Mauricio Pochettino has spoken of the debt that he owes to Unai Emery, the Arsenal manager, who has become his near neighbour in Hertfordshire.
Pochettino takes his Tottenham team to the Emirates Stadium for Sunday’s derby and their friendship will be placed temporarily on hold. But the respect between the pair runs deep, having been forged in opposition in La Liga and, specifically, when Emery recommended that Pochettino should succeed him at Valencia in 2012.
Emery departed for Spartak Moscow and Valencia made an approach to Pochettino, then in charge at Espanyol. But he turned them down, preferring to remain loyal to his club, with whom he was under contract until 2014. Valencia moved instead for Mauricio Pellegrino. Pochettino would be sacked by Espanyol in November 2012.
“The president of Valencia [Manuel Llorente] called me and said: ‘I want you in Valencia,’” Pochettino said. “We were talking and he said: ‘Unai Emery advised me and told me to pick you, you are the best manager.’ But I chose to stay at Espanyol. I am loyal. I called Unai, who was in Spartak Moscow, and said: ‘Thank you very much for recommending me.’
“You need to be grateful when a colleague – and, afterwards, someone who became a very good friend – does that. It’s not usual that a manager recommends another manager when he leaves a club.”
Emery based his recommendation on what he had seen in Pochettino’s work at Espanyol. “I did it without knowing him but I knew his Espanyol well,” Emery has said. Their friendship would follow and Pochettino says they have traded information, at times, about players and teams.
When Spurs played Emery’s Paris Saint-Germain, for example, in a friendly in July 2017 in Orlando, Pochettino got the low-down from him on Serge Aurier and Lucas Moura, who were then at the Parisian club. “Unai talked very highly about Lucas and Serge, too,” Pochettino said. Spurs would sign Aurier in August 2017 and Lucas in January 2018.
Furthermore, Pochettino revealed that Emery had asked him about life as a Premier League manager. “I remember one year ago in Bilbao, when we were at a football congress, he asked me about England,” Pochettino said. “I advised him: ‘Yes, if you have the possibility to come, sure, you are going to be right.’
“We haven’t been out for dinner since he arrived in England but I know we are neighbours. I think he knows where I am living but until now I didn’t find him. Does our friendship change? No. It’s the opposite, I think. We are going to compete and we are going to try to find the way to beat each other but before and after the game, always we are very good friends.
“We’re in contact – and, of course, it is about football. In the end, 99.9% of our lives are football. Sometimes he asks me about some players, some teams and us the same. There is contact between the coaching staffs, too, because we have a very good relationship between our coaching staffs.”
It is possible that Emery saw something of his own style in Pochettino when he recommended him for Valencia; both managers favour hard-running, high-pressing, pacy football and they are obsessed by the little details. In seven meetings in Spain, Emery won four and Pochettino two. After Sunday, the pair will meet again at the Emirates in the Carabao Cup quarter-final on 19 December.
“Unai has brought different ideas to Arsenal, a different management,” Pochettino said. “He has different approaches, like against Bournemouth, playing with a different system [three at the back].
“He makes changes during games. After 22 years under Arsène Wenger, when a new manager arrives, it is sure it’s going to change.”