sport news MATT BARLOW: Pochettino has a gift of bringing others with him but is that ... trends now
Mauricio Pochettino was at the end of his gardening leave at Tottenham, fully recharged and talking about projects.
'Always, you dream of the perfect club, the perfect project,' he said. 'I'm very open to wait for the seduction of the project rather than the country. It's about the club and about the people, the human dimension.'
Eight months on, Pochettino took control at Paris Saint-Germain, where he enjoyed two years as a player and hailed the emotion of a reunion.
'The perfect offer, the perfect project for us,' he declared as he prepared for a Champions League semi-final against Manchester City. 'We feel something special we didn't feel when we had conversations with different clubs. We took the decision with our heart.'
Alas, the romance proved hopeless. That tie with City was lost. The Champions League remained elusive and Pochettino failed to get beyond the last-16 at the next attempt when the final was in Paris. Ousted, he has spent another 12 months sitting, waiting and wondering if another attractive opportunity would form, like this one at Chelsea.
Mauricio Pochettino shot to prominence at Tottenham, reaching a Champions League final
The Argentine has now been confirmed as the man to replace Graham Potter at Chelsea
His last role in the dugout came with PSG where he spent two years during his playing days
Unlike the last time he was out of work, when restricted by the pandemic, the 51-year-old made the most of this freedom to roam, splitting his time between his two homes, in Barcelona and north London.
Pochettino attended the World Cup in Qatar, hosted at the games by PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi when not on broadcasting duty with the BBC, as if to prove they remain on amicable terms despite the split.
He has taken a holiday in Japan, a country he promised to revisit after playing in the 2002 World Cup, and helped his younger son Maurizio settle into the latest stage of his football career.
Maurizio is a 22-year-old winger who came through the academy at Spurs, had an 18-month stint at Watford and has spent this season at Gimnastic de Tarragona, in Spain's third tier.
All the time, Pochettino, who still operates without an agent, filtered interest from around Europe, including West Ham and Aston Villa, eyes peeled once more for the perfect project while nursing the bruises of the experience at PSG.
'Today, talking about projects in football is very difficult,' said Pochettino in a revealing interview with Madrid-based sports outlet Relevo in November. 'There are few lucky ones who can be involved in a project in the medium or long term.'
Maybe the idea of a perfect project was fading. He spoke of 'more demands' and 'less patience' while surely lingering on the farce of competing vanities at PSG, where players complain about all things from team-mates not passing the ball or looking at them in the wrong way, to the ratings in L'Equipe.
They pay the biggest wages in world football and yet are based at a training centre with portable toilet blocks that have broken locks on the cubicle doors.
The Argentine took Tottenham to the highs of a Champions League semi-final back in 2019
The idea of a perfect project looked to be fading for Pochettino after an interview with Relevo
Chelsea may not have qualified for European football next term but they remain ambitious
When Thomas Tuchel joined Chelsea in 2021 after a spell in Paris, he was relieved to discover the culture and facilities were in keeping with what he expected at an elite club.
As a close friend of former PSG boss Unai Emery, Pochettino must have known what was coming and that his holistic managerial style would be tested by the circus there.
Those close to him describe the Argentine as warm, charismatic and inclusive, with a special gift for bringing others with him,
