Mauricio Pochettino: He’s magic, you know
I’m an Englishman who lives in Argentina. My wife was born in Argentina, my children were born in Argentina – and so was my club’s manager. My father first took me to White Hart Lane, the home of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, when I was barely out of nappies. It was the 1980s and football in England – and especially the stadiums – were still rough and tumble, dangerous and violent, though of course I don’t even remember that. I’m told I just played with my cars on the terraces while the game went on in front of me.
The club, the ground, that part of London, would become such a deep part of my life, for so many years (it was preordained, after all, my father named me after our club’s top scorer, Jimmy Greaves). It still is. I can still smell the burger vans around the stadium today. I can still feel the sticky floors of the pre-match pub. I can still hear the songs, the chants, the banter, the bad language. That buzz as you walk through the inner part of the stadium. That thrill as you walk up the steps towards your seat and that beautiful green pitch appears before you, ready for the drama.
In my teenage years, I became a full card-carrying fullblown supporter. I had a season ticket and went every week with my Dad and our friends. I was underage, but I used to sneak the odd pint of beer here and there, feeling all grown up as I downed my drink before heading to White Hart Lane, the “world famous home of the Spurs,”
as they said on the tannoy.
The thing is, we Spurs fans drank a fair bit before games back then. You see, we were quite rubbish in the 1990s. Sure, we won a few games, and the odd FA or League Cup once every 5 or 10 years, but we were mostly pretty crappy. Luckily though, we always had one or two flair players that could produce some magic on the pitch (Paul Gascoigne, Teddy Sheringham, David Ginola, Jürgen Klinsmann etc.) and made going each week worthwhile, but generally, in the league at least, we bounced around in the middle of the table, not doing much, some weeks scoring the odd classy victory and others capitulating 4-1 to Crystal Palace at home.
We had some managers that did well, some managers who did alright, some managers who did awfully and some managers we came to love, each in their own way. One or two managers that even began to forge the path toward achievement. But nothing – NOTHING – compares to the Murphyborn hero that is Mauricio Pochettino. This glorious Argentine has done something to my club that I didn’t think was possible. He has turned average players into warriors. He has helped unpolished gems in our academy turn into worldclass stars worth hundreds of millions on the market. He has coached, not bought, our way to success
But most importantly, he has introduced belief. He has turned us into a team, a team that knows no boundaries. A team that knows our old glorious history and our recent less glorious history, a team that is aware of it and wants to change it. He has done all of this on practically no budget (compared to our rivals, relatively speaking, of course), playing for two years without our home stadium, with players who are being paid less than their peers at other clubs. Somehow he keeps them happy. They stay with us though, at least for now. Why? It’s simple, Pochettino.
I love ‘Poch’ (as we call him in England). I am so proud to have him as our coach. Being here in Buenos Aires, watching him in my homeland, watching what he says in castellano on the touchline, is both perculiar and glorious. Watching him charm the world and the way he is with players, staff. The emotion, the mate, the abrazos, I see that he represents so much of the Argentine character that I love. And you can see that his players love him too. Even those ones sitting on the bench not getting a game. Against Ajax, on Wednesday night, the two players that had the biggest impact were Fernando Llorente (34, almost can’t run, definitely can’t last 90 minutes) and hat-trick hero Lucas Moura (a player that’s spent half the season on the bench, and a winger playing upfront).
None of this is luck. It’s all here because use Poch laid the prepaparation for it It’s just ust happened quicker er than he, or perhaps ps anyone, expected. d. He believes ann-ything is possible, e, but that first you u must be humble, , that you must respect your peers, that you must work hard and that life will reward you ou in kind if you do. He teaches his players this and they not only become better players, they become better people too. Just ask them, the way they speak about him... well, it’s like he is their father.
Pochettino is an alchemist, and he has found the perfect recipe at Tottenham. And now we’re on the verge of taking the biggest prize going. We may not win, but he’s already worked miracles. As the song we fans sing about him goes: “He’s magic you know, Mauricio Pochettino, he’s magic you know....” Thank you, Poch.