'I'm not the anti-Guardiola' insists Pochettino ahead of top-of-the-table encounter

Pochettino had won one, drawn one and lost one in La Liga against Guardiola so far and was expected to get another result this time. "In football the players are the protagonists," he insisted, "not the coaches."

Barcelona proved Pochettino's point for him. Espanyol worked ferociously hard, as any Pochettino team does. They pressed high, defended high and snapped into tackles. And Barcelona dismantled them 5-1.

This was just three weeks after Barcelona beat Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid 5-0. They were playing some of the best football ever played, in a season which ended with the La Liga and Champions League titles.

They were so good that they could render almost any opponent irrelevant. But Guardiola called it "the most complicated game" of Barcelona's season so far.

Some coaches thought that the way to play Guardiola's Barcelona was to park the bus. They saw Mourinho's Internazionale scraping past in that famous Champions League semi-final second leg, six months before.

But not Pochettino. He wanted to fight fire with fire. That is how he had got results against Barcelona in the past. So he had his head held high afterwards, despite being humiliated at home by their hated local rivals.

"The team was true to our philosophy, and we tried with all our strength," Pochettino said. "But Barca are in a state of grace, close to touching perfection."

That was the fifth of nine meetings between Guardiola and Pochettino when they were coaching the two clubs of Barcelona. They had parallel spells in their first senior jobs: Guardiola arrived six months before Pochettino, they both lasted four years, Pochettino was sacked six months after Guardiola's exhausted resignation.

Their last meeting was Guardiola's last game at the Nou Camp, an emotional 4-0 demolition of Espanyol. More than four years on, they meet again at White Hart Lane tomorrow.

Their careers have followed different paths. Pochettino is still aiming for his first major trophy, Guardiola has won 21. But what was true when they started their careers is still true now: they have markedly similar philosophies of football, with shared influences and shared characteristics on the pitch.

Both managers like their teams to dominate possession, to build up from the back, to take the initiative in the game.

Both like their teams to defend high up the pitch, to press high, winning the ball back within three seconds, protecting against the counter-attack. Both are obsessive perfectionists and workaholics who demand the same professionalism and application from their players.

Pochettino and Guardiola arrived at the same conception of the game, at the same time, at the same age, in the same city.

When Guardiola and Pochettino stepped into coaching, they both did so with philosophies and methods that were almost fully-formed.

When Pochettino took over at Espanyol, where he was a hero as a player, they were in crisis. He was appointed, aged 36, on the same day in January 2009 that Barack Obama was inaugurated as US president.

At Pochettino's first game, a 0-0 draw with Guardiola's Barcelona in the Copa del Rey, Espanyol fans brought "Yes we can" banners. In the second leg, Barcelona won 3-2.

The Espanyol players instantly learned what Pochettino wanted from them. In February, they travelled to the Nou Camp. Barcelona were 10 points clear at the top of the table. The Spanish press said that they would be "fighting King Kong with a teaspoon".

"All the people said 'Espanyol is dead, they have no chance'", Pochettino later recalled. "For 27 years, Espanyol had never won the derby away."

Pochettino's plan was to attack Barcelona with a style close to their own.

"Barcelona were top, and the plan was to press high and to surprise them," he said. "They were surprised how we played. We were a little bit lucky. We won 2-1, a very special victory."

Barcelona went on to win the treble, but Espanyol stayed up.

That was a vindication for Pochettino's football, for taking the fight to their celebrated rivals, meeting Barcelona's pressing with some pressing of their own. He never beat them again, but he certainly earned Guardiola's respect.

"There are teams that wait for you, and teams that look for you," said Guardiola. "Espanyol look for you."

In December 2009 Barcelona scraped a 1-0 win over Espanyol, thanks to a fortunate penalty. For the return fixture, Espanyol scrapped their way to a 0-0 draw. Pochettino's football was described as "guerrilla warfare", for their energy and aggression, and playing against them "the closest thing to hell" in football.

This was the context for Pochettino having to deny that he was the "anti-Guardiola" before the December 2010 meeting. Despite a heavy defeat, Pochettino's team could still cause Barcelona problems.

In their final season as rivals, Espanyol earned a famous 1-1 draw at home.

Of course Guardiola has a superior record, with four wins from their seven league meetings. But Pochettino is proud of the fact he coached vastly inferior players towards a similar style of play.

That, ultimately, is why Guardiola has won so much more than Pochettino. Their backgrounds are different but their outlooks are similar.

"Both of them press high," said Jordi Amat, who played for Pochettino at Espanyol. "Maybe Pochettino is more pragmatic, about how to press. And maybe Guardiola is thinking more about the best way to play football, about perfection."

Pochettino cannot aim that high yet, but he is getting closer. (© Independent News Service)

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