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Mauricio Pochettino

Mauricio Pochettino: The Confidence Coach


A head coach is the lead figure for players at Tottenham and it is to him they look for guidance. After a defeat he has to remain upbeat and positive, negativity will breed doubt which will breed failure. While some website may promote failure, deliberately or accidentally, I prefer to promote success and the endorse traits of success. 

 It is a part of having a winning mentality which I appreciate is difficult to comprehend if you don't possess one. You can easily tell which you are. If you play a sport for fun, or a game of pool or darts for fun you don't have one, if you have to play to win and put your heart and soul into it, you have the ingredients that can be honed. The result matters.

 It is those ingredients that we seek in our players, it is those players who will do what it takes to improve. We have bought a squad of them and we will be adding to them, but only with people who have those traits. We will not buy for buying's sake. There is a new stadium to build which costs money so we will be developing the players we have. Panic after one defeat or expecting blame to be apportioned isn't a successful approach, it's the approach the breeds failure.

 When Pochettino says he isn't worried by our defeat he is demonstrating this. he will analyse, he will learn and have the players learn from the game, highlighting any weakness to work on, but it will be done within a positive environment. Breeding resentment through a blame game is divisive and a recipe for a squad not playing for you.

 A leader has to lead, if the leader is negative, the followers will be negative, if the leader is positive, the followers will be positive.

 Here are the Commandments of Confidence Coach:

  • Have no fear of failure, instil no fear of failure in your players. The Confidence Coach doesn't want to fail but neither does he dread it. Importantly, if and when they do fail, they do not regard it negatively. If you dwell on the negativity you are dragging people down, the opposite of what a coach needs to do. It is important to learn from failure, to seek the positives and move on.
  • The Confidence Coach lives by the motto of Queen Victoria; 'We will not have failure; only success and new learning'. The Confidence Coach uses failure as a chance to improve, a means of testing resolve. Ultimately, their desire to succeed is greater than their fear of failure. A team with that desire will play with more freedom and achieve greater results.
  • Be prepared to stand up and be counted. The Confidence Coach welcomes the opportunity to change history. We were being thrashed by Liverpool and Manchester City, fans feared such games, the Confidence Coach welcomes such games. Stuart Pearce epitomised this approach as a player. Having missed a penalty against Germany in a penalty shoot-out in 1990, he demanded to take a penalty in the quarter-final at Euro '96. Who can forget his reaction when he scored. He was mentally righting a wrong with no fear of failure. You hear of others players who refuse to take a penalty.



  • The Confidence Coach takes personal responsibility for his actions. He does not seek to censure others when things don't work out, like after the defeat we have just suffered against Newcastle United. Firstly, they look to themselves to see what they might have done differently. For them, the culture of blame is a refuge from accountability.
  • The Confidence Coach accepts a situation can turn in a moment, they are not subject to the defeatism of others. A Confidence Coach recognises that they have the power to control and change events. They live by the phrase, 'Choose Your Attitude'. Do you have a blame, moaning attitude, you and success won't be companions if you do. You can choose to encourage others and be positive or you can look for negativity thereby being an advocate of failure. Negativity encourages low self-esteem, hardly a trait of success. It's your choice.
  • The Confidence Coach has a strong sense of honour. They have principles and moral fibre. They do not seek praise for what they do, but neither can they cannot stand by and observe injustice or unfairness. For some this comes to the fore in charity work. Sir Ian Botham undertakes charity walks, he is doing one in South Africa at the moment, Bob Geldof with Live Aid and Band Aid demonstrate these traits, which of course can be found on a smaller scale.
  • The Confidence Coach will tell it like it is, making sure it is in the right circumstances. They will speak directly to an individual whose attitude or behaviour let the team down. That will be done in a private meeting, it is rarely the place to give someone a public dressing down. If you need to galvanise a side at half-time it can be used in such a way as to be motivational, it depends upon your communication skills. Venting fir the sake of it to make yourself feel better serves no purpose other than to drag your audience down. The Confidence Coach will not tolerate falling standards. Andros Townsend provides a clear example of action taken over a failure to maintain the discipline of standards.

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