The Highest Paid Coaches At The 2026 World Cup: Who Makes The Most? Who Makes The Least?

By Brian Warner on June 11, 2026 in Articles › Sports News

The 2026 World Cup kicks off today, and for the next month, the spotlight will mostly belong to the players: the superstars, the goal scorers, the penalty takers, the captains, and the aging legends hoping for one last perfect run. In case you missed our previous coverage, here is a list of the richest players at the World Cup, and here is a list of the highest-paid players at the World Cup.

But there's another group of people standing just outside the touchline, who will be another group carrying an enormous burden. The coaches.

The decisions made by these 48 men can send an entire country into euphoria, heartbreak, outrage, or all three in the span of 90 minutes.

I am a pretty typical American soccer fan. As in, I pay attention every four years when the World Cup rolls around, I learn just enough to have opinions, and then I go back to not thinking much about international soccer until the next tournament.

And as a pretty typical American soccer fan, up until about an hour ago, I assumed all the World Cup coaches were professional club coaches taking a quick side job from their main gig. They probably showed up a few months ago, ran some drills, took some press photos, and they'll head back to their regular jobs when the tournament ends.

Sort of like what happens in Olympic basketball.

When the U.S. men's basketball team brought home gold at the 2024 Olympics, it was coached by Steve Kerr. In 2021, the U.S. won gold under Gregg Popovich. And at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the U.S. men's basketball team will be coached by Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra.

And believe it or not, coaching the U.S. men's Olympic basketball team is an UNPAID VOLUNTEER job! It is, for all practical purposes, a national pride assignment. These coaches do it for the chance to lead Team USA, win a gold medal, and be part of American basketball history.

So, once again, as a pretty typical American soccer fan, I assumed the same basic setup applied to World Cup coaches. I was very wrong.

As it turns out, managing a serious World Cup country is a full-time, year-round, multi-year job. These coaches are not spending Saturdays managing Premier League clubs and then popping over to coach their national teams during international breaks.

Managing a country into a 48-team World Cup is a massive corporate, tactical, political, and emotional operation. When national-team managers are not standing on the touchline, they are flying around the world to scout players at the club level, meeting with federation officials, coordinating with youth academies, monitoring injuries, managing the media, building tournament logistics, and preparing for opponents months in advance.

That is why the world's biggest football federations now pay club-level money for national-team coaches. Brazil did not hire Carlo Ancelotti as a ceremonial figurehead. The United States did not hand Mauricio Pochettino the richest coaching contract in its soccer history because it needed someone to pick a lineup three times a year. England did not make Thomas Tuchel one of the highest-paid managers in the tournament for a part-time job.

These are full-time national pressure cookers. And the salaries reflect that:

The Complete 2026 World Cup Head Coach Salary Rankings

Rank & Coach	Annual Salary (USD)
1. Carlo Ancelotti – Brazil	$11,300,000
2. Julian Nagelsmann – Germany	$7,900,000
3. Mauricio Pochettino – United States	$6,800,000
4. Thomas Tuchel – England	$6,500,000
5. Roberto Martínez – Portugal (tie)	$4,500,000
5. Fabio Cannavaro – Uzbekistan (tie)	$4,500,000 (Unconfirmed)
7. Didier Deschamps – France	$4,300,000
8. Ronald Koeman – Netherlands (tie)	$3,400,000
8. Marcelo Bielsa – Uruguay (tie)	$3,400,000
10. Jesse Marsch – Canada (tie)	$2,800,000
10. Javier Aguirre – Mexico (tie)	$2,800,000
10. Gustavo Alfaro – Paraguay (tie)	$2,800,000
10. Julen Lopetegui – Qatar (tie)	$2,800,000
14. Lionel Scaloni – Argentina	$2,600,000
15. Luis de la Fuente – Spain (tie)	$2,200,000
15. Nestor Lorenzo – Colombia (tie)	$2,200,000
15. Sebastian Beccacece – Ecuador (tie)	$2,200,000
15. Hong Myung-bo – South Korea (tie)	$2,200,000
19. Murat Yakin – Switzerland	$1,800,000
20. Ralf Rangnick – Austria (tie)	$1,700,000
20. Zlatko Dalić – Croatia (tie)	$1,700,000
22. Georgios Donis – Saudi Arabia	$1,200,000
23. Hajime Moriyasu – Japan	$1,100,000
24. Pape Thiaw – Senegal	~$1,000,000 (Estimated)
25. Ståle Solbakken – Norway	$950,000
26. Rudi Garcia – Belgium	$780,000
27. Steve Clarke – Scotland	$580,000
28. Sabri Lamouchi – Tunisia	~$380,000 (Estimated)
29. Sébastien Migné – Haiti	~$220,000 (Estimated)
30. Darren Bazeley – New Zealand	~$150,000 (Estimated)
31. Pedro Leitão Brito "Bubista" – Cabo Verde	~$125,000 (Estimated)

The following coaches' salaries are not known:

Algeria: Vladimir Petkovic
Australia: Tony Popovic
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Sergej Barbarez
Congo DR: Sébastien Desabre
Cote d'Ivoire: Emerse Faé
Curacao: Dick Advocaat
Czechia: Miroslav Koubek
Egypt: Hossam Hassan
Ghana: Carlos Queiroz
Iran: Amir Ghalenoei
Iraq: Graham Arnold
Jordan: Jamal Sellami
Morocco: Mohamed Ouahbi
Panama: Thomas Christiansen
South Africa: Hugo Broos
Sweden: Graham Potter
Turkey: Vincenzo Montella

The Highest Paid Coach at the World Cup: $11.3 Million

The highest-paid coach at the 2026 World Cup is Carlo Ancelotti. He makes $11.3 million per year to manage Brazil. FYI, Carlo is Italian.

That number is staggering for a national-team coach, but it makes perfect sense when you consider the assignment. Brazil is not paying Ancelotti to make a polite quarterfinal run. Brazil hired him for one reason: to win the World Cup.

No country has won more World Cups than Brazil, but the national team has not lifted the trophy since 2002. For Brazil, that is not just a cold streak. It is a national identity crisis. This is the country of Pelé, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Romário, Rivaldo, Kaká, Neymar, and five stars above the crest. Winning the World Cup is not treated like a dream. It is treated like an expectation.

That is why Brazil went outside its own coaching tradition and hired one of the most decorated managers in soccer history. Ancelotti has won Champions League titles, league titles, and domestic cups across Europe's biggest clubs. He has managed Real Madrid, AC Milan, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus, and Napoli. He is not a developmental hire or a federation insider. He is a global super-coach.

And Brazil is paying him accordingly.

At $11.3 million per year, Ancelotti is making more than Julian Nagelsmann (Germany), Mauricio Pochettino (United States), Thomas Tuchel (England), Didier Deschamps (France), and Lionel Scaloni (Argentina). He is making more than four times what Argentina is paying Scaloni, who won the last World Cup.

He is also not some one-tournament rental. Ancelotti officially took over Brazil in May 2025 after a long pursuit by the Brazilian Football Confederation. His original deal ran through the 2026 World Cup, but in May 2026, Brazil extended his contract through the 2030 World Cup, turning this from a short-term rescue mission into a long-term national project.

That makes the salary even more interesting. Brazil is not just paying Ancelotti to chase one trophy this summer. It is paying him to reshape the national team, restore its aura, and end a World Cup drought that has stretched for nearly a quarter-century.

If he delivers Brazil its sixth World Cup title, no one in Brazil will care what he cost. The salary will be remembered as a bargain.

Carlo Ancelotti (L) gives instructions to Brazil's defender #13 Danilo (R) (Photo by FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images)

The Lowest Paid Coach at the World Cup: $125 thousand

At the other end of the salary spectrum is Pedro Leitão Brito, better known as "Bubista," the manager of Cabo Verde. His salary is not 100% officially confirmed, but it's believed to be £100,000 ($125,000) per year. FYI, Pedro is from… Cabo Verde! He is one of just a few coaches managing his native country! Also, FYI, Carlo Ancelotti makes Pedro's entire annual salary… every four days.

And just to pause for a second: Cabo Verde is a real country, though many American readers may know it better by its former English name, Cape Verde. It is an island nation off the west coast of Africa, sitting in the Atlantic Ocean about 350 miles west of Senegal. The country is made up of 10 volcanic islands and has a population of only around 500,000 people. In other words, Cabo Verde has fewer people than Tucson, Arizona. It has fewer people than Staten Island. It has roughly one-seventh the population of Los Angeles.

That is what makes this World Cup qualification so remarkable. Cabo Verde is not a traditional football power. It does not have the financial resources, player pool, infrastructure, or global sports machine of Brazil, Germany, England, France, Argentina, or the United States. It is a small island nation that had never qualified for the World Cup before.

And yet, Bubista got them there.

Team USA's Coach: $6.8 Million

For American readers, the most interesting name on this list may be Mauricio Pochettino. FYI, Mauricio is Argentinian.

U.S. Soccer's tax filings showed that for his first seven months on the job, he earned a base salary of $2,516,917 plus a $2.5 million bonus, for total compensation of just over $5 million in that initial period. Annualized, his salary comes out to roughly $6,040,600. With bonuses, his salary could ultimately top $6.8 million. That makes him the most expensive coach in U.S. Soccer history and the third-highest-paid manager at the entire World Cup.

Pochettino was officially announced as the U.S. men's national team head coach on September 10, 2024, replacing Gregg Berhalter. His contract runs through the end of the 2026 World Cup, which makes this an extremely clear assignment: take the most talented generation of American players in years and push them further than they've ever been.

Historically, the U.S. men's national team has not been a serious World Cup title contender. The best finish in American men's World Cup history came all the way back in 1930, when the United States reached the semifinals and finished third. That sounds impressive, and technically it is, but it also happened in the very first World Cup, when only 13 teams participated.

In the modern era, the best U.S. run came in 2002, when the Americans reached the quarterfinals before losing 1-0 to Germany. That remains the benchmark. Since then, the U.S. has mostly lived in the Round of 16 neighborhood. Good enough to get out of the group. Not good enough to scare the true giants of the sport.

That is what Pochettino was hired to change.

The goal is not merely to show up, play hard, and produce a respectable exit. The goal is to push the United States beyond its usual ceiling. For this team, that probably means getting past the Round of 16, reaching the quarterfinals, and then seeing if a young, talented American roster can create one of the biggest moments in U.S. soccer history.

Pochettino has managed Tottenham, Paris Saint-Germain, and Chelsea. He took Tottenham to a Champions League final. He has coached superstars, handled pressure, and worked inside some of the most intense media environments in European soccer.

Who Is A Bargain?

The biggest bargain at the 2026 World Cup is Lionel Scaloni.

Argentina is paying Scaloni around $2.6 million per year. That is obviously a fortune in normal terms, but in World Cup coaching terms, it is shockingly low. Scaloni is the manager of the defending World Cup champions. He also led Argentina to Copa América titles in 2021 and 2024, ending a long trophy drought and helping complete the final chapter of Lionel Messi's international career.

And yet, Scaloni is making less than a quarter of Carlo Ancelotti's salary in Brazil. He is making less than half of what the United States is paying Mauricio Pochettino. He is also making less than Thomas Tuchel, Julian Nagelsmann, Roberto Martínez, Didier Deschamps, Ronald Koeman, Marcelo Bielsa, Jesse Marsch, Javier Aguirre, and Gustavo Alfaro.

That makes almost no sense from a pure results standpoint.

Of course, federations do not all operate with the same budgets. Argentina has the history, the players, the shirt, and the pressure, but it does not have the same financial muscle as Brazil, England, Germany, or the United States. Scaloni's salary reflects the economics of Argentine football more than it reflects his actual value.

Didier Deschamps also deserves a mention. France is paying him around $4.3 million per year, which is not cheap, but he won the 2018 World Cup and then took France all the way back to the final in 2022. Very few people in soccer history have a résumé like that. At less than half of Ancelotti's salary, Deschamps looks like a bargain too.