Mauricio Pochettino lifts lid on Man Utd interest before taking charge of PSG

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Mauricio Pochettino has opened up about speculation which saw him linked with managerial jobs at Manchester United and Real Madrid before becoming PSG boss. The Argentine was sacked as Tottenham Hotspur manager in November 2019 and replaced Thomas Tuchel at PSG in January 2021.

While he was out of work, Pochettino was heavily linked with both United and Madrid, with their respective managers Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Zinedine Zidane coming under pressure.

However, United and Madrid opted to stick with their current bosses and Pochettino has returned to PSG, the club he spent two-and-a-half seasons at as a player.

Now, Pochettino has addressed the speculation in an interview with Spanish outlet AS, admitting that there was “some basis” to the rumours.

“I didn’t want anyone to think that I speak because I do not have a job and maybe, I’m offering myself,” he said.

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“The good thing about that situation was that every morning you woke up in a different club.

“One day they placed you at Madrid, another at United… At PSG…

“That’s why I didn’t need to have that media visibility. I had it without wanting it. I was a bit lucky in that regard.

“They linked my name to different clubs and the exposure came spontaneously.

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“I was travelling virtually from one club to another. Surely when you talk, it has some basis, but for it to be done for real, as with PSG, ties have to be closed.”

In seperate interview with Marca, Pochettino opened up about his time at Spurs and claimed he was ‘a victim of his own success’.

“There is no use here [PSG] other than winning,” he said. “Winning the Champions League has been an illusion for 50 years, we’ve never won it, and when I was a player it was an obsession.

“That is the objective, we cannot think of playing a good role in the Champions League, here we’re talking about winning it. 

“For that, we have to build and have a structure that supports and improves sports. Since we lost the final with Tottenham, our dream is to have the possibility of playing in a final again.

“Football is now and today, the results have to be immediate. It’s difficult to find projects in the medium long term. This is to win the Champions League. It’s very difficult to sustain because we only look at today and we’re immersed in a whirlpool.

“Here we have a year and a half of contract, at Tottenham it was five, but that doesn’t mean that you will be more or less long.

“Sometimes you can even be a victim of your own success, as we were at Tottenham when we exceeded expectations.”

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