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Mauricio Pellegrino is a battler. From playing in the streets of rural Argentina he channelled an innate desire to improve to fight his way to the top of professional football, firstly as a player, and now as a manager. It is here he finds perhaps his toughest opponent…society.
Pellegrino is grounded. Growing up on a farm helping your father grow crops will do that to you.
Football was an escape for Pellegrino, not from any sort of unhappy childhood, but to a life most in his village could only dream of – travelling the world, playing football, getting well paid.
It gives him an interesting perspective on the life of the modern day top level pro, such as those he will have found when he walked into the job at Southampton.
They are multi-millionaires, want for nothing, and are feted by society, all for being able to play football.
To keep these young men focussed and grounded in the way Pellegrino thinks proper is a challenge.
The manager doesn’t blame the players. He blames society. And he has one hour a day, five days a week to try and reverse so much of what the players are told during the rest of their lives.
“We are thinking about my childhood but all of my team mates we were playing for fun, to be happy on the pitch, to be together, giving everything to beat the rival but just to play, not to win money,” says an animated Pellegrino, thumping the desk in a side office at Staplewood.
“Today the relationship between success … people think that success is money: nice car, nice women. This is synonymous with success.
“For me the money is okay but today the values are changing a little bit.
“This is my point of view I want to express. We are talking about we are a team, at a social level you don’t know your neighbours. You know your neighbours? Always we are thinking about ourselves, ourselves, ourselves. It doesn’t matter the people who are with me. When we think about what we need as a team we have to respect each other.
“I am responsible to change this dynamic that we are getting from society in just one hour a day? It’s really difficult. Because today the players have a nice business around them, their agents, mother, father, brother, fans, uncle, agents, sponsor, Adidas … all of them because this guy is the most beautiful guy in his village. Everybody says, ‘oh you are handsome, you are the best’ because this guy got a nice salary, just for this.
“We receive 25 of these guys and we have to change all these messages that he is receiving every single day.
“Something I would like to tell them, the first thing the player has to do is to enjoy the profession, and I enjoy my profession when I give my best, not when I gain money. Okay the money is okay.
“The money is good because in ten years no one remembers you. Players are like cars. When they are new they are really nice but after ten or 20 years no one remembers the car and the life of the player is the same. After one day, just one day, your life changes forever. You can never come back once you finish. Yet you are really young in your life but to be a player you are old.
“We have a battle against the values we have in life. In terms of your family you are a success if you bring money to your house. Your wife will be laughing if you don’t bring money. This is the sign of success.
“It’s really difficult to change the values. Sometimes we are punishing players because they are victims of the system. We are punishing all the time.
“They are responsible … but outside the pitch we are the same. We are selfish, thinking about ourselves, thinking about gaining money. And we are punishing them, ‘ah they have got new cars’ and everyone wants a nice car.
“The ambition is good but other ambition is not necessary. It’s like a wake-up.”
Pellegrino’s journey from farmer’s son to St Mary’s is a remarkable one.
“My childhood was in the farm,” he explained in his animated, friendly, yet still intense manner.
“I don’t know why I was a professional player. I played football in the street until I was 12 or 13 and after that I started playing at a small club in Leonas. Leonas is ‘lions’ in Spanish. A couple of lions.
“My childhood was completely different. You think why was this guy a football player?
“I was lucky when I discovered that profession. I played football for fun, this is the different thing.
“I didn’t realise when I moved to Buenos Aires 500km away to play for Velez Sarsfield, the second team in my life and I started playing there in the academy and I was there living in the stadium. The accommodation was behind the stand.
“Four or five rooms and the young players come from the countryside to live there, young players of 15, 16, 17 until 19-20 and I was there with Carlos Campagnucci my assistant (at Saints), I met him in that moment.
“After three years I started playing in the first team but my dream was just to play at the top level. Little by little, for me I liked this profession because my managers changed my life, changed my habits as a human.
“I remember all of them. Including the managers when I was a teenager. The meetings, the advice, because there is a time in your life when you are a teenager when your manager is more important than your father.
“When you are a teenager you say ‘I’m clever’ but you are not clever. This is a problematic age. You are discovering a lot of things and the managers were very important. I admire them, always I want to be like them.
“I have a lot of them, I can tell you three or four but I know you don’t know them. In my career as a professional, Carlos Bianchi was one of the first ones, I was 21. He came from France, he was a top player in Nice, in PSG, St Etienne. He was an incredible man as a person and he changed my values as a player.
“After I got other managers like Bielsa, [Eduardo Lujan] Manera, also in Spain, a lot of good managers like Van Gaal, Rafa Benitez, Ranieri, Hector Cuper. I am part… all my formation, all my concept from these people.
“Obviously I am different. In your mind your way of playing is different for you, for you and for me.”
Pellegrino remembers well getting to see Champions League football on TV for the first time in the early 1990s, and the glamour of AC Milan, who he got to play against in Japan with Sarsfield, remarkably winning in what Pellegrino describes as “one of my most important moments of my career.”
By 1998, Pellegrino had left Velez Sarsfeld for Van Gaal’s Barcelona, before moving to Valencia and Liverpool.
“When I arrived in 1998 in Barcelona I was there one season with Van Gaal, I was lucky we won the league and after that I was at Valencia,” he recalled.
“They were the most important club in my life because I felt a complete player… my best version as a player was in Valencia, I was there six seasons and we played two finals in the Champions League with Cuper, we lost both, and then with Benitez we won two leagues and the UEFA Cup. At Liverpool we won the Champions League too (Pellegrino was cup tied for the final). I was lucky in my career.”
Pellegrino also has a connection with fellow countryman and former Saints boss Mauricio Pochettino.
“Yes we played a World Cup, in 1991, Under-20s. We were a disaster as a team,” he laughed.
“I remember we played against Portugal, they had an incredible squad with Luis Figo, Rui Costa. They beat us 3-0. We were good as individuals but as a team we couldn’t compete in that moment.
“I met Mauricio there. He was one year younger than me, also we were colleagues and we studied together to get the license in Madrid in the federation.
“I was working in Valencia’s academy and Mauricio was in Espanyol. He is from Murphy, a small city in Argentina, I am from Leonas. It is not too far, I think 200km.”
Of all the influences that Pellegrino brings to his new job at St Mary’s, maybe that of Rafa Benitez, who he played under and later worked alongside on the coaching staff at Liverpool and Inter Milan seems to have had the most dramatic impact on the manager now working at St Mary’s.
“I think so, but not just tactically,” reflected Pellegrino, who will come up against Benitez thanks to Newcastle’s promotion.
“Because for me Rafa was one of the persons who changed a little bit the way that the manager teach the player. Why? Because in my past when I was a player always we were receiving, ‘You have to do this, you have to do this, you have to tackle, to defend’ but Rafa was different.
“Rafa asked the players how they feel and he changed completely the mentality in my life.
“At a pedagogic level Rafa was the best in my life.
“In terms of a professional person also, it was for me really nice to work with him as a player and to be his assistant for three years at Liverpool and Inter Milan.
“For me it was like a masters, and allowed me to work with a top squad, be involved, learning. It was a nice moment.
“For me football is like life. To try to learn everyday something better. I have to be tomorrow a little bit better than today.”
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