We can still win big clash, says Poch
MAURICIO POCHETTINO believes Tottenham can triumph at Manchester United even without talisman and leading scorer Harry Kane. The Spurs striker has been suffering with a hamstring injury and, as reported by
Sportsmail yesterday, was a doubt for today’s lunchtime Old Trafford showdown. Yesterday Pochettino confirmed his star striker will sit out the clash against Jose Mourinho’s side. The news comes as a huge blow to Tottenham as they look to underline their credentials in the title race. But the Spurs boss said: ‘Of course we can win without Harry, I always believe we can win with one or another team, with one or another player.’ In confirming Kane’s unavailabiity, Pochettino added: ‘We cannot take a risk. It’s a minor injury, very small, but we cannot take a risk. We’ll see for Real Madrid on Wednesday. ‘It’s a blow because you always want all the players available. It’s a problem. But we always believe in collective, the squad. ‘I told the players they are not machines and it’s so difficult to cope with international duty and to play every three days. It’s lucky it’s not a big problem.’ Pochettino, meanwhile, insists there is no rift between himself and opposite number Mourinho despite implying in his new book that the United boss had tapped up Eric Dier. ‘It’s a thing that is in the past and I was honest in the book,’ said Pochettino. ‘My relationship with him is very good, we’re in contact. That is only describing one small situation. There’s nothing wrong, I only describe a situation in the past. It’s not an issue. I texted him in the summer when, as you know, his dad passed away and for different circumstances I called him. I’m very grateful to him. When I was young at the start of my career at Espanyol he invited me to meet him at Real Madrid.’ Pochettino also insisted there are no trust issues with his squad after disclosing private conversations with his players, namely Kyle Walker, who joined Manchester City, and Dier.
AS A 10- year- old, Mauricio Pochettino experienced humiliation for the first time. During a youth tournament in his Argentine hometown Murphy, he was jostling for position at a corner-kick. As he went up for the header, the goalkeeper pulled his shorts down.
‘Imagine the fans!’ Pochettino writes in his diary Brave New
World. ‘And the parents! It p****d me off so much . . . I cried and cried because I felt so powerless on the pitch. Everyone was looking at me. The most insufferable part was the fact I didn’t have the balls to react . . . I should’ve grabbed him by the neck and punched his lights out.’
Waking up on Thursday morning, Pochettino might have reflected on that episode. To surrender a twogoal lead and lose 3-2 against Slaven Bilic’s downtrodden West Ham in the Carabao Cup is perhaps the adult equivalent of having your pants pulled down.
So today at Old Trafford, Pochettino will demand a response and he himself may feel he has a point to prove. For all the forward progress Tottenham have made, his side have won only once in 15 league matches away at the established other top six clubs.
Since joining Tottenham, he has visited Manchester United three times, suffered three defeats and his team have not scored a goal. After last year’s 1-0 loss, a heated exchange of texts with chairman Daniel Levy followed.
Since that traumatic day on the playing field, he has always resolved to hit back. ‘ When someone gets the better of you in a duel or you get nutmegged, it makes you fight against your destiny and gives you strength.’
At his Belgravia residence this week, the Argentine ambassador waved a Tottenham flag proudly during a sports diplomacy event. Ossie Ardiles described Pochettino as ‘outstanding’. Diego Maradona, a former room-mate of Pochettino, confided that he had been blown away by Tottenham’s display against Liverpool at Wembley.
Curiously, Pochettino is still to take up an invitation to visit the embassy. Being so far from his native land, he was relieved one Christmas when his children asked for Argentina rather than Spain shirts. And at home, they drink Argentine mate — a type of green tea — live off barbecued meat and a sweet treat is dulce de leche.
Pochettino’s strength in adversity was forged through a childhood in the small farming town of Murphy, founded by the Irishman John James Murphy. His hometown sits a four-hour drive to the west of Buenos Aires. It was a simple upbringing with loving parents Hector and Amalia. It was, for example, a childhood without telephones but Pochettino’s stocky build developed through manual labour on the farm, including driving a tractor around at the age of 12.
At the age of 14, he was discovered by Argentina’s most celebrated youth coach, Jorge Griffa. Griffa, now 82, was also the first to set eyes on Gabriel Batistuta and Carlos Tevez.
He tells Sportsmail: ‘I was driving around Argentina with New- ell’s Old Boys manager Marcelo Bielsa. We had been in Rosario watching a few kids.
‘It was evening time. Marcelo turned to me in the car. He said, “We’re going home, yeah?” I said, “No, we’ve been alerted to this kid Mauricio Pochettino and we aren’t going home until we convince him to come to Newell’s”.
‘We knew he was close to agreeing a deal with Rosario Central, so we had to act. We got there a little bit past 2am. They did not have a doorbell. We had to bang on the windows to wake them up. We persuaded his mother and father not to sign anything and to come to Newell’s for a trial.
‘Mauricio was asleep in his bedroom. His parents opened the bedroom door a teeny bit and let us in the room. He looked like a little elephant wrapped up under his duvet. We had to get him.’
Pochettino went on a trial at Newell’s. He was tall for his age group and his determination stood out. ‘We liked his technical side, pace and temperament.
‘His father came to my office. He Here the transfer”. said, you “Here have We my is did an approval it!’ envelope. for
Under manager Marcelo Bielsa, Pochettino came of age.
Those who know Pochettino describe him as a student rather than a disciple of the Argentine manager, but it is clear that those days at Newell’s shaped his vision of football. The intoxicating, high-energy, passing and pressing football is derived from the Bielsa handbook, as too is the trust in young players.
Pochettino was one of several academy products who won the Argentine title in 1991 and reached the Copa Libertadores final the following year. Miguel D’Agostino, now part of Spurs’ staff, was in the same team. His performances earned a move to Spain with Espanyol.
Pochettino’s leadership instincts came to the fore. ‘We called former Gonzalez. him team- ‘His the great-grandfather mate Sheriff,’ Sergio says was stuck. the He Sheriff was the of Murphy, boss in so the it dressing room, the guy who knew the club inside out.
‘If you go into war, you want him leading you. He pushed himself to the very limits. He was the first out at training, the first to run hardest, the first to set the standards. He had to win, not just every game but every training game.’
AT Paris Saint- Germain, in a squad featuring Ronaldinho, Jay- Jay Okocha and Nicolas Anelka, he was made captain inside four months.
Pochettino is unafraid of difficult decisions. When he became
“If you go into war you want him leading. He’s the Sheriff”
Espanyol manager, the club were adrift at the foot of the table.
Dani Ballart, the club’s player liaison manager, was culled early in Pochettino’s reign after the squad were caught partying.
At Southampton, he ditched Dani Osvaldo after the player had a bust-up with captain Jose Fonte. Andros Townsend did not recover from a training-ground row with Pochettino’s fitness coach.
Pochettino has read Sir Alex Ferguson’s books closely and the word control is important. Like Ferguson, he has little personal desire to bother with Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
‘I don’t need 500,000 followers to feel good about myself,’ he said.
Pochettino remains on good terms with today’s managerial opponent Jose Mourinho. In 2015, he called Mourinho ‘the No 1’.
In Pochettino’s time at Espanyol, Mourinho invited him as a per- sonal guest to Real Madrid’s Champions League match against Ajax. He even let him into the dressing room, where he told Pochettino: ‘The place to manage is the Premier League.’
IN his early time as a manager, Pochettino’s career has been touched by triumph and tragedy by helping out the Espanyol women’s team. Marta Corredera, now of Atletico Madrid, recalls: ‘He was doing his coaching badges. He joined in our sessions, put himself right in the middle, taking part in the games.
‘We were training at 9.30pm late into the night in the winter. Those nights were freezing cold.
‘He still says that our Espanyol team inspires him. We were chasing trophies and had a real hunger about us. There were a lot of young women in the team, the atmosphere was fun but demanding, not dissimilar to Tottenham.
‘He ended up coming to most sessions and games. It was clear he would be a great manager and we are still in touch now.’
As Espanyol manager, he improbably rescued the club from relegation and also inflicted Pep Guardiola’s first home league defeat as manager of Barcelona.
He introduced filming of training sessions and fitted GPS devices to players’ shirts. He elevated youthteam players but he was heartbroken by the sudden death of defender during a training and captain camp Dani in Italy. Jarque
The Oxford manager Pep Clotet, Espanyol’s B team coach at the time, recalls: ‘We were in Finland and the first team were in Italy. It was a traumatic experience. We had dinner and the kitman Manolo came up me to crying, he had been in Espanyol for 20 years. I thought, “Something big has happened.”
‘He was a tough man. Pochettino was very strong. How do you handle that as a manager? Really, I don’t know. It was really hard.’
At Tottenham last season, he experienced similar heartache when the club’s Under 23s coach Ugo Ehiogu died suddenly at the training ground. Pochettino, along with his assistant Jesus Perez, led a 40-strong party to a group meal to celebrate Ehiogu’s life.
After such life-affirming events, polemics over contract wrangling must feel rather insignificant.
Pochettino forges a family atmosphere at all his clubs. It is why the parting of the ways hurt more when he left Southampton behind. It was encouraging this week to learn that Pochettino has since made up with his former chairman Nicola Cortese. The pair have shared lunch together several times in London this calendar year.
Pochettino is popular with his players. He appears to draw improvement out of most at his disposal. He retains extraordinary levels of self-belief. He says he would rather have coached the Messi that Pep Guardiola took on, rather than the finished product we all enjoy now. Pochettino believes that had he taken Mousa Dembele at the age of 18, the Belgian would have become one of the world’s greatest players.
‘Maradona, Ronaldinho, Okocha and . . . Mousa Dembele,’ Pochettino said. ‘We always told him that ‘if we had taken you at 18 or 19 years old, you would have become one of my geniuses.’
Yet the plaudits are deserved. The statistic that Pochettino has nurtured over half of the last 29 England debutants is quite staggering. No wonder Roy Hodgson took to dropping by Pochettino’s office so regularly after games.
Pochettino will ultimately want medals to accompany the acclaim. A victory today at Old Trafford would be a step in the right direction.