Kiev. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – January 3, 2021 – Sport
Paris Saint-Germain football club has announced the appointment of Mauricio Pochettino as head coach.
Pochettino’s 48-year-old contract runs until the summer of 2022.
Prior to that, the coach of “PSG” was Thomas Tuchel.
After 17 rounds, the Parisians are on the third line in the French championship, scoring 35 points and lagging behind the leading “Lille” by 1 point. In the 1/8 finals of the Champions League, “PSG” will meet “Barcelona”.
The club’s next game will take place on January 6 – against Saint-Etienne in Ligue 1.
His Early life:
Pochettino was born in Murphy, Santa Fe to Amalia and Héctor Pochettino, a farm labourer. His family is of Italian descent from Piedmont. Between the age of eight and ten, he played both football and volleyball, and also learned judo. He supported Racing Club de Avellaneda as a child. The first football match he watched on television was the 1978 FIFA World Cup which he watched with his father Héctor at the local sports club in Murphy, Centro Recreativo Unión y Cultura. He started playing as a centre-back at an early age for Unión y Cultura, a position he preferred, but he also played as a striker and midfielder. When he was 13, he trained two days a week with Rosario Central in Rosario, Santa Fe, a 160-mile bus-ride away from Murphy. He played in Murphy in the first division of the regional Venadense league together with his older brother, Javier. He studied agriculture in a school 20 miles from home.
In late January 2001, Pochettino signed for Paris Saint-Germain for an undisclosed fee. A regular starter during his stay, he made his official league debut on 3 February 2001 by then manager Luis Fernández away to Nantes, which PSG lost 1–0. Three days later, Pochettino netted his first goal in a 1–3 home defeat at the Parc des Princes against Guingamp. His contributions led to Paris Saint-Germain winning the 2001 edition of the UEFA Intertoto Cup later in the 2001–02 season following a 1–1 draw with Brescia, which meant the Parisian side won on away goals, as well as reaching the final of the Coupe de France the next season, where PSG lost 1–2 to Auxerre.
In late January 2009, Pochettino became Espanyol’s third coach of the 2008–09 season, with the team third from the bottom of the table. Tasked with saving them from relegation, he had only just received his UEFA Pro License in December 2008 and had spent a short spell as the assistant manager to the ladies’ team but was otherwise untested as a coach. His first match was at home to neighbouring FC Barcelona, managed by Pep Guardiola, in the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey. Despite his players’ reluctance and only being able to avail themselves of two training sessions prior to the game, his system of high pressing and one-on-one defensive cover yielded an unexpected 0–0 draw. After he had asked for “divine intervention”, the side’s fortunes improved and they eventually finished the season comfortably mid-table with their most significant result being a 2–1 victory in the league derby against Barcelona, their first in the competition at the Camp Nou for 27 years. He coached nine players who were his teammates during his last year active and, in early June, renewed his link for a further three years.
Pochettino as manager of Espanyol in 2012
In 2009–10, Pochettino once again led Espanyol to a comfortable league position, in a campaign where club symbol (and his former teammate) Raúl Tamudo fell out of favour, particularly after the January 2010 arrival of the manager’s compatriot Dani Osvaldo. On 28 September 2010, he agreed to a one-year extension at the Estadi Cornellà-El Prat which ran until 30 June 2012, and in May of the following year further renewed his contract until 2014. On 26 November 2012, however, following a 0–2 home loss against Getafe CF that left the team in last place with just nine points from 13 matches and with the manager complaining about the financial restrictions being placed upon him, his contract was terminated by mutual consent at the end of that month.
Despite the lowly league position, Pochettino’s work had drawn praise from commentators and he was beginning to display the characteristics that would inform his coaching at his subsequent clubs, namely the imposition of a specific tactical style on all of the clubs’ team from the senior side down to youth level, attending training sessions to receive updates from all levels, a preference for 4–2–3–1, a focus on a high-pressing game and the promotion of players from the academy to the first team.