Poch was ready to quit club

MAURICIO POCHETTINO has admitted he would have quit Tottenham had they won the Champions League.

Spurs lost to Liverpool in the final and that near-miss has left him eager to go again.

Pochettino said: “Maybe if it was a different result you can think, ‘OK, maybe this is a moment to step out of the club after five years, leave the club and give them the possibility of a really new chapter with a new coaching staff’.

“But after the final I felt this was not great to finish like this. I’m not a person that avoids facing problems or a difficult situation.

“I am more on that side of things. I love a massive challenge, a difficult challenge and, of course, now to rebuild that mentality, to make it possible to repeat a similar season, that is exciting and motivates me a lot.”

Pochettino, speaking in Singapore ahead of Tottenham’s friendly against Juventus tomorrow, explained why he was ready to walk away as a winner.

“You know very much when you touch glory you behave differently or you feel different or the players feel different and the challenge becomes different,” he said.

“It’s like Kieran Trippier said – he loved Tottenham but at 28, 29 sometimes a player needs to discover new challenges.”