POCH: EPL IS CALLING ME
EX-SPURS BOSS OPENS UP ON HIS WILLINGNESS TO WORK IN ENGLAND AGAIN, HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH MOURINHO, AND THE TROPHY GAP ON HIS CV
We needed to move on. But I’ll always remember the good times
MAURICIO Pochettino is refreshed, fully recharged and is hungry to return to English football after finally ending his six-year association with Tottenham Hotspur.
Pochettino and his coaching staff have completed their gardening leave and are searching for the next challenge.
‘After six months our tanks are completely full,’ said the 48-yearold Argentine, who was dismissed by Spurs last November.
‘It has been an amazing time to review everything, organise again our ideas, plan the future to try to compete better, try to learn from our experience and look forward for the next job. Football is dynamic and you need to be ready for the moment when the offer appears.’
Although his availability will command interest from around the world, his preference is to stay in England.
‘We love England,’ said Pochettino. ‘We have our house and our home here. We feel very good for the future in this country. The people are very respectful. The football is so exciting.
‘The Premier League is the best league in the world. It is one of the options. It can be my priority but I am not closed to move to a different country.
‘I’m very open to wait for the seduction of the project rather than the country. Always you dream of the perfect club, the perfect project. It is difficult to discover. From the outside it is difficult to measure.’
His search for a ‘project’ may encourage the Saudis trying to take over Newcastle.
Pochettino is on their managerial wishlist but, after four years in the Champions League, he will expect to return to a job among Europe’s established elite.
It’s certainly been a longestablished desire. The memory makes him laugh, but Pochettino admits there was a time when, as manager of Espanyol, he allowed his mind to wander and toy with the idea that he might replace Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid.
He had been linked with the Madrid job in the media and was asked about it before his team played at the Bernabeu.
‘It was in the past, years ago,’ says Pochettino. ‘I said I was not thinking about that and, by the way, my kids sleep in Espanyol pyjamas every night, so it’s very difficult for me to think about changing. I am more than committed to Espanyol.
‘When I arrived at the stadium, Jose was waiting for me with a bag with a very nice bottle of French red wine and two kits of Real Madrid, shirts and shorts. He says: “These are for your kids to wear from now on”.
‘We have kept a good relationship. We have known each other for a long time. He’s a top coach. In life, look what happens.
‘I always think: “Oh, maybe one day I can take your place at Real Madrid” and he has taken my place at Tottenham. Unbelievable, eh? I am happy he has replaced me.
‘I am happy to leave the club in the way we left it, with the best facilities in the world. For sure, he is very grateful for the way we helped to build the club, which is now his club.’
Pochettino is tanned with a sparkle in his eyes befitting his six months free from the stresses of the touchline. His wife Karina does not approve, he says, but he has grown a lockdown beard, grey in contrast to his dark hair. A new, wiser image to accompany his search for a new challenge.
It is six months since he was sacked with Spurs languishing 14th in the Premier League. He has sifted through what went wrong with his inner circle of coaches, Jesus Perez, Miguel D’Agostino and Toni Jimenez, who have remained in permanent contact.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ he says, there have been conversations with Mourinho since November. And there was a friendly meeting with
Unai Emery shortly after he had been sacked by Arsenal, which turned heads in north London.
‘We met to talk and share our experiences,’ says Pochettino. ‘We were working in different clubs. We were the enemy. But we finished at around the same time and we were just taking a coffee.
‘It was in Cockfosters, very close to Arsenal and Tottenham’s training grounds. People were walking past and saying: “Unai and Pochettino are now sharing a coffee”. It was very funny.’
There are plenty of Spurs fans still pining for the man they sacked but any bitterness has been washed from his system and time has delivered perspective.
‘We needed to move on,’ reflects Pochettino. ‘I’ll always remember the good times.’
Chief among them, last year’s remarkable European campaign. Tottenham beat Manchester City and Ajax when all hope seemed lost and reached the final against Liverpool only to go behind to a penalty conceded in the opening seconds and were unable to find a way back into the game.
‘Very difficult to accept,’ says Pochettino. ‘I was convinced the final was going to go our way. But nobody is prepared after 30 seconds of the Champions League final to concede like that.
‘The goal changed the whole game, all the emotions. It is difficult to prepare a team for that happening. We were much better than Liverpool. We were unlucky that we didn’t score. Maybe we deserved a better result but finals are about winning.
Inside Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano Stadium, Pochettino broke down. ‘I was so disappointed. It was difficult to stop crying, to stop feeling bad. You can use the example of Liverpool after they lost to Real Madrid the season before. That was a massive motivation and inspiration.
‘But I knew after five years — with the way we were working and all the things that happened — it was going to be difficult.’
His Spurs drew acclaim. They were easy on the eye, reached semi-finals and finals and were Premier League runners-up in 2017. Much of this was achieved within the financial constraints
of their delayed move to a new £1billion home at White Hart Lane. They lodged at Wembley for almost two years, played a home game at Milton Keynes and went 18 months without a new signing. His work and his values impressed. And yet, no trophy.
For Tottenham, nothing since a League Cup in 2008, and their longest post-war drought goes on. For Pochettino, nothing as a manager, and it will weigh against him when prestigious clubs consider his suitability.
‘At Espanyol, I wanted to win trophies,’ he says. ‘When I moved to Southampton I wanted to win trophies. The same at Tottenham. The difference is the reality.
‘We are not a coaching staff that started at Bayern Munich. If you start at Bayern Munich it’s completely different to starting at Nuremberg.
‘To win a title with Nuremberg is going to be more difficult than with Bayern.
‘Claudio Ranieri won his first title at Leicester when he was nearly at the end of his career.
‘People can say I wasn’t a successful coach. If we talk like this, then 90 per cent of coaches in the world are losers because, in Spain, there is only Barcelona and Real Madrid. In France, Paris Saint-Germain dominate the league. Coaches are not thinking only about winning titles.’
Pochettino recalls a meeting with Tottenham’s billionaire owner Joe Lewis and chairman Daniel Levy soon after he arrived from Southampton in 2014. They met in Nice aboard Lewis’ yacht.
‘The old boat,’ Pochettino smiles. ‘The first and last time. Never again was I invited.’ But his point was this: ‘They were very clear about what success would be over a five-year period.’
He would often refer obliquely to this when defending his record towards the end of his days at Spurs. Lewis and Levy wanted Champions League football at the new stadium and Pochettino delivered it almost three years ahead of schedule.
They were still in the competition when he was replaced by Mourinho and crashed out against RB Leipzig days before the season was suspended. ‘People sometimes measure success in a different way,’ he says. But he admits that five years of intense focus, coupled with Tottenham’s unique circumstances, put a strain on relationships inside the club.
‘In these type of projects there is a lot of work and disappointments,’ says Pochettino.
‘It’s normal that there’s a lot of friction. We worked very hard to finish the dream. We could not finish it the way we wanted.
‘We are happy with the way many things went. It is difficult to think about changing things because you cannot regret decisions. To help the club be the club it is today is fantastic. Tottenham is one of the best clubs in the world. We feel very proud.’