Brave New World

by Guillem Balague

  I have a strange feeling embarking on this journey with you. I am very private, extremely so.

  But I hope that sharing this experience will be as exciting for you as it was for me.

  I want the reader to place him or herself in the circumstances of each moment.

  Because football is, or feels at least to me, a context of emotions.

  INSIDE POCHETTINO’S SPURS

  Guillem Balagué

  To all of you at Biggleswade United who show me daily the all-conquering force of togetherness, humour and passion

  CONTENTS

  List of Illustrations

  Foreword by Karina Grippaldi

  Introduction

  1. Summer and pre-season

  2. August

  3. September

  4. October

  5. November

  6. December

  7. January

  8. February

  9. March

  10. April

  11. May

  Epilogue – Pochettino in Other Words

  Also by Guillem Balagué

  Appendix 1 – 2016–17 Results

  Appendix 2 – Season-by-season Comparison

  Acknowledgements

  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here courtesy of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club/Getty Images.

  here – Iván de la Peña (Albert Olive/EFE/lafototeca.com)

  here – Jordi Amat (Getty Images)

  here – Adam Lallana (Getty Images)

  here – Luke Shaw (Action Images/Ed Sykes)

  here – Jay Rodriguez (PA Images)

  here – Hugo Lloris (Getty Images)

  here – Harry Kane (Getty Images)

  here – Delle Alli (Getty Images)

  here – Victor Wanyama (Getty Images)

  here – Harry Winks (Getty Images)

  here – Eric Dier (Getty Images)

  here – Danny Rose (Getty Images)

  here – Daniel Levy (Action Images/Reuters)

  Plate Section One

  1. My favourite photo. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  2. I played outdoors all the time during my childhood and always loved animals. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  3. Here we were playing in the Third Division for Newell’s second team. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  4. This is the day when Karina set her sights on me. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  5. With my father and my brothers Martín and Javier. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  6. With Jorge Griffa, the coach who handed me my debut and was in charge of the Newell’s youth academy. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  7. José Manuel Lara, as majority shareholder, played a key role in that period of Espanyol’s history. (Pep Morata Morales/Mundo Deportivo)

  8. With Toni, Spurs’ current goalkeeping coach. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  9. We could see them blowing up Sarrià from our flat in September 1997. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  10. With Marcelo Bielsa. (Rodolfo Molina/Mundo Deportivo)

  11. Enjoying success with Espanyol was particularly special. (Carlos Mira/RCD Espanyol)

  12. Karina, Sebastiano and Yolanda on the day of the Copa del Rey final at Mestalla. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  13. I’m actually crying in this picture. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  14. I scored against Marseille in the Coupe de France at the Parc des Princes by heading in a Hugo Leal corner. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  15. Diego Maradona invited me to his Boca testimonial versus Argentina. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  16. Ronnie had just come over to PSG from Brazil. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  17. I am extremely fond of Mikel Arteta, who will go on to be a wonderful coach. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  18. With my mother Amalia and my brother Martín on my farm. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  19. With my cows on my land in Argentina. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  20. This photo of me with Simeone and Batistuta is from the 2002 World Cup in Japan. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  21. After the 2002 World Cup, we went to Disneyland with my children and my in-laws. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  22. With Zinedine Zidane. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  23. In Bordeaux, France, I discovered the magic of wine. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  Plate Section Two

  1. We played a friendly at the Camp Nou in 2004. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  2. I went back to Espanyol in 2004. (Carlos Mira/RCD Espanyol)

  3. When we won the 2006 Copa del Rey at Espanyol with Walter Pandiani, Martín Posse and Pablo Zabaleta. (Carlos Mira/RCD Espanyol)

  4. Another departure. Another change. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  5. The day I was given the gold-and-diamond badge to commemorate my 264 league appearances for Espanyol. (Carlos Mira/RCD Espanyol)

  6. I hung up my boots in 2006 and we went to Bariloche in Argentina. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  7. I have taken the family skiing once. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  8. Gaining experience with the Espanyol Women’s team in 2008. (Carlos Mira/RCD Espanyol)

  9. ‘Always with the youth academy’ epitomises my time at Espanyol. (Carlos Mira/RCD Espanyol)

  10. We made a promise to climb Montserrat if we kept Espanyol up in my first season as coach. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  11. In Nicola Cortese’s private jet on the way to England in January 2013. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  12. The wooden-arrow challenge and walking on hot coals barefoot. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  13. I had these pictures on the wall in my office at Southampton: the Argentinian Pope, a photo from my first game in charge and a newspaper cutting about what we were doing at the club. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  14. While at Southampton, I decided to wear the tie that Cortese had given me before his departure a few months earlier for the final home game of the season. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  15. A photo with all of the coaching staff and my colleagues at Southampton after my final match in charge of the team. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  16. After a year in England, we had all gone pale, so as soon as we arrived in Barcelona we went to the pool. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  17. Meeting Sir Alex Ferguson was one of the greatest professional pleasures that I have experienced. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  18. José Mourinho and I have always had a very good relationship. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  19. In Nice with Daniel Levy on the way to Joe Lewis’s yacht during the summer when I decided to join Tottenham. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  20. In the car with Miguel, Jesús, Toni and Xavier Elaine, our chiropractor and medical expert. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  21. The trip to Argentina with Daniel Levy and the coaching staff brought us closer together. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  22. Going for a walk and getting away from everything. Sometimes you come across some real gems while clearing your thoughts. (Courtesy of Mauricio Pochettino)

  FOREWORD

  by Karina Grippaldi

  I’m overjoyed to be writing the foreword to this book about Mauricio Pochettino, his life and his number one passion: football.

  We met on a night out when I was a student at the National University of Rosario and he was celebrating a clásico win, when Newell’s beat Central. It was a fabulous evening. Since then, we’ve been down all the paths that football has take
n us on together and our lives certainly revolve around the beautiful game. We’ve had many years filled with marvellous experiences and others that haven’t been quite so wonderful, but we’ve certainly learned from all of them.

  We’ve created a united family and we all support one another. We’re far from our loved ones back in Argentina, but we’re lucky to have fantastic friends. As a family, we all have our own individual dreams, but we adapt and support each other, trusting in one another’s decisions.

  He is certainly the leader of the family and the one whose strength has taken us on so many adventures. Mauricio is incredibly sensitive. He’s a people person who likes hearing stories and listening, thanks to his pleasant and positive disposition.

  He enjoys spending time with friends and family, and making the most of the little free time at home that he has to play football, tennis or ping-pong with our two boys, do some gym work with me or simply watch a film while having some mate, our loyal hot drinking companion. We enjoy our garden or the local green spaces by going on a walk through the park whenever possible. Such moments help him relax, switch off and recharge his batteries for what lies ahead.

  He spends almost all his time at the training ground, where I regularly visit him to deal with little family issues and just to see him for a bit, however briefly it may be.

  I think we form a strong team. I like seeing myself as the ‘guardian of our intimacy’. It all helps build a balance in our lives and daily existence. Experience tells us that there are no straight lines in football. You can go from glory to criticism, being ignored or slated in an instant, so between us we try to maintain the right distance and equilibrium to accept and enjoy our place in the world.

  I very much doubt that I’ve ever given him advice that has helped him do his job. I think Mauricio has exactly what it takes to do what he does. He’s like the ocean in that he’s plentiful and strong, he flattens all that lies before him and he is relentless. The wise water covers everything in its way, always finds gaps and embarks on new paths.

  He isn’t scared and sees every opportunity as a challenge. That’s his essence. He sees life as an adventure worth exploring and his motto is ‘tranquilidad’, calmness.

  I, on the other hand, am rainwater. I like to nourish, organise, lay the foundations and seek out stability so that my house is a paradise where you can recharge your batteries and come up with and develop new ideas.

  That’s how we complement one another.

  INTRODUCTION

  All of literature, Leo Tolstoy pointed out, comes down to one of two stories: a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. What you hold now comprises both of those two things. First, it recounts a journey, that of the 2016–17 season, Pochettino’s third at Spurs. But it is also the story of someone who has been a stranger since he left his home in Murphy as a teenage boy.

  This is and isn’t a diary of Mauricio’s campaign. Allow me to explain. It is a kind of collage. His words, his thoughts, his experiences are in here. Some were said by him in the conversations we had on an almost weekly basis. Others were told to me by the people around him to fill in some gaps: players that he has coached in the past or that he coaches now explained private moments, crucial tactical chats, reasons for hugs. Professional colleagues recollected memories of times past. Friends did the same. Travelling companions uncovered little secrets. And big ones.

  Eventually their words have become Pochettino’s words, channelled through me and always reviewed, although never censored, by the man himself to ensure they reflected his thoughts and actions. This diary that both is and isn’t a diary is something of a literary trick that hopes to give readers a better insight into his ideas and methods, as I have gained over the course of a remarkable season. Sometimes Pochettino did not recognise his voice, feeling that in written form his thoughts sounded too brusque. At others he was surprised by how deeply he had explored his shortcomings, learning process and journey, but the rule was not to look back months later and change the predominant feeling at the time. Eventually we agreed that what came out was unusual (a biography in the first person) but that it best explains this particular moment in his career and life.

  My chats with him were very regular and the transcriptions have filled hundreds of pages, but they were not weekly, as originally planned, because at times he distanced himself. Like tides that ebb and flow, so Mauricio could be hard to pin down. There were many reasons for his sudden absences, which you will discover later.

  At such moments his assistant Jesús Pérez took on a key role, by telling me how the week was going, what it was like in training and how they negotiated any obstacles on and off the pitch. Miguel d’Agostino, the member of the coaching staff who has known Mauricio for the longest, sent me audio files from his car en-route to training, with stories from Rosario, Barcelona, France, Southampton and London. We sometimes sat down with Toni Jiménez for a chat. Karina, his wife, did a key job as quartermaster, searching through photos and adding essential detail.

  So let us start by hearing where he stood at the start of the 2016–17 season and soon after how the life of ‘Mauricio the Stranger’ has developed since his early days in the fields of Murphy, a village where nothing ever happened, but where parameters were set that have stayed with him ever since. He will, at the same time, embark with us on the journey through the season in the form of a diary that is real, but is also not real. Even though everything is true.

  1.

  SUMMER AND PRE-SEASON

  Tottenham Hotspur came third in 2015–16, a remarkable achievement for a club that has to operate without the hefty budgets available to Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United. The final league match of the campaign, however, a 5–1 thrashing at the hands of already-relegated Newcastle, left a bad taste in the mouth of Mauricio Pochettino and his coaching staff. The target for the upcoming season was crystal clear: improvement. The coach and most members of the squad were gearing up for their Champions League debut and Tottenham’s second foray into Europe’s premier club competition, after a five-year absence. While making plans for the new journey, Pochettino could still hear the roars from a rocking St James’ Park home faithful celebrating the Championship-bound side’s assortment of goals.

  Why did we start our holidays before that match? What did we do wrong? That uncomfortable place is where we are at the moment. It was all my fault. I did something wrong. We have to understand the underlying cause behind that defeat.

  *

  I got the screen out at half-time, when we were 2–0 down. But it wasn’t a matter of altering the position of our defensive line or which players played where. ‘What’s happening here has nothing to do with tactics. We aren’t battling. You aren’t yourselves on the pitch!’ I repeated that several times.

  But it was to no avail.

  Where was the individual commitment that gave us that special feeling of belonging to the group? I get very annoyed when I cannot find the way to motivate, to generate the passion necessary to enjoy this game.

  Was it my fault?

  *

  At the end of the game, I headed into an empty dressing room. The players gradually came in, but I swiftly had to head off to see to my media commitments with radio and television. I came back 45 minutes later, by which point they had all showered and got changed, so I couldn’t say anything. What was I to do?

  We went back down to London together, but there was no way to get the players on their own. I didn’t even try. Everyone had serious expressions on their faces. They certainly all had their own ideas in their heads and had reached their own conclusions. We were not avoiding one another, but nobody was smiling. We felt embarrassed when we crossed paths, and if we saw a fan we kept our heads down.

  Players want first and foremost to win, of course, because they’re the ones who are on the pitch, and there’s nowhere to hide. But sometimes they live their own reality – without realising it, they become trapped in a bubble. A player’s e
ntourage protects him and often blocks out other worlds out there, only allowing him to see his own. Of course, a footballer must look after himself and put up walls in order to ensure that external factors don’t have an overbearing impact, but in order to perform well he needs a balance of self-esteem, ego, his own reality and other realities outside those walls. Excessive self-criticism is crushing, as is ignorance of the wider world.

  It becomes a serious matter when there’s a mental disconnect with the basic principles of the game – if the footballer’s aim isn’t a shared one, but purely individual, and he forgets the required order in this sport: that the individual shines more when at the service of the team and the structure that supports him.

  I was thinking about all of that as we landed back in London from Newcastle. I got in the car and headed home. The first thing that I did when I got there was open a bottle of wine and stuff myself with unhealthy food. I think I let my frustration out on myself. I ate the lot: crisps, snacks . . . If we had pizza, some of that as well. No salad. The wine was Argentinian: a Malbec. Whenever I am slightly down, I like to smell Argentinian wine. It makes me happy and takes me back to my country, to recognisable places, to when I was a boy, the redolence of the countryside where I lived until the age of eight, in that house with an orchard and horses . . . If I am challenged to some blind wine tasting, I quickly suss out which one is Argentinian, particularly Malbec.

  Today I started this diary.

  *

  Not even 24 hours have passed since the game. I’ve just received a message from Harry Kane saying thank you for the season and that it was a good year despite the final match . . . You could see that he felt ashamed at the end of the game.

  I’m not going to reply. He doesn’t expect it either.

  *

  I’ve started the summer in Qatar. I received an invitation from one of the directors at Aspetar Hospital in Doha, Dr Hakim Chalabi, a good friend of mine who was my doctor at Paris Saint-Germain. It’s a three-day trip with Jesús Pérez, my assistant and right-hand man, and my son Sebastiano, who specialises in sports science. We’ve had a great time and they’ve explained to us how they’re preparing for the World Cup in Qatar.