Pochettino Radio Interview Part 1 - English football & Spurs

Back in February Mauricio Pochettino was interviewed by Barcelona-based radio station RAC1, the main Catalan language private radio station, at our world class training facilities.


This four-part series will be released at 9pm GMT on Monday to Thursday this week so don't forget to tune into all parts and see what he had to say on a variety of topics.

In Part 1 he talks about the training facilities, English football and Spurs.
In Part 2 he talks about Chelsea and how clubs need to trust their youth as Tottenham are doing.
In Part 3 he talks about the North London Derby, about Spurs being bigger than Southampton plus we see Spurs through the eye of a Hollywood story.
In Part 4 he talks about Spurs objectives, the financial truth, the best atmosphere in England, away from White Hart Lane of course, as well as who has impressed him the most and which Spurs player has surprised him the most.

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At the end of the day we are all Spurs fans and we all want the same thing, Spurs winning titles and trophies, we may go about promoting our club in different ways but that is healthy, as is the passion that comes with it.

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Now on to the Mauricio Pochettino interview.

RMC1: What a great training complex with fantastic facilities they have here in Enfield.

Pochettino: When you first come here, you don’t know what to expect but for me this training complex and these facilities are one of the best in Europe – that I know of.  We’re very happy.  It opened less than two years ago and the facilities are spectacular for what I like most: to play football and train on.

RMC1: Out of curiosity I noticed there is a covered training pitch, with artificial grass, and for days like today when it’s snowing, do you train inside (on that) or outside?

Pochettino: No, we train outside.  The English football culture is to train outside whether it’s raining or snowing.  We also have the exclusive use of four natural pitches; two of which have undersoil heating.  If we train in the morning the pitches are pre-prepared and warm enough whatever the weather.

RMC1: The grass outside and surrounding the training complex is good enough to play football on! They look after their grass very well here.

Pochettino: It isn’t just here at Tottenham – I think it’s common all over England.  You need to look after your facilities and the image you project.

THBN: People perhaps underestimate or maybe don't appreciate the importance of image to a football club. You have to sell a club to a player and his entourage and given a choice where other things are equal would you want to go to work in dilapidated facilities or facilities that are among the best in Europe.

The game is about money these days, who has it wins, but every club has to portray a brand, an image that resonates with potential sponsors. With top quality facilities and a high-quality unique stadium on the way the club is positioning itself with facilities among the very best, it's position the club image as being among the very best, with that in place the next step will be to take the team there.

Recently Vincenzo Nibali has been disgracing the Tour de France with unsportsmanlike behaviour, breaking unwritten rules and then suggesting to the media he didn't see the leader had a mechanical problem, which TV footage suggests was not the case at all. The unwritten rule is if a rider has a fault through no problem of his own, meaning a mechanical fault, you don't attack. Last year's winner of the tour clearly saw the leader with a problem and attacked. In cycling, you win against the man, not the machine.

Jack Wilshere recently led a foul-mouthed torrent of abuse on a bus when, like it or not, he is a role model to young children. With a fat salary comes responsibility and protecting a club image and brand are part of that responsibility. As a sponsor who would you rather have your company associated with a foul-mouthed Wilshere or clean-cut Harry Kane.

FIFA won't be able to attract any new sponsors until Sepp Blatter has departed while Visa and Coca-Cola have called for an independent body to oversee changes at the disgraced organisation. The Russian World Cup in 2018 will be seen as the World Cup of corruption, the image of the tournament is tarnished thanks to the dubious legality bidding process.

Tottenham has a healthy image, our players portray the club in the right light as does Mauricio Pochettino. We have been invited to compete with Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, AC Milan, Sydney, Malaysia and the MLS All-Stars because of our image both on and off the field.

RMC1: Has the English culture won you over?

Pochettino:  Yeah, the truth is it has.  Everyone has their own point of view but as someone that’s played in France and Spain, you always see English football as something unique.  And you really only notice that difference once you a part of it.  I’ve been here for over two years now and I can talk about experiences in different European leagues – and it’s not because I’m here – but the reality is its a class above of the rest Europe.

THBN: It is the league the world want to watch and receives the TV money it does because of that. There are more mistakes in English football and more turnover of possession thus there is more happening, making it a more exciting spectacle to watch. It is not simply because it has been more effectively marketed because people decide what they watch and if the wanted to watch other leagues the viewing figures would change, then the TV money would change.

RMC1: Looking back, do you regret having not played in England as a footballer?

Pochettino: Yeah, I’d have liked to.  As you know they allow a lot more (physical play).  You can leave a foot in here so I’d have been sent off less than I was when playing for Espanyol.  My good friend Florin Raducioiu always told me, who I played with at Espanyol and later went to West Ham, that I would have loved to have played in England.  It is a style that would’ve suited me but I never had the chance.  But as a coach I’m enjoying it as well.

RMC1: Now you’re in your first season at Tottenham, after making the move from Southampton, and you’re very much in the fight for the Champions League places as you sit on 40 points.  Arsenal are on 42, as are your former side Southampton who have maintained their form.  You are in the next round of the Europa League against Fiorentina, finalists in the Capital One Cup and were narrowly beaten by Leicester in the FA Cup.  From an outside perspective, I don’t know whether the Tottenham fans are happy or not, but you’re having a great season so far.

Pochettino: Yeah, at the moment, yes.  Above everything because of the situation.  For years Spurs invested a lot of money, more than €140m in transfers and later sacked Villas-Boas.  In that moment, the club needed a specific person (to take over) and we arrived.  There isn’t any money to spend.  We need to get the most of the players that were signed previously.  The most difficult thing, more than anything else, was to change the philosophy.

It’s a big club, with huge potential but there needed to be a radical change (when we came).  We are in the process of making that change and with the good fortune of positive results – I think the fans are happy.  I think more than the good results it’s the changes we’ve made internally, that people don’t see, which are the most positive.  Such as the restructuring of the club and the base we’re creating so that the club can compete with the biggest teams in the country in the future.”

THBN: We finished fifth and reached a cup final which bizarrely some fans believe is going backwards, I don't recall being in a cup final for a few years, perhaps I missed something. I wrote a whole series of articles on the financial side at Tottenham and how we arrive at a transfer budget, which is dictated by incoming and outgoing instalment payments for player bought and sold.

The club have to be in the healthiest financial position to get the best financial loans to build the new stadium, a position we have engineered at the moment so money is naturally not plentiful, we can't put the financial side of the stadium at risk as that would affect the club for many many years to come.

I have to say a big thank you to Andrew Gaffney, a Valencia-based writer who translated this interview, you can follow him on Twitter @GaffneyVLC.

Further Tottenham Reading
Spurs could/should be doing more with the loan system
Europa League is important for Tottenham - a look at the commercial side
A further delve into the financial side of Tottenham


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