MAURICIO POCHETTINO HAS promised Tottenham fans they will see a repeat of the tears he shed after the team’s Champions League semi-final win over Ajax if they beat Liverpool to win the competition.
The Argentine broke down in front of TV cameras minutes after Spurs’ last-gasp win in Amsterdam earlier in May, a result that set up a first-ever final appearance in Europe’s top competition.
Tottenham will face the Reds at Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitan on 1 June in the first all-English final since 2008, as Pochettino seeks to land his first trophy as a manager.
And the 47-year-old says that if his team defy the odds one final time and win the competition, he will be reduced to tears again – and this time they could last for a week.
“My mother says to me, ‘You are a ‘llorona’, which means blubberer, a person who cries often and a lot,” Pochettino told reporters.
My mum always says, ‘He’s happy, he cries. He’s sad, he cries. Come on — just stop crying!’
“Sometimes it happens that I am taking my car to my house – it’s 20 minutes from the training ground to Barnet – and listening to some music and that translates to some moment in my life.
“I start to cry, and when I arrive home my wife says, ‘What happened?’.
“I say, ‘Some music reminded me of a moment 30 years ago in Argentina’, and she will say, ‘You are crazy’.
Films? Yes, I cry. Everything. If we win the Champions League, I don’t know, maybe I’m going to cry for one week.”
A hat-trick from Brazilian midfielder Lucas Moura saw Tottenham turn around a three-goal deficit in the Johan Cruyff Arena in the semi-final, with the deciding goal coming in the sixth minute of stoppage time.
“There were two different feelings mixed in the same moment after the semi-final,” said Pochettino. “Reaching the Champions League final is the end of an amazing chapter for the club.
“But, at the same time, the moment that you reach the final, it’s like, ‘I want to be involved in the next chapter of the club’. Both feelings are with you.”
Speculation has followed the manager all season that he could be lured away to one of Spurs’ better-resourced rivals.
The two teams with whom he has been most closely linked – Manchester United and Real Madrid – have both made permanent managerial appointments in recent months.
“Managers are people who always need to be ahead and anticipate problems,” said Pochettino. “You always put yourself in five years’ time, 10 years’ time, or tomorrow.
“We need to be ahead of the players, ahead of the fans.”
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