Tottenham facing Barcelona in the Champions League this week throws up some intriguing meet-ups for Mauricio Pochettino, explains Tuesday’s edition of AS.
Barca are flying out to London today for their Wembley game and therefore the Spanish sport media is full of Spurs related stories.
AS have one of the more interesting ones, explaining Pochettino will be facing two old former Espanyol contacts that he surely has very different memories of.
First up is Ernesto Valverde.
When the now Barcelona manager took over at Espanyol in 2006, Pochettino was one of the senior players there, having returned to the club following spells with PSG and Bordeaux. But AS explain Valverde didn’t want him around the place.
The Spaniard requested Espanyol edge Pochettino out of the club, and that they did. A source close to Tottenham manager is quoted as saying: “It cost him, but with the passage of time he understood and I think he is even grateful.”
Espanyol didn’t want to ‘impose’ their senior player on any new regime, so off he went to learn about management.
And who should replace Valverde in 2008? Pochettino, of course.
In 2012 he was sacked, with Espanyol struggling towards the bottom of the table. There’d been severe financial restrictions at the club, and the Argentine had complained publicly, which probably had more to do with his sacking than the results did.
Ramon Planes, now at Barcelona as an assistant to Eric Abidal, was in a sports management role at Barcelona’s smaller club and worked well with Pochettino.
So much so, that on the day Pochettino was sacked, Planes ripped up his own contract.
All the men are set to meet this week, and Poch and Planes is likely to be far friendlier than Poch and Valverde.
AS say Tottenham’s manager ‘will be between his friend and his executioner’.
