Mauricio Pochettino smiles, trying to find the right words with a command of English that remains charmingly expressive but has grown a little rusty in the three and a half years since he was sacked by Tottenham Hotspur.
Chelsea’s new head coach has just been asked how he has changed in that time, which was marked first by a coaching sabbatical and then by a frustratingly short stint leading a star-studded Paris Saint-Germain team.
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“We changed in many things,” he says, using the plural to include the tight-knit backroom staff led by long-time assistant Jesus Perez — who is sitting in on this interview, just as he does for every Pochettino press conference — that has followed him to Chelsea. “We’re older now and when you’re 50 you need to be careful, because your change is quick!
(Photo: KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)“We got experience in different leagues, in PSG in France, we are more mature and we learned a lot in different situations. We are guys who always judge ourselves and want to improve, and the experience gave the possibility to improve. In terms of football, we are always moving on, watching and trying to develop different ideas.
“But in terms of management also, to manage in a different country provides the possibility to have more tools to create that platform and manage people here in England. We’re much better people (now).”
Pochettino is still defensive of his record at PSG, which yielded three trophies in 18 months and a Champions League semi-final in his first half-season in charge, but is remembered by many for a lost Ligue 1 title race to Lille in 2021-22 and a Champions League round-of-16 collapse against Real Madrid the following year with a front line of Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe and Neymar.
It appears the main lesson he took from his coaching experience in the French capital was to prioritise stability and vision in his next job. “You can’t win if you don’t build nothing but bringing names and players,” he insists. “Liverpool won after very good years working hard and being consistent, Manchester City the same after seven years with Pep (Guardiola) and Madrid also.
“That is important to understand, that in general who is going to win is the club that is more consistent, making a plan to try to win.”
Mauricio Pochettino and his staff celebrate winning the French cup with PSG (Photo: FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images)Chelsea, then, is a fascinating career choice: the archetypal short-term club in the Roman Abramovich era, in the midst of sweeping and extremely painful change under new owners yet to establish their credentials for leading a winning football project. Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital have preached sustainability and long-term planning since assuming control in June 2022, but have also broken transfer spending records to replace most of the first-team squad and sacked two permanent head coaches within 12 months before hiring Pochettino.
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But it is clear that the Argentine has fully bought into the aspirations and the methods of Chelsea’s new leadership, now fronted on the football side by co-sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley. “We are building something special, I think,” he adds. “It’s a process and we need time. But in football, you cannot ask for time and you need to deliver from now.
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“We know that we are in Chelsea and even if we have young players that will be involved against Liverpool (to start the new Premier League season on August 13), the mentality is to win. We are preparing ourselves to know the first game will be tough and then the next game also but we need to arrive with a good mentality.”
Pochettino talks freely about long-term targets at Chelsea, but his contract is only guaranteed for two years with an option for a third. He is well aware of the football paradox that confronts process-oriented coaches, where future aims can be rendered meaningless by present events.
“It’s a parallel line,” he explains. “We need to work thinking (about) that short period but also medium and long term. Our plan first of all is one year and then we go and cut into six months, three months, one month, one week and then day by day. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t thinking to win.
(Photo: Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)“My idea and message to the players, the fans and everyone is that we are Chelsea and we need to win. Today, yesterday, not tomorrow. At the same time we need to be working hard and being clever in how we are going to prepare next month, next six months and the year.
“We need to have a plan that (says) ‘We need to arrive there’ and if we arrive before, perfect. But if not we know that we are going to arrive at the destination. That is important.”
Hearing these words it is impossible not to think of Pochettino’s time in charge of Tottenham, where the staggering progress made in five years — including a surprise Champions League final appearance in 2019 — was quantifiable by every metric except trophies.
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Several of his successors at Spurs, most notably Chelsea alumni Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, have claimed there are fundamental cultural differences between the bitter London rivals that explain the startling disparity in their success. Perhaps mindful of the goodwill he has already exhausted at his former club by taking the job at Stamford Bridge, it is understandably not a theory that Pochettino is inclined to indulge.
“For me, when I was at Tottenham it was a different period but I think the mentality to win was there,” he says. “We won. Maybe we didn’t lift a trophy but we won in many ways. But now Chelsea is a different club, different period, different process, different project. For me, football is about to win.”
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Pochettino searches for a simile.
“It is like a striker. If they score, good. If they don’t, problem. The coach is the same. We need to win but if we don’t we will struggle.”
Pochettino can now point to a Ligue 1 title and Coupe de France with PSG by way of a riposte to those who claim he is not a winning coach. In any case, he does not give the impression of a man desperate for validation. He has arrived at Chelsea comfortable in his own skin, projecting a calmness and maturity that the club needed after a destabilising 18 months.
“Maybe now I sleep better,” he says with a smile. “Before it was difficult when I started at Espanyol. It was like all or nothing. You feel, ‘If we don’t win tomorrow or tonight my career is going to be a disaster’. Now you the manage the pressure better. You always feel the adrenaline but after you disconnect and say, ‘Now I need to rest, I need to sleep’.
“I think that experience has helped me to have better sleep and to enjoy time with my family and my friends. It is easier to enjoy time with the staff and the players and the coaching staff. Before it was more bam, bam, bam, bam. We use the experience to learn the passion is there, the adrenaline is there, the discipline.
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“But it is about knowing when to be in this process and when to have time to enjoy yourself — when to liberate the players from all this pressure. How we behave as a coaching staff will transmit itself to the players.”
Pochettino with Premier League CEO Richard Masters and the Summer Series trophy (Photo: Patrick Smith/Getty Images)Chelsea’s players have looked liberated on their pre-season tour of the United States — both from the failure of last season and in a tactical sense. Pochettino’s dynamic, asymmetrical 4-2-3-1 has proven a good fit for many of his key stars, while his emphasis on fitness and conditioning has left them physically much better prepared for the challenges ahead.
None of that stops him from downplaying his own role in Chelsea’s renewed optimism for the season ahead. “The people who make the difference are the players,” he insists. “We can have the ideas or the methodology or the knowledge about football, but in the end always we need to think the quality of the player is going to make the difference.
“The players own football — they are the principal actors, and we need to provide them with the best tools. Now it’s not about to press, to play one system or another. It’s that the players buy the idea, that they believe and have enough talent to apply to the games, score goals and save opponent actions. That is the key and it is always going to be the key.”
Chelsea have many of the players who can make the club competitive again near the top of the Premier League, and by the end of this transfer window they may have several more. But just as important is the fact that the talent they have assembled is focused in the direction of a new plan, devised by a man who inspires confidence from the dressing room to the boardroom.
(Top photo: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)
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