“Lads, it’s Spurs.”
So, famously, said Sir Alex Ferguson when Manchester United visited White Hart Lane, so confident was he in Tottenham Hotspur’s mental and physical fragility. The North Londoners have long been derided as ill-equipped to deal with the unique challenges of life at the Premier League’s sharp end, throwing away one, two or even three-goal leads with greater regularity than the bowels of a yoga teacher on an exclusively prune-based diet.
Nobody, however, could say the same about the Spurs in front of us today. They’ve accumulated 16 points from losing positions so far this season, scoring a quarter of their Premier League goals in the last ten minutes of games. And never was that mental strength and physical fitness more evident than against West Ham last weekend, as Tottenham scored in the 82nd and 96th minute to earn a 2-2 draw.
Photo: england | Twitter
One man above all others deserves the plaudits for Spurs’ new-found reserves of fortitude: Mauricio Pochettino. The Argentine, appointed manager last summer by chairman Daniel Levy, has transformed Tottenham from lily livers to leviathans in the space of six months. We're now well into the second half of the season and they’re still fighting on three fronts: a top-four league finish, the League Cup and the Europa League are all within their grasp. And there’s no secret about the source of their success: sheer, uncompromising, lung-tearing levels of hard graft, both on the pitch and off it.
Which got The18 scratching its head. While we may not have the finishing instincts of Harry Kane or the passing range of Christian Eriksen, are we - and you, dear reader – fit and tough enough to play for Pochettino? Here’s five ways to tell if you have what it takes to mix it with Mauricio.
1. You Can Do It Three Times A Day
Pochettino’s pre-season training regime makes ancient Sparta look like Club 18-30. While some managers insist on double sessions during the summer months, the Argentine forces his players to train three times a day: 10am – 12pm, 2pm – 4pm and 6pm – 8pm. And don’t go thinking you can slack off; you’ll be wearing a GPS tracking device so The Poch will know just how much ground you’ve covered. “He makes you work like a dog” says Dani Osvaldo, who played under Pochettino at Espanyol and Southampton before a training ground bust-up saw him shipped out of St Mary's.
2. You Can Walk On Fire
While manager of Southampton, Pochettino made his players walk over hot coals. Literally:
3. You Have An Iron Bladder
Erik Lamella came on at half time in Spurs’ League Cup victory over Brighton and Hove Albion, scoring after just nine minutes on the pitch to put Tottenham in front. Not that Pochettino was impressed: “When we arrived at the dressing room they knew about (Aaron) Lennon’s injury so I wanted Lamela on. After that he went to go to the toilet and we had to wait for him to come out… I got angry.”
So the ability to go long stretches without a toilet break is, apparently, another physical pre-requisite.
4. You Can Break An Arrow With Your Own Flesh And Bone
On another pre-season jaunt with Southampton, Pochettino “asked” (sure) his players to break arrows with their collarbones, which they duly did:
5. You Have More Than Two Lungs
No team has played more competitive fixtures than Spurs this season (43), while only Burnley - who typically enjoy much less possession than Tottenham - average more ground covered per game. Spurs run on average 116km per match, with even keeper Hugo Lloris covering more than 4.5km (and that’s twice the distance he averaged last season). Throw in a high-tempo, pressing approach and it's little wonder players joke of needing “three lungs” to play for the Argentine. As you can see from Eriksen's heat map against Hull, he gets around.
Photo: GabStone9 | Twitter
So that's marathon levels of enduance, an iron will, a titanium collar bone and a camel's bladder all required to play for Mauricio Pochettino's Tottenham Hotspur. Still think you've got what it takes? If the answer’s yes, why not give them a call?
