Mauricio Pochettino talks youth development and coaching philosophy with NBC’s Arlo White

Arlo White is the voice of NBC’s coverage of Premier League football in America. If you have watched a Premier League match in the United States, odds are you have heard Arlo calling the game. He’s a wonderful ambassador of the beautiful game to American audiences.

Arlo and NBC also produce a short YouTube series called “Inside the Mind” where they interview Premier League managers and try to get insights into their coaching philosophy. After speaking with Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, this week’s episode, the third of the season, features Mauricio Pochettino.

Pochettino went into depth with Arlo about a number of topics including his relationship to the youth players at Spurs and how he’s able to connect with the next generation of Spurs players in the academy. For Poch, it’s about developing the young player as a whole person, not just as a footballer, and that should come through not only in that player’s performance on the pitch but also in his interactions off of it.

In the video, Arlo noted an exchange he had with Eric Dier, who shook the hand and asked the name of every member of NBC’s video production staff before the start of the shoot, something that impressed White and reflected well on Pochettino’s style of management. Poch responded with an anecdote about all of his players shaking the hand of chairman Daniel Levy, and that it wasn’t a rule, but a culture of respect.

Poch talks about a lot of these topics in depth in Guillem Balague’s book Brave New World: Inside Pochettino’s Spurs, but it’s fascinating to hear him talk about coaching in his own words. You get the sense of Poch’s high intelligence in this interview despite speaking in what is very clearly his second language, and it’s a great insight into how he approaches the Tottenham project.

You can view the entire interview below. It’s worth a watch.