For a coach without a trophy, Paris-Saint-Germain has everything the ideal home. Multi-titled, the capital club should easily allow Mauricio Pochettino, who was officially appointed on Saturday, January 2, PSG coach, to write the first lines of an empty record. In return, the charismatic Argentine will try to provide a demanding method, more in line with the very high level.
Even if the year 2021 promises to be more contested than usual in Ligue 1 – before its resumption match in Saint-Etienne on January 6, Paris is one point behind Lyon and Lille – the marriage presents all the assets to be happy.
Free since his dismissal from Tottenham in 2019, a few months after reaching the final of the Champions League with Spurs (defeat against Liverpool), Pochettino is best placed to understand the cruel fate of his predecessor Thomas Tuchel, dismissed in a situation similar, on Christmas Eve. Chosen to embody the new Parisian cycle, he has the stature to take on the pressure.
Even more than in Tottenham, Mauricio Pochettino faces a major challenge in Paris: to satisfy the ambitions of continental conquest of the Qatari owners; a fleeting dream behind which run all the coaches who have gone through PSG in recent years.
Despite his age (48), the former Argentine international (twenty caps) can no longer be considered a young coach. After a first experience as an assistant coach of the women’s team, in 2009 he took on the costume of head coach of his favorite club, Espanyol Barcelona – he played there most of his European career from 1994 to 2001 and from 2004 to 2006, career interspersed with two years of French experience at PSG and six months in Bordeaux.
“As a good Argentinian, he knows how to touch the sensitive chord”
In Catalonia, the former central defender with long hair rubs the job on the bench of a club that wants above all to avoid relegation. This first experience “at home” is successful. Appointed while Espanyol is the red lantern, he accumulates 25 points out of the 30 possible during the last ten days and obtains an unexpected maintenance, renewed more calmly in the following years. “His secret has been to raise our morale. As a good Argentinian, he knows how to motivate others, strike a chord “, tells AFP Javi Chica, one of his former players.
Almost mystical, he is interested in the forces of the universe. He tells for example in a biography published in 2017 – Brave New World : Inside Pochettino’s Spurs – let him place lemons on his desk to absorb negative energies. And the Argentinian is very receptive “To the aura” of the people he works with.
Unlike some former great players who start directly in prestigious positions, his career is progressive. In January 2013, he landed in the Premier League, again for a rescue operation, this time on the south coast of England. At Southampton, he first avoided relegation to the Saints for half a season before leading his team to eighth place the following season.
Last June, Pochettino took advantage of his period of inactivity, despite numerous club requests – all refused – to come back to this period and brilliantly ensure self-promotion during an interview with LaLigaTV.
“Football in England has changed with our Southampton team. No other team had such an impact when it came to transforming the way the game was designed. We had a group of players who wanted to learn from our experience. [à l’Espanyol Barcelone]. And they had the quality to put together a style of play that nobody was used to in England at the time. ”
A player of character, Pochettino has often worn the captain’s armband, at Espanyol but also during his second season in Paris. In the monthly So Foot in 2016, his former Parisian coach Luis Fernandez described the Argentinian’s interest in his future career: “He liked to talk tactics with me. Mauricio was always in the analysis, the discussion… Working with a player like that is a pleasure. ”
“He makes you suffer like a dog. At the time, you hate him like you’ve never hated anyone, but on Sundays you thank him, because it works ”(Pablo Osvaldo)
But like many South American coaches, it was his compatriot Marcelo Bielsa who inspired him. The two men crossed paths at Newell’s Old Boys, in the Argentinian selection and during the short freelance of the “Professor” at Espanyol in 1998.
Pochettino falls into the category of technicians apostles of a quality game. Tactically, he is a follower of high pressing on the field and of energy-consuming football for his players, to whom he requires the repetition of high-intensity races. AT So Foot, the Italian-Argentine Pablo Osvaldo, who knew Pochettino at Espanyol and Southampton, spoke about his demands: “He makes you suffer like a dog. At the moment, you hate him like you’ve never hated anyone, but on Sundays you thank him, because it works. “
For this, he relies on a staff of faithful: the Argentinian Miguel D’Agostino, French-speaking passed by Niort or Perpignan during his playing career, and the Spaniards Toni Jiménez, specialist in goalkeepers, and especially Jesus Perez, his number two with a worldwide reputation. The trio should accompany him to Paris.
The sheriff has changed
Born of farming parents in Murphy, a small rural town (3,500 inhabitants) in the province of Santa Fe, Mauricio Pochettino had to go into exile for his passion 150 km to the northeast, in Argentina’s third largest metropolis: Rosario. It was with Newell’s Old Boys, Lionel Messi’s first club, that he was trained in football and turned professional at the end of the 1980s. There he will have time to meet another idol of Argentine football. , Diego Maradona, who tried to revive there just before the World Cup in the United States.
At PSG, he will have to learn to deal with other stars whose behavior is sometimes considered individualistic. Although the new Paris coach had hatched England striker Harry Kane at Tottenham, he had never had to deal with great players in his past experiences. His first steps will allow us to check if he softens his method, based on difficult training sessions and frequent greening before meetings. So many celebrations not known to be to the taste of Neymar and others.
Nicknamed the sheriff for his authoritarian side during his debut at Espanyol – he has become less inflexible over the years – Mauricio Pochettino does not seem afraid of the egos of great footballers. “You might think that some coaches find it difficult, that you have to be brave to take charge of such a workforce? Me, I think quite the opposite ”, he explained in 2018 in Madrid during a press conference.
The Champions League will arrive very quickly on Mauricio Pochettino’s program. From February 16 and March 10, during the round of 16 of the current edition, PSG will meet FC Barcelona once again. A first tricky pitfall to dodge for the Argentine coach, who has only six weeks to impose his paw before this meeting. And mold its star workforce to its liking.
