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Guest Howaythetoon

6th missing child found in Roma campaign.  :thup:

 

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/51041303

 

 

 

That’s brilliant that, people forget the power of sport and the kind of attention the game can bring to good causes, and nit just charitable ones, like the mental health awareness 1 minute thing in the FA Cup. Clubs are after all pillars of their community and bastions of their society, or used to be...

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This is a good read. Bielsa is some character, I hope to see him in the Premier League next season.

 

Pochettino grew up in Murphy, a small farming village in Santa Fe, which also saw the birth of Spurs substitute goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga among the 4,000 people who call it home, with a ratio of one Champions League finalist per 2,000 inhabitants.

"It was a very small city and what I did every day was go to school and play football all day with my friends. We had no TV in the house," he told the BBC in a 2013 interview.

 

Eventually, the Pochettino family acquired a black-and-white one, which their father Hector made work by removing the battery from his tractor. As a child he was a fan of Racing de Avellaneda but it was at Newell's Old Boys that the young man got his chance at football.

At the age of 14, he was discovered by Marcelo Bielsa's legendary assistant, Jorge Griffa, who was responsible for discovering such talents as Gabriel Batistuta, Jorge Valdano, Maxi Rodriguez and Gabriel Heinze, naming only a few players who emerged from the fertile football fields of Santa Fe. Pochettino moved to Rosario, where he began working as a juanto a El Loco in the youth divisions of the leper club.

 

Bielsa was the man who gave his final approval to the signing and traveled to Murphy to convince the teenager's parents to let him move to Newell's, while taking the opportunity to get a good look at his potential star.

 

"One night, at one o'clock in the morning, he came to my house, knocked on the door and wanted to see a 13-year-old boy. He wanted to see my legs! At that hour of the morning, he would have to be a little [crazy] ... I had to make my parents dream. Then he said, 'These legs look like the legs of a very good player. That was a good lie, no bad intentions. To me, he's a person I'll always admire. People call him 'El Loco Bielsa', but for me, he's not crazy at all. To me, he's a genius. A person with charisma and a very different personality from our normal coaches, and that's what makes him special," he reminded ESPN.

 

When Bielsa was promoted to coach the first team in 1990, Pochettino had already been there two years. With El Loco on the bench and Poche directing the defence, Newell's enjoyed one of the best moments in their history, winning two national league titles and reaching the final of the Copa Libertadores for the second time in 1992, where they lost on penalties to Sao Paulo, where future World Cup winners Cafu, Rai, Zetti and Muller were playing.

That Libertadores campaign really began with a disaster, losing 6-0 to San Lorenzo at home. Outraged, members of the red-and-black's hooligans headed to Bielsa's family home to protest, only to be greeted at the door by the manager brandishing a grenade.

 

"If you don't leave now, I'll pull the pin and throw it," he warned, before chasing the thugs who scattered over several blocks, grenade in hand.

Bielsa opted to trade Newell's for Mexico after the defeat in the Cup final, but Pochettino stayed. A year later, Diego Maradona's arrival in La Lepra went around the world. The Argentinian football legend, fresh from his time with Sevilla, opted to join the Rosario club to continue his return after a lengthy ban on cocaine use that forced him to leave Napoli.

 

More than 40,000 fans attended his first training session. And Pochettino was chosen to share a dormitory with Diego when Newell's traveled. "It was amazing because I always had his picture on my bedroom wall. And then I was with him, it was tremendous. I remember my first night. I turned off the light and I lay there trying to see if I could sleep. I couldn't believe it, I thought I was dreaming, that it wasn't real."

Maradona's time at the Leper turned out to be turbulent, highlighting by injuries, problems with coaches and very little time on the field. He would only play a total of five games for the club, and he couldn't score. However, Diego stayed until early 1994, participating in the summer pre-season plans at the Mar del Plata resort.

 

However, as Pochettino can attest, life with the little genius was never predictable: "We were all together in pre-season at Mar del Plata and had shared a room the day before. That night, because he loved basketball, he had gone to see the final of the League. In the morning, when I woke up, he wasn't in his bed.

 

The mystery of Diego's whereabouts on that February 2, 1994 would not be cleared up until hours later. "After breakfast we went to training and then came back for lunch. Nobody knew where Diego was yet. While we were eating, we saw the news on TV: he was shooting at journalists in Buenos Aires, 400 kilometers away from where we were".

 

While Pochettino slept, Maradona returned from the Atlantic coast of Argentina to his home in Moreno, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. When he woke up to find a herd of reporters at the doors, Diego opened fire with an air rifle, injuring six members of the press and threatening the rest. In 2002, he received a two-year prison sentence and payment of damages to the injured.

 

Aside from the attacks on journalists, the Spurs coach's love for his football idol and his former roommate has never wavered. "I love football, it's always been my passion. And my idol will always be Diego Armando Maradona," Pochettino told Sky Sports.

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Guest neesy111

Been a 37% fall in rough sleepers in Great Manchester thanks to Vincent Kompany's charity work according to the mayor.  :clap: :clap:

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Kompany is great, like. Completely wasted in the modern incarnation of the game. Guy is incredibly articulate and bright.

 

I agree, Kompany is involved in a charity to take homeless people off the street and give them hope, Rashford has just registered a company to make his own toilet roll and umbrellas

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Kompany is great, like. Completely wasted in the modern incarnation of the game. Guy is incredibly articulate and bright.

 

I agree, Kompany is involved in a charity to take homeless people off the street and give them hope, Rashford has just registered a company to make his own toilet roll and umbrellas

 

:lol:

 

Rashford has done quite a lot of charity work, including with homelessness and also Unicef.

 

Do you think Kompany has no commercial endorsements or something? :mackems:

 

What Kompany has done / is doing is of course more but he's also at a very different stage in life. Strange stick to beat Rashford with.

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Kompany is great, like. Completely wasted in the modern incarnation of the game. Guy is incredibly articulate and bright.

 

I agree, Kompany is involved in a charity to take homeless people off the street and give them hope, Rashford has just registered a company to make his own toilet roll and umbrellas

 

:lol:

 

Rashford has done quite a lot of charity work, including with homelessness and also Unicef.

 

Do you think Kompany has no commercial endorsements or something? :mackems:

 

What Kompany has done / is doing is of course more but he's also at a very different stage in life. Strange stick to beat Rashford with.

 

I must admit I know nothing of Rashfords charitable activities and I was just repeating the "heads gone" section on Talksport cos they mentioned he was starting a company to make Rashford umbrellas and toilet roll.

 

It's how we role in modern society and I find it very uncomfortable when people fact check and call me out.........your not supposed to do that anymore, just believe me and propagate my story to the detriment of Rashford.

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Kompany is great, like. Completely wasted in the modern incarnation of the game. Guy is incredibly articulate and bright.

 

I agree, Kompany is involved in a charity to take homeless people off the street and give them hope, Rashford has just registered a company to make his own toilet roll and umbrellas

 

:lol:

 

Rashford has done quite a lot of charity work, including with homelessness and also Unicef.

 

Do you think Kompany has no commercial endorsements or something? :mackems:

 

What Kompany has done / is doing is of course more but he's also at a very different stage in life. Strange stick to beat Rashford with.

 

I must admit I know nothing of Rashfords charitable activities and I was just repeating the "heads gone" section on Talksport cos they mentioned he was starting a company to make Rashford umbrellas and toilet roll.

 

It's how we role in modern society and I find it very uncomfortable when people fact check and call me out.........your not supposed to do that anymore, just believe me and propagate my story to the detriment of Rashford.

 

Look up the "In the Box" Christmas campaign that Rashford started last year to help the homeless.

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