Mauricio Pochettino took time out from his difficult Tottenham Hotspur situation on Monday to travel to Qatar and take part in an Aspire football summit.
Aside from praising his hosts and the Aspire system with great enthusiasm, the manager was of course encouraged to speak about his current situation at Spurs.
And, of course, he didn’t shy away from it.
Whilst Tottenham players on international duty are refusing or not allowed (at least according to the Belgian media) to speak about their club woes, Pochettino didn’t have any problem.
Spanish newspaper AS have a big spread on the comments made.
They’ve split it into sections, one of which is on player confidence, with the Argentine quoted as saying: “The player isn’t helped by telling him he’s s***”
A section on passion has the Spurs boss saying: “Football is a context of emotion. It represents passions, emotions, but now it has also become a great love, a love for madness. Football is necessary to realise our goals. Without football, we cannot explain emotions. They are inseparable.”
On the responsibilities of a coach in modern football, he said: “The responsibility for coaches is very big. You have to convince players and people of what you do. Sometimes you have to react as brothers, even sometimes as psychologists. What they expected from me when I arrived is not only football knowledge or knowing how to use one system or another. It is more than that to be a coach.”
There’s been questions in the media recently about Pochettino’s relationship with Daniel Levy, and he tried his best to dismiss the idea of there being any issue: “People can say that the relationship with the president has worsened, but it is not so. The important thing is to maintain this relationship and keep our respect. We need to know how to manage our philosophy to be together.”
Tottenham are currently ninth in the Premier League, with 11 points from eight matches. The club’s next domestic matches are against Watford at home and then Liverpool away.
