The Argentine coach says Chelsea's board promised him a long-term project that they never respected, even though he left the team in sixth place and fought in two cup finals.
The arrival of Mauricio Pochettino with the U.S. national team could not be explained without first understanding the Argentine coach's time with Chelsea in the Premier League and the reasons behind his departure.
At the end of his first year, Pochettino was surprisingly fired despite taking the team from 12th place to sixth place and competing for some titles, even if those titles did not arrive.
Now, a few years later and ahead of what will be his first World Cup experience in charge of the USMNT, Mauricio Pochettino revealed in an interview with Gary Neville, Roy Keane and Ian Wright how difficult that period at Chelsea was, in which he revealed that the board was the one that decided not to respect the process and the idea that the Argentine coach and his staff would employ.
During the Stick to Football podcast on The Overlap on YouTube, Pochettino strongly criticized the board led by Todd Boehly at Chelsea, saying, "What I understood never happened..." referring to the project plan that was discussed in meetings and never carried out.
Directly, Pochettino said that despite leading the team to a sixth-place finish in the Premier League and guiding them to a Carabao Cup final and an FA Cup semifinal, the board decided not to trust the project and the vision that was discussed upon his arrival, even though a long-term process had been talked about.
"When I arrived at Chelsea, the team was 12th in the league, and we were not in the Champions League or in European competitions. It was a process of board changes. And I think I was disappointed with internal things from the board, that our vision was a normal process to build something solid for the future. But it was not going to be fast; it was going to take its time.
In the end, we finished sixth, reached the Carabao Cup final, and reached the FA Cup final. Due to different circumstances, we did not win, but in the end, our vision was not shared, and the process ended," Pochettino said. His words offer a rare inside look at the dysfunction that continues to shadow Chelsea's ambitious project under American ownership.
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