No trophies? I’ve got loads back at home
MAURICIO Pochettino has hit back at critics who say he has won nothing by pointing out he has more than 100 trophies back home in Argentina.
He admits the haul from his days as a schoolboy player have become a little bit tarnished by age.
Nevertheless at a young age it taught him the importance of winning silverware.
“When I was eight I started to win trophies,” he said. “In the period until I was 14 and moved to Rosario I’d win tournaments every weekend.
“We played different clubs in my area and you played, you were proud, you cried, you smiled. But I always won: the collective performance for winning the tournament, best player – always – and top scorer.
“You can ask my mother and my dad. I think I have 100 in total. They are rusty now. I promise next time I go home I’ll send a picture.”
Trophies have been a little bit harder to come by since he moved to England
– the stick with which Tottenham’s manager is beaten constantly by his detractors.
Tonight’s trip to Stamford Bridge to defend a 1-0 lead in the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Chelsea is a return to the scene of one of Spurs’ infamous near misses.
It was there in 2016 that a 2-2 draw robbed them of any hope of catching Leicester in the race for the title.
“At least there is no Cesc Fabregas now,” Pochettino quipped.
“I remember his comment saying ‘we would love that Leicester won the title’.”
Tottenham rather lost their heads that night as they were drawn into a battle but Pochettino claims the learning experience was the making of his young side.
They beat Chelsea in their last visit to Stamford Bridge in April and the narrow first-leg victory was in fact the third time in a row they had beaten their London rivals.
The victory owed a lot to the intervention of VAR after
Harry Kane was controversially judged to have been fouled in the area even though the assistant had raised his flag for offside.
Yet despite being such a huge beneficiary of the technology Pochettino wants the Premier League to wait at least another year before introducing what he believes is a slow, flawed system more permanently into the English game. “It is a good idea to delay because we don’t have all the information and don’t know how it will work or how we can better develop the system yet,” he added.
“So it is better to stop for one year or more. That is my opinion if people ask me, although I don’t know if the Premier League will. “Watching every single game in Europe now, nobody is happy. I promise you – nobody!
“What worries me a bit is that there is going to be a situation where football starts to annoy the fans. Football fans must be happy. If you stop for five minutes for a decision I don’t know how they are going to behave.
“How the Premier League is today is fantastic. Goal-line technology is the best. But after that it is about whether the referee sees the incident or not.
“It is his interpretation. That is how we were taught to play football. It is about how the referee perceives things.
“It is not the problem of technology in general, but this particular system. The emotion is not going to be there. The feelings and the tension.
“Those who are pro-VAR are saying the technology is going to help. But football is about mistakes. That’s players, managers, but also
the referees.”