The Mauricio Pochettino thread

[piedpiper]

Disastrous choice as manager. Will never be able to motivate or earn the respect of star players.

Yes I was one of those....not to the extent of your words above but I remember being underwhelmed when we were linked to him. We were at the stage of me wanting us to kick on and hire a manager with a winning pedigree... (Carlo Ancelotti & Rafa Benitez) were my choices. Remember the debates on here and those who were in awe of what he'd done at Southampton in 18 months.

We still haven't won a trophy... Saturday coming might just be the day. He's been excellent for the club. More than anything I wanted our own Ferguson or Wenger... Got really tired of the managerial drama every other season. Having to press the reset button constantly.

The stability we've had has been refreshing. Now the only thing missing is trophies.

 

[Jaddas]

I liked this article in the Telegraph. Sums it up perfectly for me.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...o-pochettino-making-spurs-fans-dream-reality/

Thank you, Mauricio Pochettino, for making this Spurs fan's dream a reality

I have to keep pinching myself. I still can't really believe Tottenham are in a Champions League final. I'm still not entirely used to Spurs being in the Champions League at all.

On the road that now leads to Madrid there have been many helping hands. Daniel Levy has run the club well. Harry Kane's emergence coincided nicely with Mauricio Pochettino's arrival. But it is Pochettino himself to whom we owe the greatest thanks.

Monday marked five years to the day since Pochettino was appointed manager of Tottenham, moving from Southampton to relatively little fanfare. He was Spurs' seventh full-time manager in 10 years. The supporters needed convincing that this appointment would be any different from the last.

His impact was immediate, and stark. There was a playing style that brought visible differences to the team unlike his predecessor, Tim Sherwood, and fewer mistakes than the suicidal high line of Andre Villas-Boas. And in Kane there was a local hero to get behind, too.

The success since has snowballed to such an extent that some fans have forgotten what Spurs had been for the majority of the Premier League era. Let me be clear, most of us have not.

We still remember the flirtations with relegation. We still remember the Stephen Carr own goal that ended our foray back into Europe in 1999. We remember Sergei Rebrov, Gregor Rasiak and Darren Bent. We remember Lasagne-gate. We remember Juande Ramos banning ketchup. And Michael Dawson celebrating that Newcastle goal that wasn't. And finishing fourth before being denied a route into the Champions League by Chelsea winning the thing. The list goes on.

That is all in the past now, though, thanks to Pochettino.

Poch has changed the way the club thinks. No longer are we consumed by the fear of failure. No longer are Arsenal the main concern. Pochettino's insistence on focusing on bigger things has finally got through.

Which brings us onto this season. There were horrible mistakes, and plenty of them. There were real low points, and the second half of the campaign saw the kind of capitulation that might even be a concern for next term.

But any negatives can be forgotten for now. A Champion League final awaits and, for that, we will forever be grateful to Pochettino.

Even after the marked improvement of the last few years, including a second-placed finish and some truly memorable European nights, I still truly believed I would never see Tottenham in such a major final as this. That was still the case as recently as a month ago. There were points late on against each of PSV, Inter Milan, Barcelona, Manchester City and (very late on) in the semi-final against Ajax - that's five of our six Champions League opponents this season - when I was fully convinced of it. But Pochettino has given us hope.

After taking only one point from the first three group stage matches, crucial nervy victories over PSV Eindhoven and Inter Milan were followed by an epic draw at the Nou Camp, each time Spurs looking down and out before vital late goals. After the mauling of Borussia Dortmund, there was the VAR-induced bedlam at the Etihad and Lucas Moura's sensational second-half hat-trick in Amsterdam. This has been a season like no other. And now onto the final.

The nerves are all-consuming. Last week I woke up in a sweat at three in the morning, having dreamed I was an old man in poor health waiting for this final, fretting whether I'd be around to see the game because of the dastardly three-week wait. I awoke distressed, but also immediately clear what my subconscious was trying to tell me: I might not get this opportunity again. This could be a once in a lifetime match. Enjoy it.

Obviously we want to win it. Of course there is hope that this dream can go even further and become the greatest triumph in the club's history. The fact there is any hope at all is an indication of the incredible effect Pochettino has had.

But whatever happens, this journey, the dramatic late wins, the insanity at the Etihad, Lucas Moura's hat-trick in Amsterdam, all of it, will live with me forever.

I'm so grateful for those memories, and will cherish the spectacle of seeing my team in a Champions League final. Being there at all is down to our wonderful manager so, Mauricio Pochettino, thank you.

 

[easley91]

 

[hellava_tough]

 

[Doctor Dinkey]

Great programme on Channel 4 tonight about Poch/Klopp with some nice interviews with fans. Made it all feel suddenly real! Do watch it on 4OD if you have a chance.

 

[paddieu]

I thought a fair bit of it sucked actually - as was expected...

 

[spursfan77]

I’ve been waiting for this interview, cheers for posting. Worth a watch for an interview with two people who know each other well after the book I suspect.

 

[carmeldevil]

 

[Flashspur]

Poch and the motivational game of arrows at throats and fire walking and linking into universal energy. Great read!

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ws-tottenham-liverpool-champions-league-final

 

[Krule]

Poch and the motivational game of arrows at throats and fire walking and linking into universal energy. Great read!

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ws-tottenham-liverpool-champions-league-final

Sums the difference up perfectly....they only "walk through a storm"....Spurs walk through ? ? ? ?

 

[Flashspur]

Full article

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ws-tottenham-liverpool-champions-league-final

Mauricio Pochettino felt the tip of the arrow dig into his throat, in the groove below his Adam’s apple. Then, eyes widening and adrenaline flowing, the Tottenham manager charged forward. The arrow bent and snapped. Pochettino felt the surge of elation, of energy, of power. Now, it was the turn of each of his players.

“When you see the arrow, you think: ‘It’s impossible. How am I going to break the arrow against my throat?’” Pochettino says. “You say: ‘No, come on, I am going to kill myself.’ You put it with the sharp tip against your throat but then, bang, you come forward and break the arrow. The most important thing is to learn how you can prepare your mind. To be focused. To be proactive. This is the key in football.”

One by one, his players followed suit: breaking arrows and, in the process, mental barriers. Spurs’ team-bonding session before the Champions Leaguefinal took place on Wednesday last week and it certainly brought a degree of jeopardy, of risk before the reward. There was more.

The final activity of the evening was the firewalk, something Pochettino had done with the players at his previous club, Southampton, in the summer of 2013. Then, as now, everything was overseen by his friend Xesco Espar, a motivational coach from Barcelona.

The burning embers were spread out across a little walkway and, with fire extinguishers close by (health and safety, you know), Espar went first, striding barefoot across the coals. Pochettino was next and then it was the players and the members of staff.

If the club’s in-house TV channel ever wants to screen the footage, it had better find a bleeper button, but the first thing to say – other than do not try this at home – is that everyone came through unscathed. And with their confidence boosted. There were springs in various steps at training the following day.

The wider point talks to Pochettino’s obsession with steeling the mentality of his players; of pushing the limits of what they think is possible. To Pochettino, the power of the mind is everything. It comes before tactics, technique and physicality. In his opinion, the ability to manage and control emotion holds the key to the expression of talent.

And so, as Pochettino looks ahead to the biggest game of his life, the biggest in Spurs’ history – against Liverpool in Madrid on Saturday night – he has prioritised the psychological preparation of his players.

The arrow breaking and firewalking have been the most talked-about details, but Pochettino has included a 45-minute exercise to open and sharpen minds on every training day since the end of the Premier League season on 12 May, when the meticulously planned push for Champions League glory began.

One example was the body language game that Espar led on the evening of the main team-bonding get-together. The players paired up and were told to tell one boring story and one exciting story and comment on the differences in the body language. They then had to tell the boring story with excited body language and vice versa, the idea being to show how positive energy can lift and enrich.

“We’ve created different strategies in the mental, psychological and emotional areas and now the players realise how important these specific areas are,” Pochettino says. “If you are going to run, of course you need big legs, muscle and everything, but if your mind says: ‘No, I cannot run, you’re going to be tired,’ then you cannot move. That is why, before everything, is your mind; your emotions need to be in a good place. Your mind is powerful and only you settle your limits.”

The firewalk is an ancient ritual practised by many cultures to demonstrate strength, courage and faith, and Espar has described it as “a metaphor to inspire you to face the obstacles and challenges that life gives us with security and certainty”.

Pochettino has often been asked whether he would get his Spurs players to do it, having done so at Southampton, and it is surely a one‑time-only ploy. He came to realise that before a Champions League final was the time.

“The thing that’s important to say is we all have fear. People without fears don’t exist,” he says. “It’s not that the players are not going to fear anything, but they are going to be free to work [through them]. There are people that freeze with fear. Successful people have the same fears – it’s just that they take them on.

“The players have learned a lot in these three weeks because we’ve had the capacity to work in a different way, to create a different plan. When you have only one objective and three weeks to prepare, it’s easier than when you play every three days. We are going to arrive in a perfect condition and the most important thing is that the players have enjoyed the journey over these three weeks. They’ll always remember it. It’s been an amazing time to share all together.”

Pochettino has long been guided by his faith in what he calls universal energy, a vital force that influences everything and conspires to help people fulfil their dreams.

“You can connect with this superior energy that is around us if you have opened your mind,” he says. “All of these strategies [over the last three weeks] were to help us and the team connect with this energy that is so powerful and makes you feel invincible. And you set no limits.”

Pochettino gave an example of how he felt the energy as a boy. “One night I said: ‘Tomorrow, I want to score three goals,’” he says. “I was thinking that 15 minutes before I went to sleep. And the next day I scored three goals. It’s a small thing. But the biggest dreams are the same.”

s he grew up, Pochettino came to be increasingly curious about the power of positive thought. “It’s difficult to explain,” he says. “You feel and you cannot explain why.” Pochettino tried to understand. Convinced that there was a scientific basis to it, he read widely and met with some “weird-looking people that are maybe two or three steps over me in this”.

Pochettino adds: “Then I met my wife, Karina, and she loved this subject. She helped me gain a more in-depth understanding of it. It’s helped me a lot in my career, in my life – to have these principles with me.”

Pochettino says he can detect an aura that accompanies people, which gives a lot of information about them. So how are those of his players now that the moment of truth is upon them? “They make me feel very positive,” he says. “The team translates to us a very good energy.”

Tottenham’s run to the final has been coloured by late comebacks and outlandish drama, leading to the view in some quarters that their name could be on the trophy. Do Pochettino’s philosophies extend to things that are preordained? Yes and no. He says that he believes in destiny, but it must be shaped by the individual, partly through hard work and partly through notions such as good faith.

“I believe in destiny but when you create your destiny,” he says. “I don’t believe in sitting here and waiting for something to happen. You create your destiny with your behaviour, with your actions; if you’re natural, spontaneous, genuine in all that you do.”

Pochettino has manoeuvred himself and Spurs to a historic final and one thing is clear – having spent relatively little money in net terms in the transfer market over his five-year tenure, any success would taste all the sweeter.

“To win a title in a different project like Tottenham – that means the satisfaction is more,” he says. “If you win with Manchester City or Manchester United, it’s normal. If you spend a lot of money, you should win or you must win. But at Tottenham, no one expects.

“And if you build something special, it is going to be remembered for ever. If we win the Champions League, it’s going to be a massive example for football – I think for ever.”

It is a typically romantic Pochettino soundbite.

“I am a romantic. Yes, I am a romantic person,” he says. “Now Daniel [Levy, the Spurs chairman] has started to feel that I am so romantic … he has started to fall in love with me.

“The people say: ‘If Mauricio receives an offer from a different club … Ah, yes.’ They believe that I am going to act like another person. But it’s true, I am a little bit romantic. I have this spirit – like Che Guevara. I am a fighter.

“At Espanyol, when we stayed up in my first season in management, the fans created ‘Po-Che’ [T-shirts]. My face like this. With the beret. It’s unbelievable. I was so proud. Was he a genuine hero of mine? I don’t know, I don’t want to mix politics. It’s still unbelievable …”

From arrows to the throat to Che Guevara, there is a symbolic parallel in there somewhere. Pochettino’s revolution is close to its defining moment.

 

[Flashspur]

From another Guardian article on Poch. His nickname as a young player was Rabbit

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/may/31/mauricio-pochettino-by-those-who-know-him-best

An old neighbour and classmate of his Mauricio Piersimone texted him after the Ajax game

“We called him Conejo [Rabbit] and I said ‘Conejo, we are so proud of you’ (because we all called him ‘Conejo’, and everyone called me Careca). I’m hanging on to one line of his reply: ‘Careca, this is a tremendous madness’.

 

[ardiles]

https://sportslens.com/daniel-levy-...alex-ferguson-aims-dig-at-real-madrid/266342/


Daniel Levy wants Mauricio Pochettino to become Tottenham’s Alex Ferguson, aims dig at Real Madrid
Alani Adefunmiloye 1 June, 2019 English Premier League, General Football News, Real Madrid, Site News, Tottenham, UEFA Champions League

Tottenham Hotspur will be playing their first ever Champions League final tonight against Liverpool.

Despite picking up just a point in their opening three group games and losing two of their knockout games, Spurs have emerged as one of the surprise packages of the season in Europe, and going ahead to beat the Reds to the coveted prize would be astounding.

Manager Mauricio Pochettino has made Tottenham punch above their weight since his arrival at North London, and he is a wanted man across the continent as a result of his tactical expertise.

Madrid have been routinely linked with the Argentine, and while president Florentino Perez has denied ever attempting to lure him to the Santiago Bernabeu, he can’t promise he won’t make a move in the future.

Spurs chairman Daniel Levy isn’t keen on letting Pochettino go anytime soon, though, and has revealed that the club would love to have him for as long as possible, citing Sir Alex Ferguson’s tenure at Manchester United.

He couldn’t help but aim a thinly-veiled dig at Madrid too.

“I would like him to become Tottenham’s Alex Ferguson,” Levy told UEFA (via Calciomercato).

“Winning here is much more important than at Real Madrid.

“Mauricio wants the right recognition of his job, being the number one. For me it’s fine, I want him to be the number one too.”

Pochettino couldn’t bring in any signing in the last two transfer windows as the club were investing heavily in their new stadium, but Spurs will have to support him in the transfer marketthis summer and going forward if they are to successfully convince him that he is in their long-term plans.

 

[13VanDerBale13]

Really hope he fields strong line ups in both the domestic cups next season, its vital that reaching finals is something that becomes regular with this team & hopefully get over the line !

 

[Tottenhamboy85]

 

[jolegend]

Is he a winner?

I’m not sure. And I’m not too sure about his ability to spot a player.

 

[double0]

Is he a winner?

I’m not sure. And I’m not too sure about his ability to spot a player.

What the hell are you on about.

How many defeats did Klopp have before he won the CL?

 

[Yiddo100]

What the hell are you on about.

How many defeats did Klopp have before he won the CL?

And I bet he spent a touch more than £0

 

[Lilbaz]

Tonight is going to be a night of drunk people venting.

Good luck.

 

[Stamford]

I love him. Thats my post.