Mauricio Pochettino will settle on the bench of PSG.
-
Darko Vojinovic / AP / SIPA
Leonardo's filth for doing this to us on Christmas Eve.
Even the indestructible Luis Fernandez, the man who never leaves a journalist down on windy days, dismissed us without qualms.
"As long as it is not official, I have nothing to say".
Yet we relied on Luis as rarely, since it is to him that we owe the first stay in Paris for Mauricio Pochettino, strongly anticipated by our colleagues to be Thomas Tuchel's replacement, in the early 2000s.
Taking advantage of his Spanish connections, the PSG coach of Ronnie and Okocha manages to attract the Argentine international defender for an unlikely freelance.
Three years of an never denied honeymoon with the supporters, despite a last difficult year in terms of results.
“I would like eleven Pochettino on the pitch,” Luis, who quickly made him captain, will one day say.
🇦🇷 As a reminder, Pochettino was fired by Tottenham in November 2019, after a difficult start to the season which followed his Champions League final lost to Liverpool.
He hasn't coached since, even though his name has seriously hovered over Real's bench.
pic.twitter.com/aEFYR9Lque
- RMC Sport (@RMCsport) December 24, 2020
Inducted captain of PSG one year after his arrival
"You are captain because you release something, then specifies the coach.
You don't even bother trying to figure out why or how you get something out.
Final point.
"Rabesandratana, who shared a few months with him in the central hinge, does not say anything else:" Typically the guy who gives everything for the jersey, he has this state of mind.
You already feel that he was a leader in the sense that he sets an example and he was super invested in his role.
That's why I was not surprised that he has a coaching career and that he is good at what he does ”.
This first marriage gave a desire to come back to Pochettino, who discovered a love for viticulture in his Parisian years, to the point of making a small detour through Bordeaux when leaving.
In 2016, the call of the most frank foot that one can make at the microphone of RMC, while the type is well installed on the bench of Spurs: "I always said that it would make me happy to join one day a a big club like the PSG of which I was the captain.
It is true that one day, I would like to be the coach of PSG, it is part of my dreams.
“For good measure, he adds that he infuses all the matches of PSG and that he continues to cut the fat with Jean-Louis Gasset, Fernandez's assistant during his adventure in the capital.
At the time, Pochettino told the Bordeaux coach of the existence of a certain Marcelo Bielsa, his mentor in Newells.
“Mauricio loved to discuss football and Bielsa was really his mentor.
He was crazy about him and asked me lots of questions about our training, ”Gasset will remember in Paris.
Admirer of Bielsa, but rational admirer
Watch out for the demagoguery alert here.
If Pochettino admires the coach for this title of champion stuck in the fund of the great Boca at the beginning of the 90s, he has not made it his religion since he entered the same orders: “Marcelo was an inspiration to the moment to make the decision to become a coach, he breathes in his biography published two years ago, but I do not agree with everything.
As coaches, our tactical options diverge.
The Marcelo I knew, which I enjoyed as much as I suffered, based his whole game on possession and how to deprive the opponent of the ball.
I am not with him every day on this level even if I prefer to have the ball.
The adversary does not obsess me to the same extent as him ”.
In Southampton as in Tottenham, Pochettino has indeed proven that he can adapt, even if it all started the same way: the staggering progress of young players transformed into war machines, like Harry Kane.
Confidence to an online betting site of Morgan Schneiderlin, which became French international thanks to the Argentinian in Southampton:
“He's someone who manages to transcend his players.
It has human management that makes all the difference, with the little things that matter.
The best example is with Luke Shaw, who was a bit lax on the food.
Every morning, Pochettino would go get him, he would prepare his little smoothie, he would sometimes talk to him for half an hour about his life, about his moods.
Luke had the best season of his life ”.
Not quite the portrait that we were able to paint of Tuchel on his arrival, even if in the end, the German seemed to better manage his relationship with the locker room than with his leaders.
“The advantage is that he had a big locker room, which Tuchel had not known to this degree I think in Dortmund, judge Rabesandratana, consultant for France Bleu.
So he has this experience of managing stars and big numbers.
If it does, it's a good idea for PSG.
Pochettino is used to dealing with pressure.
In the Premier League, the guys are on your back all the time and you have a real obligation to achieve results ”.
An inspiring coach who has never won anything
The results in question do not, however, break three legs of a lame duck.
No trophy and a place of finalist in the Champions League with Spurs, a calling card that was not enough for Tuchel to spend the winter.
In the immediate future, we will especially ask the Argentinian to re-enchant the supporters a little by proposing a more coherent tactical structure, if indeed the players redo the cherry physically and mentally during the coming week off.
On paper, it's always well packed: high and coordinated pressing, aggressive defensive line, high intensity runs for everyone, build from behind, and all the niggling.
The same laundry that Emery and Tuchel used to sell us, before being chased away like filths.
Pochettino is a choice of Leonardo, he will have time to prove himself beyond the current season, but the same doubts remain: can he succeed where all his predecessors, stamped
genius brains
of this game, left with the reputation of technicians just good at putting strawberries on a pastry shell?
We wouldn't put an ankle of Neymar on fire.
Sport
PSG: Thomas Tuchel dismissed, Mauricio Pochettino should replace him
Sport
PSG: From a Champions League finalist to fired four months later, what happened for Tuchel?
Sport
Soccer
Thomas tuchel
PSG
Leonardo
League 1