For a long time, Mauricio Pochettino’s success as a manager wasn’t widely covered in the Argentine media. Leaving Newell’s Old Boys in 1994 as a player, Pochettino hasn’t worked in South America since and therefore his profile hasn’t been as big as may be expected.
Tottenham coming close to winning the Premier League last season certainly helped upped Pochettino’s profile in Argentina, and links to Barcelona and Real Madrid, even if they are nonsense, do the same.
On Monday Argentine sport newspaper Ole have a small feature on the Tottenham boss and give him the Golazo treatment with the headline ‘Otro Pochettinazo’ describing another Spurs victory.
Making up for lost years of praise, Ole say ‘Mauricio Pochettino is the coach of the moment’, which is perhaps a fair comment, before going to say ‘The popularity of Mauricio Pochettino in England is worthy of a Beatle.’
Now, we don’t want to put Ole’s bonfire out, and it’s clear they’re making up for lost time, but Pochettino’s popularity isn’t quite at the levels Ole would have their readers believe.
Yes, his interview talking about Harry Kane’s daughter being born was wonderful, but the country haven’t really taken him to heart like The Beatles.
Not yet anyway.
Ole go on to talk about Pochettino being linked with Barcelona and previously with Manchester United, which they believe underlines just how respected he is in Europe. If Tottenham manage to win the league, maybe Ole can go with ‘Mauricio Pochettino more popular than Princess Diana ever was’.
