Rog from Men In Blazers checking in with lots (and lots) of thoughts on Poch. It is worth a read IMO, even if it is long
=======================
Part 1
Who is he? Simply put, a really good human being. At his best, when set up to succeed, a charismatic coaching mind, a man-motivating master craftsman with a black belt in empathy who builds his projects around passion; and the single most-accomplished and globally respected club coach US Soccer has ever hired. In his playing days, he was a long-haired center-back, a bloke annoyingly impossible to win a header against. As a coach at his peak, he took a young Tottenham squad and in an almost alchemic way turned them into a team that believed they were Premier League contenders and became Champions League finalists. He has since had his lumps, won the league with PSG—for what that was worth—but was also chewed up by the politics of the project. Then that season at Chelsea, whom, under conditions of surreal madness, he turned round and led to an end-of-season surge, finding a way through the most chaotic turbulence imaginable.There is no doubt that experience ground him down. I spent some time with Poch last year and it was hard to watch him operate without the natural joy and control I had seen him exert at Spurs, where he was a force of nature who enabled fans to dream. "He's magic, you know…" A detail obsessive, he made his young players shake the hands of everyone in the training ground—from receptionist to coaches to fellow players—the first time they saw them, and the whole place was just popping all day to the sound of perpetual high fives as everyone kept dapping each other up. It felt like the sound of collective wonder.
There are a number of unknowns about the hire, a number of challenges, and I will get to them, but no coaching hire is perfect. None are a given. Every one is like a donor organ that can either be welcomed or rejected by the host body. There is no such thing as a slam dunk. The one big knock on him is he has never coached an international team before.But let me break this down in some depth. First of all, measuring Pochettino up to the original mission statement set out by Matt Crocker, US Soccer's technical director. God bless Matt Crocker, by the way. Under conditions of hysterical pressure, going out and pulling in first Emma Hayes, then Mauricio Pochettino—whom he worked with at Southampton—to lead our teams is incredible work. A true coup. But back to what Crocker said in July: "I just want to get the best coach possible that can help the team win, and whether they're from the US or elsewhere, they've got to fit the profile, which is a serial winning coach, somebody that can continue to develop this potential group of players, somebody that's got a huge interest and a passion for player development," Crocker said. "It continues to be still a young group… but also a group that now is sort of in the realms of having a number of apt experiences that we should be getting out of the group. That's going to be my intention."So let's go through this list. Best coach possible that can help the team win? When you take away those who said no like Jurgen Klopp and maybe Thomas Tuchel, Poch was pretty much the best coach available. But that phrase, "a serial winner", that he is not. He won the title at PSG; I don't know what the French for gimme putt is, but it is the closest thing football has to a participation trophy. Yet the rest, the ability to develop players, to lead a young group, to understand the mindset of players attempting to take that next step up in Europe? His whole modus is about valuing a culture—one built on mutual respect, team unity. I talked to him at Spurs and he discussed in depth how football is primarily an emotional sport, how that emotion needs to come from within the team.
Go back to my interview with Tyler Adams 10 days ago and I asked him what he thought the US needed from this next coach. He said: "We need a coach that's ruthless… Coming in and putting everyone in their place and understanding that, listen, this is what needs to be done and this is the way that we're going to do it, and there's no ifs, ands or buts. It's not really a conversation. It has to be more of a decision that's made and this is the way we're going to play." There is no doubt these players will respect Poch for his Premier League acumen and his World Cup experiences as a player. And this morning when the likes of Tyler and Christian Pulisic call their teammates who have played under Poch they are likely to hear really positive things. Emma Hayes, too, has a great relationship with Poch. She was a Tottenham Hotspur season ticket-holder and loved watching the Harry Kane and Son Heung-min wonder.The players will also hear that Poch will make them suffer. Pochettino teams are based on working for one another, hard running, fighting spirit. He talks about the concept of la grinta; grit, determination, resolve. I remember watching his Spurs clipping Manchester City in 2016, when Tottenham players would run six more miles than their opponents. His training methods are notoriously hard, fitness is foundational, with double and occasional triple sessions. One of his Southampton players, Dani Osvaldo, once admitted: "At times you want to kill him, simply because he makes you suffer like a dog. But in the end you get the right results." One of Poch's favorite methods is the Gacon test, an interval run that begins with covering 125 meters in 45 seconds, resting for 15 seconds, then adding on an extra 6.25 meters every round. That is the essence of the personality he is trying to convey to his team, the standards he wants them to understand. That to suffer collectively is to win.
