TERRIBLE PLAYER GREAT MANAGER

But that failure to stay cool on the pitch and lack of guidance has made Emery coach he is

THEY met as two hopefuls, one a little more advanced on their chosen career path as he had already risen to become Valencia’s coach, though it was early days and the going was tough, with the fans unconvinced. The other was in that netherworld, between playing and coaching.

Both were in their mid-30s, infants in coaching terms and still unsure as to where their vocation would take them: a workmanlike career if they caught some breaks, or perhaps they would end up on the coaching scrapheap.

Today they meet in the North London derby. Unai Emery, now at Arsenal was the one who was senior then, as Valencia coach.

Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino was the former player who had not been wanted by Ernesto Valverde at Espanyol. And in November 2008 he came to Valencia and found himself alongside Emery trying to accumulate knowledge to become a coach.

Emery was not the draw. It was Marcelo Bielsa, now at Leeds and then the Chile national coach, whose

magnetism had attracted them. Chile were playing Spain and using Valencia’s facilities. Emery might have used an international break to take a rest from Valencia’s famously relentless fans. But with Bielsa in town, he stayed for a pop-up coaching symposium.

Bielsa is possibly the most influential coach working in the world right now. Almost every Spanish-speaking coach will make a pilgrimage to Bielsa at some point.

Pep Guardiola, on a sabbatical in Argentina in 2006, spent 11 hours at his villa, picking his brain for ideas he would later incorporate into his distinctive style of football.

Pochettino had already worked under Bielsa at Newell’s Old Boys in Rosario, at Espanyol and as part of Argentina’s 2002 World Cup squad, which Bielsa managed.

‘Every coach can learn from different coaches,’ said Emery. ‘But with Bielsa, I think all coaches learn something.

‘Pochettino was coming because he was player with Bielsa in Argentina. We were learning with Bielsa in this moment.

‘Pochettino wanted to be a coach and a few months later he would start at Espanyol. We sat with Bielsa after training and spoke about football.

‘I respect Bielsa a lot. For me, he is a special coach. It’s difficult to train like Bielsa. But I like a lot when I can look at different coaches how they are working.’

And in those few days a fraternal bond was formed, enough for Emery to recommend Pochettino to the Valencia directors as his successor in 2012.

Those that know Emery well will tell you that studying other coaches is an obsession with the Basque.

He analyses colleagues more than he does players, even viewing their press conferences to see how they communicate.

One of Emery’s players at Almeria, his second club as a coach where he made his name in La Liga, told The

Guardian: ‘He is a colossal pesado (pain in the a***)... training sessions are long and boring. He goes on forever. You think it’s all bollocks but it works. It’s so relentless that, in the end, every single player knows exactly what he wants.’

And they weren’t complaining when they beat Real Madrid 2-0 and finished eighth, unprecedented heights for the tiny Andaluz club.

It is why Emery has a love of set- pieces, which feels a little irreligious for a Spaniard. But this is a man who was honed in the Spanish lower leagues and who started out his managerial career with Lorca in Segunda B.

More than anything, the obsession with details, which will see him locked away with his assistants at London Colney for hours on end, is perhaps driven by his failures as a player. Injuries held him back at his local top-flight club Real Sociedad, where he made five appearances. He then had a satisfactory if unremarkable career with Toledo, Racing Ferrol, Leganes and Lorca, where he became player-manager.

Several of his former coaches have suggested he became too nervous in big games to fulfil his potential. And Emery has spoken of how he struggled with the mental side of the game.

‘The pressure a footballer lives with is huge,’ he said. ‘It’s more the pressure you put on yourself than the external pressure.

‘My shortcomings as a player have helped me to understand all that. When I had a game and it made me nervous, nobody gave me guidance. I didn’t find the balance between mentality and my football qualities to reach my maximum.

‘Without trying to point the finger,

I lacked qualities that I just didn’t have and nobody could give me

I lacked qualities that I did not have and nobody could give me or I could not find.

‘As a coach, I recognised them all. I try to be the coach that I did not have, with all the qualities I had and identifying the bad ones.’

His friends say his first job is to get to know a player, to understand him emotionally, before improving him technically. Yet he is not afraid to challenge, as he has done to Mesut Ozil in training.

Those close to him say that is merely a quest for improvement. Even if Ozil is exceptional in the amount of assists he provides, there is always room for more.

Emery will be as rigorous with each player. Alexandre Lacazette is one with whom he and his assistant Juan Carlos Carcedo have worked hard. They knew all about his quality from their time in France with Paris Saint-Germain when Lacazette was with Lyon. They worked hard to re-produce that form this season, after his stuttering start last term.

For now Emery is settling well in London, living a 15-minute drive from the training ground at London Colney in one of the London suburbs.

He uses the gym but tennis and the Basque sport padel — roughly analogous to squash — have had to take a back seat for now.

He enjoys a meal out after a game with his assistants and families.

Any spare time is spent on his English, which has undergone a steep improvement since his unveiling.

The TV series Peaky Blinders is partly responsible, though he keeps the subtitles on so he can penetrate the Brummie accent.

It is of course too soon to say whether he will become as integrated into the English game as Pochettino has become in his six years here.

But 18 games unbeaten at least gives him a decent foothold. And he won’t fail for wont of work.