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da dobrowin： Tottenham Hotspur have handed Liverpool an unexpected pre-match advantage after Mauricio Pochettino’s quotes surrounding the build-up to the Champions League final.
The Spurs manager has guided the club out of a group also featuring both Barcelona and Inter Milan, while beating Borussia Dortmund, Manchester City and Ajax in the knockout stages.
Pochettino’s men, who he has referred to as “superheroes”, head into the game as slight underdogs against a Reds team that finished second in the Premier League, losing just one game.
And he has insisted that he wants to flout the usual UEFA rules by including every single member of his 23-man squad in the pre-match photograph.
Per the Daily Mail, he said: “What I want is all the players before the start of the game — 22 or 23 — in the picture on the pitch. That is the team that won or lost.”
He added: “People care a lot about that. The players care more than we believe. When I was a player I always fought with the organisation and the club. And the same now I’m a manager. I’m going to propose it.”
Fans have lapped this up; Pochettino often emphasises the collective instead of the individual and that is a key part of his managerial mentality but one has to question the wisdom of being so emotional ahead of such an enormous game.
Liverpool, naturally, will have 11 players in the pre-match picture. They have been here before and they have done it; no fewer than five times.
Spurs, by comparison, have never been to a Champions League final and, frankly, it shows.
Imagine the scene; Liverpool take their photograph and look over at Spurs, with all 23 players, including academy graduates Alfie Whiteman, Oliver Skipp and George Marsh, smiling for the cameras. It smacks of naivety and being overawed by the occasion. Such a saccharine sight will surely boost the likes of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino, who have been here before – just twelve months ago, in fact.
One can understand the mentality of Pochettino and the idea behind his statement but, at the same time, it plays into the opposition’s hands and creates the idea of Tottenham being in the final purely to make up the numbers.