Secrets of Mauricio Pochettino's success REVEALED: Tough love, trusting youth, being a 'protagonista' and 'working the b******s off' players - here's how he turned Tottenham into a Premier League powerhouse as he leads them into new stadium

  • Mauricio Pochettino is one of the most highly regarded managers in football thanks to his work at Tottenham
  • Pochettino's methods have transformed Spurs into a genuine force among the big six in the Premier League
  • He learned his trade in Argentina - an unlikely source for a man who has gone on to shine in England
  • Marcelo Bielsa is one of his biggest influences - but it is his right-hand man who is key to Pochettino's success 

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On Mauricio Pochettino's first night in English football back in January 2013, the Everton coaching staff eyed their three Southampton counterparts suspiciously. No-one really knew them: Jesus Perez, Miki D'Agostino, Toni Jimenez. In reality, only a real connoisseur of Spanish and Argentine football or someone who followed Espanyol closely would have done.

Among the Everton coaching staff working under David Moyes that night, all of whom were British, there was a definite sense of threat: that it wasn't just English managers, like the recently sacked Nigel Adkins, who were being marginalised by globalisation, but their coaching assistants who would wither in the clear-out. 

The irony is now apparent. For arguably no coaching team has done more for English football in the last seven years than Pochettino's, other than Gareth Southgate and Steve Holland.


To understand how he has transformed Tottenham into a genuine Premier League superpower on a relatively pitiful budget - and with that helped improve the England team too - we must first understand the man. 

Mauricio Pochettino has transformed Tottenham into a Premier League power and Harry Kane into a superstar

Mauricio Pochettino has transformed Tottenham into a Premier League power and Harry Kane into a superstar

 

When he first caught English eyes, in 2002, Pochettino could not have been more removed from our game, in a superficial sense, with that long-haired mullet haircut that signified a certain type of Argentine centre-half of that era. 

He is a child of the Pampas, a farmer's son from Murphy, a remote and tiny settlement some 200 miles south-west of Rosario set up by an Irish emigrant in the 19th century. That day in 2002, when he faced down England in what had become one of the most hyped encounters of the World Cup finals – Japanese TV used footage of the Falklands War to trail the game – he was very much the student of Argentina coach Marcelo Bielsa. 

The hope of Argentina was that they would record another defeat on the old colonial enemy after the 1998 triumph in France.

Of course, it didn't end well, neither for Bielsa nor Pochettino. When Michael Owen feinted past him in the box, Pochettino stuck out a leg and Owen fell. 'For sure it was a dive,' Pochettino will always say. 'I never touched him!' Replays confirm there was barely contact. But David Beckham dispatched the penalty and Argentina would go home in disgrace, failing to make even the knock-out stages.

Bielsa seems the obvious place to start when analysing this unlikely tale of how an Argentine farmer's boy ended up as one of English football's favourites. 

It was the current Leeds United manager who first set eyes on him, sleeping in his bed, as a 14-year-old. The extraordinary story, seemingly alarming in our era of child-protection awareness but innocent in this context and culture, is now well told. 

Bielsa, youth-team coach at Newell's Old Boys, and the academy director, Jorge Griffa, would scour the Pampas looking for talent. They were actually visiting nearby Santa Isabel for a coaching course when someone mentioned that in Murphy there was a decent player who was interesting Newell's biggest rivals, Rosario Central. Bielsa had suggested returning home to Rosario. It was, after all, late and after dark. Griffa insisted they head down to Murphy.

'We arrived at their house at 2 o'clock in the morning,' recalled Griffa, 83, when we met in his elegant apartment in the upmarket district of Recoleta in Buenos Aires last year. 'It was quite extreme! I knocked at the windows, Mauricio's mother answered me and she recognised me. We got in and I started to talk about to them soya beans and other crops, which of course were not my interest at all.'

Pochettino was schooled as a tough defender at Newell's Old Boys
He was taught by Marcelo Bielsa (centre, with Argentina at the 2002 World Cup)

Pochettino was schooled as a tough defender at Newell's Old Boys (left) and was taught by Marcelo Bielsa (right, centre)

Pochettino shows his uncompromising style by clattering Sweden's Henrik Larsson in their 2002 World Cup clash

Pochettino shows his uncompromising style by clattering Sweden's Henrik Larsson in their 2002 World Cup clash

Eventually they got round to the point of their midnight visit. Griffa confirms the famous story, that they really did ask Pochettino's parents if they could view the sleeping 14-year-old Mauricio in his bedroom and did indeed exclaim: 'What legs! A footballer's legs!' on seeing him.

They weren't wrong about the innate footballing ability. He proved a very capable centre-half. What you couldn't know then was quite what an effect Bielsa would have on global football and Pochettino on the English game. Argentina doesn't seem the obvious place to look for the start of an English football renaissance. But the revolution which had started at Newell's Old Boys would have a global impact. 

Rosario is a pleasant city dominated by oil refining, petrochemicals, manufacturing and the vast Parana river. It is also a city separated by football. Entire neighbourhoods are painted in the red and black of Newell's or the yellow and blue of rivals Rosario Central. Despite these obsessions it was something of backwater for a country dominated by Buenos Aires. 

Ricky Villa, that icon of Tottenham and himself a farm boy from outside the urban elites, puts it like this: 'Buenos Aires is the big city of football and Cordoba and Rosario are secondary.' Obviously, Rosario did produce Lionel Messi: but apart from that?

Yet in the late 1980s and early 1990s Newell's started to upset the likes of River Plate and Boca Juniors, and Argentinian football did take some notice.

Under coach Jose Yudica they won the league title in 1988 and reached the final of the Copa Libertadores, the South American equivalent of the Champions League. The following season, a young centre half would make his debut: that boy from back on the farm a few years before had come good. Alongside him would be D'Agostino, his oldest friend. They had shared the rather primitive dormitory - freezing in winter, sweltering in summer - where youth-team players were housed under the main stand of the club's stadium.

And this was a team made largely of home-grown stars. Griffa has almost mythical status in Argentine football as the star maker, thanks to his work at Newell's when he discovered Gerardo Martino, Gabriel Batistuta, and Pochettino. 

Later he would bring through Maxi Rodriguez, Walter Samuel and Gabriel Heinze and then, when he moved to Boca Juniors, Carlos Tevez. Jorge Valdano, the 1986 World Cup winner, former Real Madrid coach and technical director, described Griffa as 'one of the development gurus in Argentina'. 

According to Valdano, the Newell's team in which Pochettino was integral were placed in a 'honourary sphere when it came to developing players': like an Ajax of South America.

This is the environment that forged Pochettino: tough, without frills, based mainly on hard work but also with due regard to technique and tactical aptitude. It was a unique culture. Given how many players were coming through the academy to the first team, it made sense to promote the first-team coach to look after the first team, which is how Bielsa got his big break in 1990.

Pochettino is a keen believer in the strength of English players and promotes them, such as Kieran Trippier (centre)

Pochettino is a keen believer in the strength of English players and promotes them, such as Kieran Trippier (centre) 

He also trusts young players, such as Dele Alli, learning early in his career that if you're good enough you're old enough

He also trusts young players, such as Dele Alli, learning early in his career that if you're good enough you're old enough

MAURICIO POCHETTINO C.V. 

Full name: Mauricio Roberto Pochettino Trossero

Age: 47

From: Murphy, Argentina

Playing position: Centre-half

Clubs: Newell's Old Boys (1989-94), Espanyol (1994-2001, 2004 (loan), 2004-06), PSG (2001-03), Bordeaux (2003-04)

Honours: Argentine Premier Division x1, Copa del Rey x2

International: Argentina - 20 caps, 2 goals

Teams managed: Espanyol (2009-12), Southampton (2013-14), Tottenham (2014-present)

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Playing a 3-4-3 and a unique pressing style which will now be familiar to Tottenham fans (and which also hugely influenced Pep Guardiola), Bielsa led the team to another league title and, in an unprecedented era for the club, two finals of the Copa Libertadores.

Griffa recalls: 'When Bielsa took the first team job at Newell's, he told me that we had to buy two central defenders. I told him: "You have them in house – Fernando Gamboa and Pochettino". Those two would form the centre-half partnership for Bielsa's team.

'It was a team that left its mark in Newell's history,' says Roberto Sensini, a former team-mate of Pochettino at Newell's and with the national team. 'Mauricio always talked to his team-mates with authority and in clear terms. Mauricio has learned from many coaches, but Bielsa was a man that left his mark on him, like on me as well.'

Bielsa would feature again in Pochettino's career, when he moved to Spain to play for Espanyol. In fact his old coach reduced him to tears there after accusing him of losing the drive that he had as a young player at Newell's and slipping into a comfort zone. 'I've never felt so embarrassed,' wrote Pochettino in his book, Brave New World. 'Everything he said was right. I'd been blinded, trapped in my own world.'

Pochettino still cites this period of his life and the faith shown in him by Yudica, Griffa and Bielsa as his inspiration for giving young players a chance. Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Eric Dier, Kieran Trippier, Danny Rose, Harry Winks, Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana, Nathaniel Clyne, James Ward-Prowse are just some of the England players who have thrived under him. Unknowingly, they owe a huge debt to Griffa and Bielsa.

None were huge stars before Pochettino arrived. Lallana was probably the best established. You can't argue that their rise is down to Pochettino alone: MK Dons, Crystal Palace and Burnley were involved as well as Southampton and Tottenham. Maybe some would have hit these heights regardless.

He cut his teeth in management at Espanyol, where he came up against Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid here in 2010

He cut his teeth in management at Espanyol, where he came up against Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid here in 2010

A move to Southampton saw Pochettino succeed again, and he helped the likes of Adam Lallana reach the next level

A move to Southampton saw Pochettino succeed again, and he helped the likes of Adam Lallana reach the next level

However, in an era in which the Premier League seemed to overlook young English talent, Pochettino was counter-intuitive.

Speaking to him eight months after his arrival in this country in 2013, Pochettino told Sportsmail: 'In terms of pure talent, English players have nothing to envy in their Brazilian, Argentinian or Spanish counterparts. It's all about hard work and confidence and believing in them… giving them their opportunity and backing them; continuing to give them their chance to play and compete in the Premier League while realising that mistakes are also part and parcel of their development as young players.

'I have witnessed the transformation of Spanish football. I have seen that transformation over a period of more than 20 years, from when they used to win nothing through to when they started to win things. England is also now in a moment when all they need to do is believe. Really believe in their talent, their own inherent ability that is present in English footballers.'

To be honest, at the time it sounded like a line to curry favour with the locals. Six years on, it's possible to assert that it was actually authentic.

 

Those close to Pochettino urge caution over labouring the point about Bielsa's influence in his presence, even though he has spoken of him as a 'father figure' in public. 

In private it is not clear that he wishes to be quite so closely associated and that he considers it a cliche. It is a point that journalist Guillem Balague, who spent a year with him working on Brave New World, has made. 'He obviously learnt a lot from Newell's Old Boys, from Bielsa, but he is not a Bielsa manager or coach at all. He sees football in a completely different way.'

Balague would argue that, as the 'Spygate' saga at Leeds made evident, Bielsa is much more obsessed with how his opponents play. Pochettino would focus much more on how his own team are going to play.

'What he learned from Bielsa is that you don't look at the passport when you give somebody an opportunity,' said Balague. 'If he can do the job, it doesn't matter if he is 17, 20 or 28. You have to be brave, you have to come on the pitch to be a protagonist. You have to work really hard to recover the ball but once you recover the ball his aim if different to Bielsa's.'

Pochettino played hard and his teams have steel too - even the mild-mannered Kane can get aggressive, as seen here

Pochettino played hard and his teams have steel too - even the mild-mannered Kane can get aggressive, as seen here

Protagonista is a word that you hear time and time again from Latin coaches, especially listening to Pochettino or Guardiola. 

They refer to it as a badge of pride, as though the team that takes on the game, that dominates the possession, has an almost moral right to win. 

This is the clearer influence of Bielsa on Pochettino and, indeed, English football. So, when England took on Spain in Seville last year and inflicted the first home defeat on their hosts in 15 years, that was the most 'protagonista' England performance since they had beaten Holland 4-1 in 1996 under Terry Venables.

And there is no doubt Southgate owes a debt to the current wave of Premier League coaches playing that way: Pochettino, Jurgen Klopp and Guardiola.

However, as Balague points out, there is a fundamental difference between a Pochettino team and a Bielsa team when they have won the ball back. Partly it is an element of directness. Pochettino's team play the ball forward quicker. 

But also it is unlikely that Bielsa would be happy winning a game with 40 per cent of possession, as Tottenham did against Chelsea in November, one of their best performances of the season. Sensini, who played with Pochettino under Bielsa at Newell's, says: 'At Spurs I see a very aggressive team, like Bielsa's, but Mauricio has his own details,' he says. 'Bielsa's would be more rigid in the tactics.'

 

One aspect of the Pochettino revolution that is often overlooked is the role of Jesus Perez. The quartet of Spanish-speaking coaches are often seen together at Spurs' training ground sharing mate, the Argentine infusion drink that D'Agositino and Pochettino have introduced to English football culture. But it is odd that Perez is arguably the most influential as he's the one Pochettino met last and who only became an assistant by accident.

He was an appointee of Espanyol sporting director Ramon Planes, not of Pochettino, and only joined to help out with the youth and under-21 teams. And he wouldn't have been helping out Pochettino if it hadn't been for a defection. 

Pochettino had shelled out £7,000 of his own money to get some prototype software to help with match analysis: the more detailed stats and video analysis, routine today but innovative 10 years ago and another feature of any Bielsa disciple. Pochettino had even paid for a young assistant coach to train on the software so they could use it during a match. The assistant repaid him by waltzing off to Barcelona when they offered to double his salary to do the same job there. 

However, the new under-23 helper, Perez, was the only other staff member who could work the software. Slowly, surely, he was integrated into Pochettino's team.

He had worked at Gimnastic de Tarragon, Castellon, Real Murcia, Pontevedra, Rayo Vallencano and Almeria in various coaching roles, but had just come back from a spell in Saudi Arabia with the national team and Al-Ittihad. Perez is a jack of all trades in football terms: coach, analyst, fitness expert. Yet that latter moniker was perhaps the most significant and possibly the secret behind Pochettino.

Pochettino leans heavily on his multi-talented No 2 at Tottenham, Jesus Perez, who is a fitness expert and so much more

Pochettino leans heavily on his multi-talented No 2 at Tottenham, Jesus Perez, who is a fitness expert and so much more

Miki D'Agostino (left) and Toni Jimenez (right) are the other members of Pochettino's inner circle of coaches at Spurs

Miki D'Agostino (left) and Toni Jimenez (right) are the other members of Pochettino's inner circle of coaches at Spurs

He studied physiology at university for five years. Even now, it is still uncommon for fitness experts to be the No 2 at a club, though there should have been some clues from the past. Rafa Benitez and Jose Mourinho both studied sports science; both changed the dynamic of football in the last decade because they understood physiology properly. Perez belongs in that bracket.

And Pochettino's teams are fitter than almost anyone. Lallana still grimaces about the pre-season training at Southampton in the summer of 2013. Admittedly, Pochettino maybe overdid it that year: he had the team walking over burning coals in one of those bonding exercises designed to show what can be achieved with willpower. Thus far that hasn't been repeated at Tottenham. But to play like Pochettino wants you need to be fitter than most. 'He works the b******s off them,' says one Tottenham insider. His standards are simply higher and his methods apparently better than many of his Premier League rivals.

Getting Luke Shaw into shape was a fairly obvious task at Southampton. Less noticed was the job he did on Kane at Tottenham. Kane wasn't that highly rated. He was the striker used only in the Europa League, with Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado ahead of him. Indeed, Kane didn't start a Premier League game under Pochettino until November 9 that first season, against Stoke (and they lost 2-1). By then something had changed. Kane had been to see Pochettino to ask why he was only on the bench. Pochettino didn't sugarcoat his reply. 'He said that my body fat was high, I wasn't trying as hard as I could, and that was it!' recall Kane.

Son Heung-min is another Tottenham player who has benefited from Pochettino's tough love and guidance

Son Heung-min is another Tottenham player who has benefited from Pochettino's tough love and guidance

Kane admits that his body fat was 18 per cent when Pochettino took over at the club. Meaning: too fat to be an elite striker. And Kane's conditioning and the care he takes over it now – the second home within a few minutes of the training ground, the personalised chef and, crucially, the input of Perez – would likely be one of the key factors in his elevation to the world's elite group of players.

But Perez is much more than a fitness guru. In Brave New World, Pochettino explains how his assistant is crucial in the coaching and motivational role. 'Around that time [March 2017] I had a very tricky conversation with one of the key men, whose name I'll keep to myself.' [Pochettino has never confirmed this but the circumstances suggest it is Son Heung-min.] 'It was our second in the space of two years. I got Jesus to prepare the ground and they spent almost an hour talking.

'I swooped in to add the finishing touches, although Jesus kept chiming in with phrases like, "You do this in training, this in games and these are the statistics." I went down the contract route: "If you carry on like this, we don't need you." There ended up being a trigger in a video we showed him, clearly proving that he reacted conservatively on two occasions in the same match instead of doing what he should've done, which was to move forward. His decision affected him and the team. "Ah, yes, it's true. I made a mistake," was his response when he saw it. He wasn't going to feature against Millwall [in the FA Cup] the following weekend, but I decided to play him and he was brilliant.'

 

The Pochettino manifesto is probably as well encapsulated there as anywhere: his ability to work with individual players, often young ones; to lift them, in Son's case, from being a good player to world class; the need to be a protagonista, not conservative; the tough love he is willing to show in threatening not to renew his contract; but also the importance of Perez.

It was also Perez who, along with Pochettino's wife, Karina, persuaded Pochettino to take a chance on Southampton. Pochettino jokes that his assistant had a vested interest, in that he spoke English and Pochettino didn't. That in itself almost scuppered the move.

Karina fixed him up with a friend in Barcelona who taught English. 'After my first lesson, I said: "It's impossible!" English was like Chinese would be for me now. I said: "I'm going to stop. A disaster! Come on!" Thankfully he persevered. And, as it turns out, he wouldn't need the Queen's English to make a huge impact on his adopted country.

After joining Tottenham in 2014, Pochettino has established himself as one of the leading managers in world football

After joining Tottenham in 2014, Pochettino has established himself as one of the leading managers in world football

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