Mauricio Pochettino when he coached Espanyol in 2009. -
JOSEP LAGO / AFP
Paris Saint-Germain will travel to Barcelona on Tuesday night to play their knockout stages of the Champions League.
On this occasion, Parisian coach Mauricio Pochettino will return to a city he knows well for having spent twelve years at Espanyol.
Thus, over the years an almost romantic relationship has been established between the Argentinian coach, the club and his supporters.
Starting the descent to Barcelona with the private PSG plane that takes him and his troops to their European meeting on Tuesday, Mauricio Pochettino probably took a quick look at Camp Nou, theater of the future 8th of final against Barça.
It is certainly not there, however, that his gaze lingered, but rather a few kilometers further inland, on the Sarria district, where the Espanyol Barcelona stadium proudly stood 23 years ago.
And he may have remembered that "sad evening" in September 1997, as he recounts in his autobiography, on the eve of the demolition of the Sarria stadium, when he asked the stadium keeper for permission to go. sneak with his wife and a close friend and tread one last time the lawn that saw him be born in the eyes of European football.
"I could not contain my tears", he told Guillem Balague, the author of his biography.
"He had only been at the club for three years but this story shows that between him and Espanyol, it is much deeper than a banal professional relationship", agrees Javier De Haro, Spanish journalist who is today prides itself on being among the friends of the Argentine.
“The stadiums are not just stones and grass, there is a spirit, a soul, something stronger that emerges from them,” Balague says.
And Mauricio had felt that with the Sarria stadium.
For him it was as if they were going to take a loved one away from him, as it was for almost all Espanyol supporters.
"If he could feel that, it is because he is" one of them, quite simply ", explains Edu De Batlle, journalist follower of Espanyol.
Pochettino, a Perico to life, to death
This neighborhood, this stadium, this team is a bit like his home.
"Between Mauricio Pochettino and Espanyol, it's a love story that will last forever," says De Haro, the Spanish commentator, 28 seasons of coverage of
Pericos
news
on the clock.
“He played for this club, he coached this club, he spent a total of twelve years at Espanyol, it's a small life,” he continues.
Her children were born in Barcelona.
He was still a kid when he arrived at Espanyol and we tend to say that all the important stages of his life, adolescence, his construction as a footballer first and then coach then, all that he l 'lived here.
Espanyol is his home, it's everything for him.
"
La Pochette duel with Anelka during an Espanyol-Real in April 2000. - CHRISTOPHE SIMON / AFP
Arrived from Argentina when he was only 22 years old, Mauricio Pochettino immediately became part of the identity of this club.
Better, he almost immediately becomes its most faithful representative, the leader, the captain.
“On the pitch he was a warrior and outside he was a locker room manager.
He immediately won the hearts of the supporters because he has always shown himself close to them, ”explains Guillem Balague, Espanyol supporter from the cradle.
But seven years after his arrival, the love story rubs against the harsh reality of the club's finances.
Javier de Haro: "It was a complicated period from an economic point of view and the club had no other choice but to sell him to PSG".
But in 2004, when the club found itself very badly embarked on the league and entrusted the reins of the team to Luis Fernandez, he immediately thought of Pochettino to guide a locker room in need of a pack leader.
Having become someone in the football landscape of the time, Pochettino could have kindly dismissed Espanyol.
But that's not the kind.
“They welcomed me with open arms, they expected me to make the connection in a divided team and with a lot of problems.
I accepted the challenge, I was ready for it.
This responsibility made me feel important, ”he would say later.
“He went to see the then president of Bordeaux [Jean-Louis Triaud] to ask him to let him go back to Espanyol and save the team from relegation.
He saw it as a duty, he couldn't let the club he loved go down to the second division.
On arrival he came back and we ran away.
"
The victory at Camp Nou and the maintenance
It is at the end of this second adventure in blue and white that Pochettino will hang up his crampons, after a press conference during which he will cry in front of the journalists but also his family, present for his farewells.
“I think I cried because I saw my son cry.
Or maybe not.
I cried because I cried.
I had to leave the room to get some fresh air, ”he recounts in his book.
But the story will not end there either.
During the 2009-2010 season, when the club is once again very poorly engaged in La Liga, the leaders are thinking of him to lead the team.
Pochettino had been hanging around the club for a while, looking for answers about his next life.
Gradually, he even became the assistant coach of the women's team.
So, when the proposal arrives on the table, he sends the ominous birds waltzing who tell him in private that he will destroy his coaching career if he accepts the job.
“Even though he had no experience, he didn't hesitate because, once again, the club had to be saved.
In fact every time the club asked him to come back, he was there, ”notes Javier De Haro.
Mauricio Pochettino and Pep Guardiola during the Barcelona derby in 2012. - EFE / SIPA
For his first match as a coach, in 2009, La Pochette and his troops pulled off a draw (0-0) at the Camp Nou in the cup before returning a few weeks later for what remains today as the last victory. from Espanyol to the sworn enemy.
“For Mauricio, winning there [2-1] with two goals from his friend Ivan De La Peña will remain as one of the greatest memories, one of the greatest joys of his entire career.
"
This perhaps touches on the essence of the love that Espanyol fans have for Pochettino: it is that he understood at the beginning what it was like to be of this club.
Javier de Haro: “Playing against Barça when you're from Espanyol is playing against power.
Barça is like the single thought.
We, Espanyol supporters, know what it's like to suffer from the shadow of the giant, you don't exist for them and when they talk about you it's bad.
And Mauricio has integrated all that well, he feels it deep inside him.
"" Espanyol is a club and supporters who feel marginalized by Barça's immense shadow.
And Mauricio arrived with his mentality and made us understand that we were not inferior to anyone ”, enthuses Balague.
Espanyol marked by the death of Daniel Jarque
And when it was necessary to be at the bedside of the team in the summer of 2009, after the tragic death of Dani Jarque (26) whom he had just appointed new captain, again Pochettino rose to the challenge. despite the pain that was his.
“At that time, I think that if Mauricio had not been the coach, it could have turned into a disaster, says the Spanish commentator.
He was no longer just the team coach but also the psychologist, the friend we turn to when we need to talk.
He tried to take everything upon himself and on arrival this unfortunate episode further strengthened his ties with the club.
"
With his fighter mentality and his naïveté as a young coach, Pochettino imparts an attacking style to a team and a club which themselves no longer believed in themselves.
“Everything in his speech, in his way of expressing himself, in what he proposed on the field by giving a chance to young players, all this created the image of a team which, even if it knew that she wouldn't play the leading roles, gave off something special.
And it was also felt in the principles of the game, going forward, having possession of the ball, these are things that we had rarely seen in the past and we still miss it today, says Guillem Balague.
He made us believe in something different, big, strong.
When he left, he left a great void.
"
Barcelona, a place of "spiritual retreat" for La Pochette
Even today, when his schedule allows it, he likes to come back to Barcelona to “appreciate the light” so special of the city.
He never left the house he owns there.
“It's like a spiritual retreat,” he wrote in his book.
As for one day coaching Barça?
He has repeatedly said that as an espanyolista, he would see this as a form of "personal betrayal" and that he would rather go "to work on [his] farm in Argentina than to train certain clubs".
If the journalist Edu de Batlle thinks he must have regretted this outing since, his friend Javier De Haro, he wants to believe in these values.
“For me he is a man of principles and if one day he had to coach Barça, the disappointment of the supporters would be immense.
It would be the fall of a God.
On the other hand, I think he will come back to train Espanyol one day.
"
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