Former Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino says he is "missing" the Premier League and would like to return in the future. Pochettino, currently preparing for the 2026 World Cup as head coach of the United States, has enjoyed three different spells in the English top flight. He joined Southampton after leaving Espanyol, then took charge of Spurs, who he led to the Champions League final in 2019, and went on to manage Chelsea.

"The Premier League is the best league in the world," he told BBC Sport. "Of course I am missing it. I am so happy in America but also thinking one day to come back to the Premier League. It's the most competitive league."

Aside from an 18-month stint at Paris St-Germain, where the club won Ligue 1 and the French Cup, his critics would point to the lack of silverware on his CV. It is clear from speaking to Pochettino that it particularly rankles from his time at Tottenham. The 53-year-old spent five years at Spurs between 2014 and 2019, guiding the north London club to a second-place finish in the 2016-17 Premier League season, the EFL Cup final in 2015 and the final of Europe's elite club competition.

"I think we were so close in Tottenham, we nearly touched it [winning the Champions League and Premier League]. That is a thing that I would want to achieve," added Pochettino, who remains in contact with the man who sacked him, Daniel Levy.

Levy, 63, surprisingly left his role as executive chairman at Tottenham in September after 24 years. During that period the club won the 2008 EFL Cup and the 2025 Europa League, and also moved into a new stadium.

"I was very surprised [at Levy's departure]. His legacy is there. It's amazing what he did for the club," added Pochettino. "My relationship always was good with him. During my period in Tottenham and after I left.

"He was a really important person because he gave me the possibility to manage a club like Tottenham. That is, for me, one of the best clubs in the world, with an amazing fanbase."

In September 2024, Pochettino was handed the challenge of leading the United States into a World Cup they will co-host with Canada and Mexico. Yet it has not all been plain sailing. Pochettino has won 11 of his 20 matches at the helm and defeats to the likes of Mexico (twice), Panama, Canada, Turkey, Switzerland and South Korea have drawn criticism. He has also reportedly faced issues around changing the culture, external and mindset of his players and been unhappy about arriving at home matches only to find that the visiting supporters significantly outnumber, external American fans. And all this has come while he acclimatises to the different demands placed on an international boss.

"The intensity is completely different because you need to arrive for a few days to prepare the game and play, prepare another game, play, and go back," Pochettino continued. "After November, we are going to have three months until March to prepare another game. In a national team you are desperate to coach the players.

"You feel empty because after the second game you cannot have communication and you cannot keep working on improving things."

The United States have only ever reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup on one occasion, in 2002. The MLS was formed in 1995, one year after the US hosted the 1994 World Cup, and has improved and grown significantly since then, with Lionel Messi's arrival in 2023 evidence of a changed landscape.

"I think players like Messi are helping the kids, not only when the kids want to play basketball or American football or baseball, they now want to play also soccer," added Pochettino, who stressed his employers have told him to use the term soccer rather than football to avoid public confusion. He added: "The motivation is massive. Sometimes you feel that people don't understand too much.

"You find some coaches that say, 'oh you know, you need to know the culture of the American player'. I say, 'No, I know the most important thing - the culture of football and soccer. We need to translate the culture of football to the American player'.

"I think after one year we are making great progress. We are building [ideas] with people that the language of football is only one and it doesn't care if you are American, Brazilian or English. Our football is [to] compete in the way that you need to compete, if you want to win."