The day after the night before... with Mauricio

What are the manager’s emotions after one of the greatest nights in the Club’s history? Can you sleep? And what do you do with a squad of players no doubt emotionally and physically drained when you have another vital game 62 hours later?

These are the questions we put to Mauricio Pochettino less than 15 hours after the final whistle on a night of all nights at the Etihad Stadium as we progressed to the semi-finals of the Champions League for the first time on away goals after a 4-4 aggregate draw with Manchester City.

This is Mauricio, in his own words...

“We arrived back late, difficult to sleep. It was such an emotional game, an emotional night. We love football, we feel the passion and this type of night is massive and the energy you spend is massive too. We are so tired but at the same time, we are so happy. It’s fantastic to be in the semi-finals and beating a team like Manchester City, one of the best teams in Europe. We are so proud, so happy.

“I didn’t sleep too much, only a few hours, but that is normal. We need to keep going. The competition doesn’t wait for you. We need to start to think about Saturday, another important game.

“For the players, it’s about recovery. We’ll assess them. Some players finished the game with some problems and now we need a starting 11, fresh and with plenty of energy (for Saturday). That’s why we need to assess them and give them time to recover. We travelled back last night, arrived late, spent time at the Lodge, slept and that is very good for us. Tomorrow we fly back to Manchester for Saturday. It’s difficult but when you are happy in your mind you find the energy.

“We can’t forget what happened in the summer, when this season started, with all the circumstances (nine players were involved in the last weekend of the World Cup in July) and everything that happened. Today we need to give the praise the players, staff and fans deserve.

“We need to keep our feet on the grass and be humble, that’s most important. We need to keep working hard. We know very well in football that you not only need to work hard but to believe, to have faith and have a little luck as well. Today is fantastic but look back to November, we suffered, no-one believed in us. It was a difficult moment. But fighting all together, we turned that energy and turned everything positive.

“I think the decision to move to the stadium has made us and the fans believe more and when you assess the season, a lot of things that have happened have made us stronger. I feel so proud about that. But as I said, we need to stay humble, stay strong in our ideas and be respectful with everyone. Then in football, when you have belief, anything can happen."