Mauricio Pochettino: The brutal fitness test new boss is likely to set Chelsea stars | OneFootball

As the Premier League season draws to a close, Mauricio Pochettino looks set to join Chelsea as their new permanent manager.

And according to a new report from The Telegraph, players could be in for gruelling training sessions, with some of his practices detailed.

The Blues have been without a long-term coach since Graham Potter was relieved from his duties in April, and interim head coach Frank Lampard has experienced a lacklustre return to the club.

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Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali have searched for a new manager behind the scenes. And talkSPORT reported this morning that Chelsea could finally be about to confirm Pochettino’s appointment.

Chelsea players set for tough training sessions under Pochettino

The players might be excited to work with the Argentine coach, but that could wear off quickly.

The Telegraph have revealed some of the measures Pochettino will put in place when he assumes the post, one of those being a brutal fitness regime.

The “Gacon test,” devised by former Marseille trainer Georges Gacon in 1994, will make players run what appears to be a bleep test on steroids.

“To start with, the players have 45 seconds to cover 150 metres, with 15 seconds to rest,” Pochettino wrote in his book, ‘Brave New World’. “In each subsequent 45-second rep, they have to run 6.25 metres further, with the intensity steadily increasing.”

That will certainly make for a difficult pre-season.

What sounds even more horrible is that the former Southampton coach made his players run on Mondays after games.

It all got too much for striker Rickie Lambert, who then went to see Pochettino about the matter.

“I went out [of the office] and went back to the lads made up, thinking, ‘yep, just done it for you boys, next Monday gonna be sorted’,” the attacker said.

“So, I played the game [the next weekend], 90 minutes again, come in Monday, not only did we do 12, we did 24 runs – 24 runs and I just knew, I was running around laughing and almost crying and I knew what he was doing, he was breaking me and he did, he broke me.”

Given that Pochettino’s Spurs team covered the second-most ground while he was in north London for four years though, his methods look to be worth it in the long term.

“There’s no hiding places”

It’s not just elite fitness that Pochettino demands from his players either, with the coach keen to address mentality.

Law writes that the coach is somewhat superstitious, keeping lemons in his draw because a friend told him they "absorb negative energy", and believing that he can see energy flowing in a player’s aura, something which heavily influences his choices.

He is also eager to strengthen mentalities and puts his players through difficult challenges. In one case before Tottenham’s Champions League final in 2019, he made his squad run over hot coals for preparation and snap arrows against their throats.

His methods do not just apply to his players either, with Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy having to be rescued from the Manso River after being invited by Pochettino on a staff bonding exercise.

And while mentality and auras are key for the coach, so too are the finer details. Danny Rose explained that his former boss left no stone unturned when it came to his preparations.

“He’s very thorough, very precise, he’s a disciplinarian,” said the ex-Spurs defender. “He records training. He was the first manager I came across who records training, records gym sessions. There’s no hiding places.”