Everybody was impressed by our campaign. There was talk that we’d played the best football, had the most shots on goal, conceded the fewest goals and the rest, but I couldn’t brush off the embarrassment of what had happened on the final day.
I’m experiencing another type of deeper pain. My father-in-law is unwell. He went to Barcelona to continue his treatment, and when we saw him, my wife Karina and I could tell that he wasn’t right. He wasn’t the same person whom we knew and had enjoyed spending time with two years ago, the last time we saw him.
*
I’ve just sent good luck messages to the players at Euro 2016, which has just kicked off. While I was writing to them I thought about how at Newcastle we had stopped doing what we’d been practising for two years. Finishing third is certainly not the same as finishing second, even though some seem to think it is. Arsenal leapfrogged us in the end. I didn’t recognise my own team.
I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve sensed that some of them were already on holiday and others were thinking about the Euros. In reality, we did sense it and we did see it. I should’ve stopped that negative spiral, but how?
Sending them good-luck messages hurts. I’ll do it before every game, but it hurts.
How can anyone think that finishing third is the same as finishing second?
*
You learn from everything.
I played football and volleyball between the ages of eight and ten. I liked football the most, but lots of girls played volleyball, so . . . We’d play in an indoor gym and when we went to local villages, the girls would come with us for their own matches. I really loved playing volleyball, especially in away games.
I also did judo. The teacher was a strong Japanese man with a very dark character. His son was a year older than me, strong from practising martial arts almost from birth, and also the goalkeeper of a rival team that I came up against during a tournament in Murphy. I was our best player. I went up for a corner and started to position myself to receive the ball, which was delivered with real venom. I began to jump and what ensued left its mark on me for ever.
That son of a . . . of a goalkeeper came up to me and pulled my shorts down to try to put me off. Imagine the fans! And the parents! I was ten years old! It pissed me off so much . . . I cried and cried because I felt so powerless on the pitch. Everyone was looking at me. People who were there and people who weren’t. The whole world! Or that is how it felt. It was the most humiliating moment of my life. The most insufferable part was the fact that I didn’t have the balls to react . . . I should’ve grabbed him by the neck and punched his lights out!
Of course it was a lesson. It’s useful for when someone beats you in a game, gets the better of you in a duel or you get nutmegged. It makes you fight against your destiny and gives you strength. You retrieve energy from places you thought previously empty. That helped me be even stronger, braver and more passionate.
The next time that something like that happened, I gave the guy a punch. That was in the Argentinian first division. We were playing San Lorenzo and Francisco Oscar Lamolina was the referee. One of the opposition strikers tackled me from behind. I just stood my ground and he shoved his head in my face. He insulted me and I certainly didn’t hold back. I could see him working the saliva. He spat at me and his gob went into my mouth! Of course, at that moment of indignation I went to clobber him. As I was approaching his face, I was regretting it. In the end I only made a light connection, so the referee, who could see that I was sorry and what the guy had done, said to me, ‘You idiot, what the hell are you doing? I’m going to bloody send you off! Actually, I’m not going to because I saw what the other guy did and I’d have to send you both off!’ Both of us stayed on the pitch! That is how it often works in the first division in Argentina! What a wonderful decision.
Lamolina later told me that he would’ve done the same.
*
I don’t know exactly why I’m writing all this. Nor the reason behind the order – or lack thereof – in which I tell the stories. I don’t know what to talk about, or if it’s suitable for a diary. Maybe it’s a good time to reflect on where I come from and try to piece together the puzzle of what I’ve been and what I am. If that’s the aim, I imagine I should start from the start. It’s a good time to begin this because I’ve suddenly found myself with time on my hands that I wasn’t expecting. We went on a family holiday to the Bahamas for a week, but it rained every single day. What was supposed to be a week of sunbathing turned into anything but I watched football while we were waiting for the weather to clear up. It was my saviour. I was in a lovely house and the television had cable, meaning every game in the Euros and Copa América was broadcast live. Football comforted me. My wife was rather irritated, of course. My sons were delighted to watch it with me. Three against one – not much of a balance.
We ended up cutting short our trip to the Bahamas. We’d have come back sooner, but I couldn’t find any flights. So we made a swift return to London, and then headed to Barcelona to enjoy a week of sunbathing by the pool at our family apartment. And all the while, I’ve been making notes and filling up blank pages between flights, rain, matches and breaks.
In particular, I’ve been thinking about Murphy and Newell’s, where I made my first steps in football. But before that, I need to go back to my bedroom at my parents’ house when I was a teenager. I was asleep when negotiations for my transfer to Newell’s Old Boys began in the early hours.
There were two boys from Murphy three or four years older than me who played for Rosario Central. One of them, David Bisconti, went on to play in the first division and for the national team. The guys wanted me to join them at Central. One day I trained with them and the club wanted to sign me straight away, but I was 13 and still finishing the academic year in Murphy, the town in Santa Fe where I was born, some 160 kilometres from Rosario. I couldn’t sign until the end of the school year in December or January, so they suggested I went to training with them once or twice a week while I still played in Murphy. Dele Alli did a similar thing when we signed him: he trained with us, but played for League One outfit MK Dons where he came from. In my case I was in a team that were three or four years older than me, but held my own well. I thought I would end up at Central.
This is how the days went: I studied agriculture at a local school around 20 kilometres from my house. I would wake up at 6 a.m. to get the bus and around 5 p.m., after I finished school, I would embark on the three-hour journey to Rosario. Sometimes my dad would take me, but mostly I went on the bus, spending those three hours sleeping or talking to people. That journey used to get on my nerves as the bus stopped everywhere – just like a milkman! I eventually had to change schools to one where I only had to go in the morning and did not have to rush to go to training.
When I got to the facilities at Rosario Central, I would train and then spend the night at their digs. I would work again in the morning and then go home. At the weekend I played in my home town on Saturdays and Sundays. It all started again on Mondays.
On one of those Mondays, Marcelo Bielsa and Jorge Griffa from Newell’s Old Boys, Central’s city rivals, set up a trial for a group of players in Villa Cañás, a town around 50 kilometres from Murphy. There was a coach in Villa Cañás who knew me and was aware I was a good player, so he asked my father to take me. On that trial day, I left school and got to Murphy around 6 p.m. I was exhausted after a long day at school and having played at the weekend. I didn’t fancy going. I told my father and he told me not to worry, so we didn’t go to the trial.
At breakfast on Tuesday morning, my father told me what had happened the previous night.
It turns out that after the trial Bielsa and Griffa, who were travelling all over the country in search of fledgling talent, were having a hearty meal with the coach who knew me and they asked him if there were any other interesting prospects in the area. He replied, ‘Yes, the best of the lot didn’t come because he’s at Central.’ They looked at each other as
if to say, ‘no way’. ‘Where does he live?’ they asked. And they set off to meet me.
It was one o’clock in the morning in the middle of winter.
They reached the service station in Murphy and asked the very few passers-by around at that time of night until they found the house. They knocked on the door and my mother got up. They told her who they were, but she refused to open up, opting to fetch my father instead. She woke him up, and because he had heard about them, he invited them in for a coffee. Bielsa later told me that after chatting for five or ten minutes and explaining why they were there, they didn’t know what to say or talk about, so they decided to ask my father, ‘Could we see the boy?’ Despite the early hour, my proud parents said yes and they came to my bedroom to take a look.
They saw me sleeping and Griffa asked, ‘May I see his legs?’ My mother pulled the covers off me and they both said, ‘He looks like a footballer. Look at those legs!’ Of course! What were they going to say to my parents? Although my small bedroom was full of people admiring my legs, I slept like a log and had no idea about it until my old man spilled the beans the following morning.
From that point, they started calling my father to convince him to take me to training. I didn’t want to go. I was happy at Central. My grandfather, who had a friend who had played for Newell’s, was the one who convinced me. So I went to meet Bielsa and Griffa. I travelled by bus, because my father was busy working the land. Again, it took me three nervous hours to get to Rosario. Some club representatives were waiting for me at the station and they took me to the training ground. They asked me to change into the kit that I’d brought with me (shorts, shirt, socks, boots), unlike now at Spurs where you turn up and they give you everything. I was introduced to Bielsa, who said to me, ‘Go and warm up with the group and join the game. Where do you play?’
‘Centre-back,’ I answered.
‘But aren’t you a striker?’
‘Well, in my town I play up front, but I don’t like it, I’m a defender.’
‘OK, that’s where you’ll play, in defence.’
The game kicked off and five minutes in, after touching the ball three or four times, they said to me, ‘Come off, someone else is coming on.’ I thought, ‘What is going on here?’
‘Come here, kid, sit down.’ Bielsa was next to me, sitting on a ball. ‘Look, in January we’re playing in a tournament in Mar del Plata and we want you to go with your age group, those born in ’72.’
‘Well, I don’t know, I have to speak to my parents . . .’
‘Sure, speak to your parents,’ Marcelo replied, ‘and let us know. Now, go and get showered.’ I’d only played five minutes and I so wanted to keep being involved, even more so at Newell’s ground – it’s like coming from a small village in rural England and visiting the Tottenham training ground. ‘No, no, take a shower and someone will take you to the offices by the stadium.’
I was taken there and Griffa was waiting for me: ‘OK, son, here is your ticket. Go home and we’ll talk. I hope you come with us to play in the tournament, it’d be really great, an experience . . .’ That’s how it was. I’d gone to Rosario in the morning to be with them and in the afternoon I was travelling back to my home town.
My parents were happy for me to join Newell’s for that tournament, so I returned a few days later and the club treasurer Vicente Tasca put me up for a couple of nights. His son was also going to be in the team. I trained with my new colleagues and we set off for Mar del Plata. We reached the final against Olimpia from Paraguay and it was all-square at 2–2 after 90 minutes. In the second half of extra-time, the goalkeeper passed the ball to me on the edge of our area, I kept going and going and going, I exchanged passes with a teammate and then I went to put a cross in . . . And it went in! Goal! We won 3–2 and clinched the tournament! We got back to Rosario and when I got off the coach, Bielsa and Griffa were waiting for me. ‘So now what? Are you going to stay with us?’
‘Yes, I’m going to sign.’ And so I did. I was a Racing fan because of my father, but over time I was drawn to Newell’s. That’s the story. Incredible.
And interesting. Bielsa needed only five minutes. I never asked him what he saw, but I think I understand his thought process. When Jesús Pérez, Miki D’Agostino or Toni Jiménez and I watch a game now, we see who we need and who we don’t. We realise immediately. It’s a question of attitude and energy. Do they transmit those traits or not? A guy like Bielsa, who was ahead of his time, just like Griffa, could see the lot in five minutes.
My career and story would’ve been completely different if I’d signed for Central. Or, who knows, maybe we’d have made Central as big as Newell’s. You always have to think big, don’t you?
*
Griffa, who was Newell’s director of football, became my father figure while I was in Rosario, especially between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. I had a stronger relationship with him than I had with Bielsa, who was initially the reserve-team coach. José Yudica was in charge of the first team when I made my debut as a 17-year-old. Soon after, Marcelo was promoted to first-team coach and we won the league. Under Bielsa we reached the Copa Libertadores final the following season but lost to Telê Santana’s São Paulo on penalties. It was a sensational achievement for a modest team like ours. The philosophy was very similar to the current one at Tottenham.
The squad was a mix of young players, like Fernando Gamboa, Eduardo Berizzo and me, and more experienced heads, such as ‘Tata’ Martino, Juan Manuel Llop and Norberto Scoponi. In that era, players didn’t leave Argentina, so it was harder for youngsters like us to get the nod, unless the man in charge was someone like Bielsa, who was just starting out as a coach and hadn’t been a top-level player. He had his own ideas about it all.
The team’s style of play also bore many similarities with Spurs’: it was intense, fast-paced with a high press and plenty of mechanical movement. We looked to dominate physically and our game was about suffocating our opponents, making them uncomfortable when we did not have the ball. We all needed to believe in the coach for it to work. The team was full of players who had responsibilities. We weren’t just soldiers. We were all part of the decision-making process. Playing as a left-sided centre-back, I developed under Bielsa, whose audacious and brave philosophy dared to challenge the norm at the time.
He was given the nickname ‘Loco’, although I never liked it. I know it’s a tribute to his different way of thinking, but I consider a move away from common patterns as being exceptional rather than crazy. These days who has the intellectual ability to see things in a different light? I now understand him better than ever, more so than when I was a footballer. I’d love to sit down with him for some mate and a chat again. Although we do not agree on everything, he was certainly an inspiration when I decided to become a coach.
*
I’m lucky enough to have a wife who understands me and understands football. Karina sometimes complains, and so she must if she thinks we are headed down the wrong path, but she is aware of the fact that football has made me who I am and who we are as a family. It’s what we wanted and what we chose to be. The ball has to be our travelling companion.
Meeting my wife transformed my life. During a period of change, when everything at Newell’s was happening at such a fast pace, she gave me a platform of stability and calmness. In my late teenage years, having won the title, it would have been normal to get caught up in the moment. There were countless sources of temptation and we Newell’s boys felt like we owned the city.
*
In 1993 El Indio Solari was Newell’s coach. He was a very special guy and one day he got us all in for a meeting and said, ‘Lads, what would you think if we signed Maradona?’ Maradona was at Sevilla. I cracked up.
‘Maradona at Newell’s? Impossible!’
El Indio responded, ‘It could be a possibility. What would you think?’
‘What do you mean, what would we think? If Maradona comes here, we’ll die of excitement!’
&nb
sp; El Gringo Giusti was involved in the deal alongside fellow well-known agent Tota Rodríguez. The contract was signed nine months before the 1994 World Cup. El Gringo Giusti contacted many of the players saying, ‘Here is Diego’s number. He’d love you to call him.’ I was with Karina in my flat on the 13th floor in Córdoba, opposite the National Flag Memorial, but I had my doubts. ‘Should I call him or not? How can I phone Maradona? Bloody hell!’ I told Karina that when I moved to Rosario as a youngster, I lived in a very small apartment. There was a picture next to the bed, the only one that I had in the whole flat, and it was Maradona in 1986 lifting the World Cup. I always went to sleep with Maradona looking down on me. And now I had to ring him.
In the end, I said to myself, ‘I’ll call him.’
I nervously heard a ‘Hello?’
‘Yes, Diego, it’s Mauricio Pochettino, I’m going to be your teammate.’
‘Poche!’ I almost fainted when he called me Poche. ‘How are you doing, Poche? It’s so great to hear from you! I’m very grateful to you for phoning me, with me soon heading over there . . .’ I was speechless!
Diego arrived in Rosario and had his unveiling the following day. We all went to Newell’s stadium to wait for the big moment. There were about 40,000 people there. The ground was full and it was a dream-come-true. We looked at him thinking, ‘No way is Maradona here with us.’
We didn’t have a gym at Newell’s, so we went to one on Calle Mendoza. Maradona would go there in the morning to use the treadmill and boost his strength. He trained very hard and then he’d join the group in the afternoon. It was a pleasure to train with him. He only wanted to be on the ball. He wasn’t about running. He was all about the game. He’d warm up on his own by grabbing a ball before even doing up his laces and kicking it about. It’s difficult to explain exactly what he would do, from the noise the ball made when his foot connected with it to his incredible control and the swerve that he could put on it. Afterwards, he’d eat some type of porridge and he’d go back to the gym on his own in the evening.
Brave New World Page 2
