Mauricio Pochettino: ‘I only watched the first 25 minutes of All or Nothing'

Former Tottenham manager opens up on Amazon’s behind the scenes documentary

(Getty)

Former Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino and his assistant Jesus Perez have only watched 25 minutes of the club’s All or Nothing documentary, which skirts over their transformative period in North London and fails to acknowledge how instructive they were in getting the show signed off.

The Amazon Prime production, released on 31 August and screened in more than 200 countries worldwide, summarises their five-and-a-half-year spell at Spurs within the opening episode.

Pochettino reshaped perceptions of the club, turning them into Champions League regulars - reaching the final in 2019 - while developing players like Harry Kane and providing the sustainable platform for Tottenham to complete the construction of a benchmark-setting stadium.

Speaking exclusively to Between The Lines, a new podcast hosted by The Independent’s senior football correspondent Melissa Reddy, the Argentine revealed how he felt about the documentary for the first time.

“I only watched the first 25 minutes with Jesus, because it was until we left the club,” Pochettino said.

“To be honest, it was correct - no more, no less. It was like ‘ok, we need to put that Jesus, Toni [Jimenez], Mikki [Miguel D’Agostino], Sebastiano [Pochettino] and Mauricio were there,’ but it’s nothing to do with the documentary.

“We feel responsible [for getting it over the line] because it was very difficult to say ‘yes,’ to open the door to Amazon, to let them come into Tottenham at a tough moment for us.

“I feel sorry for Jesus, because he spent time from seven in the morning trying to help the Amazon people to make it all work - with the players, with the staff, everything. I think after 25 minutes watching, I think Jesus appeared one time with me.

“Five-and-a-half years were only in a summary of 25 minutes and it was more to justify why we left the club. But I understand because it’s a documentary to put the club in a good place and they’re not going to open the doors to Amazon to create a problem.

“It had to be that it looks real, but these type of documentaries are very weird in a world like football. It’s too difficult to be natural with the cameras, but I hope they achieve what they wanted to do with this. It’s important to show the facilities of the club - the new stadium, the new training ground - that we were so involved in helping Daniel to design."

Perez added: “Amazon was the last job in our work at Spurs. There were so many things to do, to convert a cold building into a home where the people felt comfortable there to perform, enjoy, suffer - experience whatever emotion they were feeling.

“With Amazon, no-one can explain to us how was the project, when it started, the difficulties with it, how big a part Mauricio was to help the club to do it because no-one wanted to do it.

“The most important thing is the people who were working for Amazon are great, great guys. And they were suffering because they appreciated Mauricio so much and they saw every day what Mauricio and us were going through in the final weeks.”

You can listen to the full episode of Between The Lines here.

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To watch All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur sign up to Amazon Prime Video here.