Pochettino Doesn't Think Like A Fan, He Has A Winning Mentality
Pochettino Doesn't Think Like A Fan, He Has A Winning Mentality
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| Mauricio Pochettino doesn't think like a fan thinks |
A few of you will understand this, the rest won't.
The truth of the matter, whether you fans believe it or not, is that there are two sporting types, those of us with a winning mentality, the few and those with a standard mentality, the vast bulk.
If you don't play everything to win 100%, be it a card game, a game of pool, a game of darts, an individual sport or a team sport, then you do not have a winning mentality, whether you think you do or not.
A winning mentality thinks differently.
We do not think walkouts, we do not whine and moan at the club and those running it. We look to the why question and to the long-term goals. We ask, how does that fit in the plan towards those long-term goals.
Winning is planned, it doesn't just happen, it is worked towards, it is trained for. Winning a football game is just part of that.
Our opinions are derived from the goal orientation because that is all that matters, everything else is a deflection from that goal.
Fans think short-term, you think now, you think this season and repeat it each season, hopeless if you want long-term success.
If the club followed fans advice it would lurch one way then the other and would be broke in no time whatsoever, we certainly wouldn't become the regular trophy winning club that our lofty goals are aiming for.
Journalists are no different. I haven't seen one journalist out there with a winning mentality yet.
To the average fan, being brave meant spending money. To a winner it meant only spending on top targets, only spending if you could get them. Something new for the sake of it was never on the agenda.
You'll have noticed I asked this question in many formats on Twitter. But then Twitter and forums are full of the standard mindsets, that's why they are on the medium, unless they use it as a source. They are places to go to where the masses have to be weeded out and you have to look for the gold.
The abuse I have had to take because I understand what the club are doing, understand the way a coach thinks, understand that is different to most of you, has been immense.
It is a fact of life for anyone with a winning mentality to receive abuse, not that that makes vulgar and grossly offensive remarks right either, because a winning mentality isn't something the masses can understand or will ever have.
Most people work to make someone else rich, they have to ask to have holidays, ask for everything, they don't have the freedom to do what they want when they want. The never plan anything major in their lives and yet they know how to plan the running of a business with a turnover of hundreds of millions with no experience!
Mauricio Pochettino does not think like you folk, he doesn't have that mentality. So when you think he'll be upset, he'll leave, you are wrong, that's what you would do, that's your perception, that's not what a winner would do, that's not how a winner thinks. Like it or not that's the truth.
A winner doesn't quit, he doesn't jump ship unless the project changes and he doesn't agree with its direction, like what happened at Southampton when the new chairman changed the project. That's a failure mentality, quitting.
A winning mentality has total belief in what you are doing, whether it gets rocky or not, you don't bend to popular opinion to appease people, you chart your course to achieve your goal.
Pochettino has a once in a lifetime chance to build a dynasty, together with Daniel Levy to build this club to be as big as Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United. That is the stated aim, where else is he going to get that opportunity?
Why, how does that fit. They are the two main questions you must ask of everything to understand.
"Yes of course and I don't want to be sarcastic and ironic. What the club is doing is showing it is so brave."
"Building a new training ground, finishing the lodge this summer was a massive investment. Building a stadium that is nearly £1bn. That is true, don't believe in £400m, that is the truth!
"And then with Brexit it is worse because the cost is 30 per cent more. That is a drama too. I feel sorry for the English people, and then keep the best players. For me, that is to be brave. Of course, maybe in the mind of everyone, they will say 'oh Tottenham didn't sign anyone' but to sign for the sake of signing? It is better to keep your players.
That last one is the most telling of all, that last one tells you your perceptions were wrong, are wrong.
"To follow what the perception tells you is one thing. To follow the reality, and take a decision about your reality, is completely different."
That sound familiar, it should, I have been telling you all summer but so many of you with your hatred agenda can't let go and can't see the reality. Your blind hatred is your reality, a different world, one divorced from the true realities and running of the club today.
"We are a club that our decision was not to sign, [even though] it is the fashion to sign or because we are the only club in Europe that has not signed players.
"That maybe looks bad because of the perception and because of the history of football, but that is our decision - to keep the best players and to keep the squad. It’s a brave decision."
Time will tell if it is the right decision. I fully understand it, as I have written several times recently, it is wages that drive football, wages that determine success generally and we can't afford to pay the wages of success yet, so we have to be clever, we have to seek alternatives.
The fact many fans don't accept that and live the fantasy that we are a rich club and can just spend what we like and pay top wages is their issue. Opinions based on that fantasy are always going to be at odds with the opinions formed from the actual realities of a situation.
"I think we have a very competitive squad, of course, that we are hoping to improve, but if you cannot improve the most important thing is trying to keep your best team, your best players."
In 2013 I wrote about developing and keeping a young side together to grow together in a system they would just get better and better at implementing. That the mythical Plan B was to do Plan A better. To have the whole club from a child entering on Day 1 playing the same system.
One part leaves, there is a highly trained part to take their place, they perform their element of the system, thus minimal disruption.
Once you have that in place then it is a question of building the talent level, of getting more intelligent players, players with a true winning mentality, NOT just a win a football game mentality, that IS NOT what a winning mentality is. It is about trying to improve yourself every day, the winning of football matches is a by-product.
Yes you channel all of your winning mentality into winning a particular game and it hurts if you don't, but it is bigger than that. It is about driving yourself like Ronaldo or Gareth Bale to become that level of player or at least as good as you can get yourself.
Kevin Keegan won European Footballer of the Year, but he wasn't a gifted footballer. He simply worked his socks off to be the best he could be so the opportunity is there for everyone.
The strategy is not, do all that to a certain point and then go and try to buy success, but buy a better standard of footballer who fits a cog in the system, NOT one who changes the system. Certainly, they can add an element, a skill to it, but NOT change the basic system
"It was a strange transfer market because until England was out no-one was moving. I was very relaxed and calm the transfer market and then also, with Europe, with more time until the 1 of September time to do deals it was all so quiet and relaxed and it was a stranger transfer market.
"I am not a specialist in that but I think some people can talk properly about that. It was difficult for everybody and for us too."
"It was a strange transfer market because until England was out no-one was moving. I was very relaxed and calm the transfer market and then also, with Europe, with more time until the 1 of September time to do deals it was all so quiet and relaxed and it was a stranger transfer market.
"I am not a specialist in that but I think some people can talk properly about that. It was difficult for everybody and for us too."
Again the reality message as opposed to the perception of the angry who twisted everything to fit into a perception that suited their agenda. I was patently obvious it was a difficult window, but no, the spend spend spend mentality kept shouting and the suggestion of a walkout is one of the most stupid things I have heard from Tottenham fans in living memory.
That is a failure mentality thinking it is a winning mentality, a bit like journalists, who, as they are employed as professional writers, they aren't experts, they are transmitters of information, they could write about flower arranging, it doesn't make them an expert, same with any hobby they write about.
They don't have winning mentalities, thus they don't see what they are not looking for, they don't see what a coach looks for, they don't understand Daniel Levy and the building towards success. The result, much of it is misguided.
Should they not be trying to properly understand what they are reporting on and not give the mass view to the masses?
I am happy to sing a different tune, a tune in tune with the winning mentalities inside the club because I understand them.
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6 comments
At the moment, when we as a club are going a little off piste, as it were, it's enormously helpful to have an understanding of why we want to do that, and why it makes good sense for us to do that.
Long may your commentarys continue Clive.
COYS!!
COYS!!
As I say though, I'm just commenting from my own limited perspective.
COYS!!