Pochettino at Chelsea, it’s official – Corriere.it

Chelsea restart from Mauricio Pochettino. In perhaps the most complicated and surreal season of the new millennium, the London club has chosen the Argentine coach as the new guide for the team in the 2023/2024 season: he has signed a two-year contract with an option for a third. The names polled were different, from Nagelsman to Louis Enrique, but in the end it will be the former PSG who will take charge. Not one of the easiest: Chelsea closed the championship with a disastrous 12th place, scoring 30 points less than last season.

If it is right to say that Chelsea is restarting from Pochettino, it is equally true to say that Pochettino himself is restarting from Chelsea. That of the Argentine looked like a career on the launch pad after the stupendous experience at Tottenham, where he reached uncharted heights for Spurs. In four and a half years, he led the London team to compete for the Premier League several times and reached the 2018/2019 season Champions League final, then lost to Liverpool.

Two years of stoppage and here is the call from PSG, looking for a coach to replace Thomas Tuchel. Between ups and downs (a French championship won and a semi-final of the Champions League reached, but also a Ligue 1 loss against a Lille with certainly more modest names), his experience ends in the summer of 2022 and Mauricio still remains stationary, waiting for the right occasion.

And here it is: Pochettino returns to London, where he wrote the most beautiful pages of his career. He will be Tottenham’s rival this time. Objective: to bring Chelsea back to the top of English football. An obligation, rather than a request, also in light of the unbridled market carried on in recent months by the new owner Todd Boehly. More than 600 million were spent last season (and two coaches were said goodbye). Too many to close in the middle of the standings: there is no more time to lose.