Poch has zest and may take his place among the best
EVEN Roy Keane can’t resist Mauricio Pochettino’s c h a r ms . Last Wednesday night, after his young and callow Chelsea side delivered their best performance of the season by dismantling Aston Villa at Villa Park, Poch joined Keane and Karen Carney for one of those awkward post-match interviews that some television producers think are a good idea.
Somewhere in ITV that morning, it was decided their two pundits, rather than a reporter, should quiz the victorious manager after this Cup replay. So, Poch had to stand between Keane and Carney around a perspex stand and answer their stilted and softball questions. It was all a tad cringeworthy that was only made watchable by Poch’s personal magnetism.
As well as looking like ‘the most handsome oil rigger in the world’, as journalist Barney Ronay once memorably described him, Poch is also blessed with that gift of always saying the right thing. As he discussed the youth of his team, Poch referenced how the players needed to learn the will to win and determination, that they needed more of the mentality of ‘this man here beside me’ which caused the former Manchester United captain’s face to crease into a smile, in spite of himself.
As he left, Poch grabbed Keane in one of his heartfelt bear-hugs, tapping the Irishman on the chest. Not everyone can get away with that.
They have a lot of similarities, these two men with box- office appeal. And it’s not just because they possess oodles of charisma. They are roughly the same age — Keane is around six months older — and their coaching careers started within a year of each other, Pochettino taking over Espanyol about 11 months after Keane’s remarkable first season in management when he lifted Sunderland from the bottom of the Championship, winless after five games, to the top of the table.
While neither are likely to freely admit it, they both probably look back on the 2002 World Cup with a little regret — the Irishman for some row on an obscure Pacific island that most of us have taken a vow of silence about. Poch happened to be the Argentine defender who upended Michael Owen in the box leading to David Beckham’s penalty which knocked his country out.
And of course, at various times of their coaching career, they had been talked of as a future Manchester United manager, although such chatter around Keane hasn’t been heard since that first season when he seemed to become that rarest of characters — a great player who became a great manager.
However, despite being linked with loads of jobs including t he Ire - land one, he hasn’t been the main man at a club since his departure from Ipswich well over a decade ago, just around the time that the former defender from a town called Murphy — named after an 18th century immigrant from Wexford — in the Santa Fe region of Argentina was making waves with Espanyol.
Pochettino has been earmarked as the person who can sort out the chaos at Old Trafford for years, ever since he was papped coming out of a dinner with Alex Ferguson while still Spurs manager. When Louis van Gaal was on his way out, during Ole Gunnar Solsjaker’s protracted exit and just before Erik ten Hag was appointed, the cry from a lot of United supporters — myself included, I hasten to add — was ‘get Poch’.
Even now, I think the club made the wrong decision in appointing ten Hag over him. Surely, I am not alone in that assessment. In time, Pochettino will probably become known as the best manager that Manchester United never had.
It’s all hypothetical granted, but it is difficult to envision Poch having the same issues that the Dutchman had with the likes of Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford. In Guillem Balague’s book, Brave New World: I nside Pochettino’s Spurs, he remarks that he has never punished a player for being late or not putting as he prefers to talk it over with them and get to the root of their punctuality problems.
Personal relationships with all of the players in his squad are the most important thing for Poch — although he might have his work cut out in Stamford Bridge considering all the players there after Todd Boehly came in and tried to disrupt European f ootball by spending cash like Richard Pryor in Brewster’s Millions.
As Balague says in his book, while at Tottenham, Poch would have one- on- ones with players that could last hours.
If he saw any of his squad walk around with a glum expression, he would tell the player to turn the frown upside down, because he believes negativity is contagious and keeps a bowl of lemons in his office to cleanse the room of negative energy.
There has been so much negative energy around Chelsea this season that he might need a truckload of lemons.
Things reached a nadir last Sunday when after the team conceded four goals in a second successive Premier League game, and his defence was torn apart by Pedro Neto, the wife of Thiago Silva — who has been the grandfather figure among a bunch of kids in this team — took to Twitter and suggested that change was needed at the club.
Belle returned to Twitter and clarified her original statement. ‘I’m sorry that my personal outburst as a passionate Chelsea fan has caused such an impact. I’m passionate about the team, I thrive on victories and am saddened by defeats.
‘We all want the same thing, a winning team, come on Chelsea.’
A few hours after Mrs Silva’s words, Chelsea delivered their best performance under Pochettino, sans her husband it should be pointed out. But it is a sign that this manager, who so l oves a project, might be able to make sense of the bunch of kids who were brought together by a scatter-gun and senseless transfer policy.
Poch and his love of projects is something that is always thrown at the manager. The only trophies he has won in more than 15 years as a manager was with PSG and to be frank, any of us could probably claim the Ligue One title with all of Qatar’s money to play with.
For two seasons, his Tottenham side were the best team in the Premier League but somehow didn’t win the title on either occasion, managing to finish third in a twohorse race with Leicester before imploding on the pitch and handing the title to Chelsea in the following year. For all his gifts and charisma and lemons on his desk, he never truly cured Tottenham of the Spursy disease, so maybe he would never turned around the giant oil tanker at Old Trafford. However, if he does somehow manage to make a team out of all these young players at Chelsea, and make sense of the absurd manner in which this club has been run, i t will prove that Pochettino is one of the best managers around. We know Roy Keane will be impressed. Mrs Silva might be, too.
He is blessed with that gift of saying the right thing