Tottenham vs Watford: How Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino learnt to win titles with Marcelo Bielsa's 'perfect mix'

A group of hungry youngsters, with a smattering of seniors, running opponents into the ground, on behalf of their driven young Argentine manager, in pursuit of the title. This, roughly, is Mauricio Pochettino’s (above, left) Tottenham Hotspur, who host Watford this afternoon, hoping to drag themselves even nearer the summit.

But that is also a description Marcelo Bielsa’s (above, right) Newell’s Old Boys, double Argentine champions of the early 1990s, with a teenage Pochettino at centre-back, the formative football experience of his life.

This was 25 years ago but it was the last time Pochettino was involved in a title race, either as a player or coach. Now that his Spurs side are threatening to have their best season for just as long, Pochettino sees the parallels between these two sides.

“When we won the titles, and reached the final of the Copa Libertadores, we were very similar to the squad that we have now,” Pochettino said at his press conference on Thursday afternoon. “In terms of the average age of the squad, and in the balance between younger and experienced players. There were very good youngsters – like me – and very good experienced players. A similar balance, a similar project.”

Pochettino was just 18 when Bielsa became Newell’s manager in 1990 but he already owed his career to him. Bielsa had been in charge of Newell’s youth system before then, driving around Argentina in his Fiat 147 on a meticulous search for young talent. He had been tipped off about the 13-year-old Pochettino, so showed up at his house in the small town of Murphy at 2am one Monday morning. Bielsa demanded to see the sleeping boy’s legs, declared them to be the legs of a footballer, and signed him.

When Bielsa took over the Newell’s first team in 1990, he already had the guaranteed loyalty of the youngsters, like Pochettino, whom he had signed and then coached in the reserve teams. The older players had to be convinced, but they were quickly won over by Bielsa’s unique training regime, built around short, intense sessions and detailed study of their opponents.

“When Marcelo took over there was a radical change, he brought a new revolution,” says Juan Manuel Llop, Pochettino’s senior centre-back partner, in Jonathan Wilson’s forthcoming history of Argentine football, Angels with Dirty Faces. "We quickly realised he was the best thing that could have happened to Newell’s, and supported him with our eyes closed. We knew that his ideas would make us win.”

That is just what happened. The Argentine league is split into two halves, the Apertura in the first 19 games of the season, and the Clausura for the second half. In the Apertura in 1990, after a slow start, Newell’s eventually ran away with it, the young and old players – such as Llop, or Tata Martino - bonded by their loyalty to Bielsa and his methods. They played fast, committed, imaginative football, harnessing their youthful athleticism and the vision of their coach. When they were on it no-one could live with them.

The team struggled to maintain the same intensity the next year, despite beating Boca Juniors in a tie to decide the overall champion of the 1990-91 season. But in 1991-92 they surged back with even more power, winning the Clausura title as well as performing heroically in the Copa Libertadores.

Newell’s won a famous semi-final against Colombian side America de Cali, taking a penalty shoot-out 11-10, sparking a near-riot. Pochettino’s team-mate Eduardo Berizzo had his head cut open by a battery thrown from the stands. When they reached the final, against Sao Paulo, in front of 105,000 Brazilian fans, they took it to penalties again, but lost. Bielsa resigned and the team disintegrated but they remain one of the legendary Argentine teams of the modern era.

Pochettino, looking back, would not be too drawn on individual comparisons between that team and this one. He would not say which Newell’s striker was most like Harry Kane, nor which Spurs defender was the new Pochettino. In this comparison he is the new Bielsa, of course, not that he would ever say that.

But the broader point stands. There is a lot of time and distance between these two teams, but they are built along similar lines and principles. Pochettino learned about football at Newell’s and is now building his own team at Tottenham, with the same ambition.

“If you have hunger, if you have energy, if you have potential and if you show that you have enough quality, it is perfect,” said Pochettino. “And if you have some good team-mates, who give you good advice. I remember my first title with Newell’s Old Boys, because I was 18 years old. If you have a good balance between younger and experienced players, it is a perfect mix to achieve big things.”