Mauricio Pochettino: Tottenham’s glorious tearful prophet who turned water into wine

The best things come to those who fret. For Mauricio Pochettino, at times a tortured Argentine football prophet in pursuit of high pressing perfection, patience has been the key to transform Tottenham Hotspur from a team of Premier League plodders into prospective European champions in only five years.

Time, trust and tactics have been the key for Tottenham, prompting Poch’s well-earned tears that would have glistened in the canals of Amsterdam amid all the mayhem and magic of the Johan Cruyff Arena on Wednesday.

It was the right time to experience the divine. A night that began as a bad trip for Tottenham turned into the sort of hallucinogenic evening usually reserved for a dinner date with some magic truffles in the Dutch capital.

Kieran Trippier’s calamitous errors in the first half had seemed to cost a self-harming Tottenham team their shot at the Champions League trophy before Lucas Moura, a one-man Brazilian wrecking ball rendering the injured Harry Kane’s absence immaterial, began one of football’s greatest salvage operations since the fields of Anfield Road the night before. Talk about trippy.

Recoveries of this nature are few and far between, last witnessed when discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls, but Anfield and Amsterdam conjured up two astonishing acts of theatre in quick succession that was equivalent to unearthing El Dorado.

There is no concoction of weed, shrooms or brownies that could have provided the sort of buzz Tottenham’s management, players or supporters experienced when Moura completed his hat-trick in the sixth minute of five minutes added. A little dink via Fernando Llorente’s head from Dele Alli left Moura racing in on goal and time suddenly seemed to stand still.

It reminded you a bit of that moment in 1989 when Michael Thomas delivered the old English First Division title for Arsenal in the final minute of the final game of the season at Anfield. You could almost could hear Brian Moore bellow out in disbelief: “It’s up for grabs now!”.

Which somehow it will be for Tottenham when they face Liverpool in an all-English final inside Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano Stadium on June 1. Spurs could be European Champions which would be a fitting way for 47-year-old Pochettino to complete his opus at the club after half a decade of uncertainty, hard graft, dedication and foresight in raising Spurs to the very summit of the club game. Poch’s patience extends well beyond those priceless added agonising minutes in Amsterdam prior to his tears for fears.

The role of Poch should not be underestimated in carrying Tottenham this far. His success is almost comparable to Brian Clough taking over Nottingham Forest in the old Second Division in 1975. All he needs now to join Cloughie is a European Cup to adorn his mantelpiece.

In the era of largesse and billions of TV revenue, we should not be shocked that two teams from the all-consuming English Premier League will contest the Champions League final, but Pochettino’s achievement is startling because he has done so by showing remarkable faith and commitment to his players.

This is a manager who has shown the world what can be bought without spending money in the game's richest league. By working with what you have got. By improving what you have got. By encouraging the technical development of youth. And trusting players to do it for themselves. He reminds you a bit of Benico del Toro in Sicario, but inspires like Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday.

He faced Newcastle United on the opening Premier League game of the season with Tottenham still hiring out Wembley and no new faces to excite their fans. He will end it in one of the world’s finest stadiums with Tottenham reaching their first European final since they lifted the old UEFA Cup final against Anderlecht on penalties at White Hart Lane in 1984. He is more or less certain to finish inside the top four for a fourth straight season.

Since Pochettino left Southampton to succeed Tim Sherwood as manager in May 2014, he has allowed boys and men like Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen, Moussa Sissoko, Jan Vertonghen, Toby Alderweireld and Son Heung-Min among many more to master their respective crafts knowing they have the full confidence of their coach.

Trophies are missing, but progress is not. He finished fifth in the Premier League in his first season amid losing the League Cup final to Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea.

The improvement has been marked and consistent in the ensuing seasons with Tottenham finishing third, second and third to ensure Champions League qualification. It is a remarkable sequence of enduring success culminating in the win in Amsterdam, but perhaps we should not be surprised with his team in reality contesting all of their matches away from home over the past two seasons.

Pochettino is not only a coach, but a project manager having to deal with fiscal realities of an £850m stadium running over time and over budget while keeping the fans content. Chairman Daniel Levy looked in a state of awe when he embraced his manager at full-time, a coach who has turned water into wine having watched Moura rescue a 1-1 draw at Barcelona in the group stage to avoid tumbling out.

Only Danny Rose, Eric Dier and Harry Kane survive from Poch’s first competitive game as Tottenham manager, a 1-0 win in the Premier League at West Ham on August 16, 2014. Only Rose faced Ajax. The architecture in finding the correct personnel has been astounding. Little wonder he was courted by Real Madrid last June. Little wonder he showed loyalty to the badge. He seems like that sort of character. Manchester United with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer under lock and key must wonder.

Tottenham fans will be high enough to fly to Madrid for the final without forking out the wretched £1,000 plus return trip price being demanded by budget airline EasyJet. They will happy to walk there after a fraught night when Ajax started the night on easy street and ended it on skid row.

Ajax will wonder how they managed to blow a 3-0 aggregate lead to miss out on away goals. Having countered their way to a 1-0 win in London last week, they set about punishing the visitors in the same manner that filleted Real Madrid and Juventus in the previous two rounds, but ended up being the victims of their own success.

Trippier lost Matthijs de Ligt for the opening goal and was left for dead before Hakim Ziyech harpooned home the second. With Bob Marley's Three Little Birds blaring out at the interval little did the Ajax fans know the worry that would soon be theirs as their vibrant young side finally evaporated within touching distance of folklore.

Moura, the last player Poch signed for £23m 17 months ago, bore a hole through the home defence with Alli again playing provider to tuck away the opening goal before he eluded the Ajax goalkeeper Andre Onana and several of their players to restore parity on the night at 2-2.

A rollicking final 30 minutes could have gone either way with posts and bar being struck until Moura’s winning cameo saw the Tottenham bench erupt with a sense of elation that could not have been matched if Glenn Hoddle, Ricky Villa and Ossie Ardiles were leading the lilywhite cavalry charge.

There are new heroes at Tottenham these days, but none more so than Pochettino, who probably deserves a statue as a memorial to his work in recent years. If he lifts the Champions League, it will be an act of construction more impressive than the gleaming new stadium.