“Given this was going to be one of the most high-profile coaching roles in all of sports this summer, having someone who has thrived in multiple very high-profile environments … and had a (staff) who could work with him and a proven ability to work in these high-pressure environments, was something that we felt was very important,” Batson says. “And also, someone who could inspire belief in the broader American soccer public that we are a real soccer nation.”The hire, in this sense, was a paradigm shift. It was enabled by soaring revenues, but also by ambition. It fell right in line with other grand initiatives — such as a $250 million national training center, fueled in part by a $50 million gift from Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank.“At U.S. Soccer, we had to shed a little bit of the ‘Little Engine That Could’ mentality,” Batson says. “And realize, ‘no no, we can be great too.’ That’s our expectation on everything.“There’s no reason why we can’t go win big things.”