Lionel Messi and Neymar break Mauricio Pochettino’s golden rule he installed at Tottenham | Football | Sport

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Mauricio Pochettino’s Paris Saint-Germain side spectacularly crashed out of the Champions League on Wednesday evening at the hands of a Karim Benzema-inspired Real Madrid to add to their catalog of continental calamities. And according to reports, the Argentine boss has had a rule that he stood by Tottenham broken due to the financial might the club possess.

PSG went into the second leg at the Bernabeu 1-0 up, thanks to a last-minute goal from Kylian Mbappe in the French capital in the first leg.

A superb first-half counter-attacking display put their hosts to the sword, and Kylian Mbappe doubled their advantage with a well-taken finish to leave the French giants with one foot in the quarter-finals.

But a 17-minute collapse in front of an raucous Bernabeu crowd saw Real completely turn the tie on its head, with Benzema netting a hat-trick to grab all the headlines.

It was a performance that couldn’t be any more different from Pochettino’s time at Tottenham, where he built his teams to be sturdy and hard to break down.

Les Parisiens paid £198million for Neymar back in 2017 in what remains the world’s most expensive transfer by quite some way.

Meanwhile, a deal for Messi was brokered this summer with the Argentinian superstar Barcelona after 21 mesmerizing years leaving at the Nou Camp.

With the pair both earning in excess of £21m-per-year, the Parc des Princes-based outfit would be wasting a large surplus of money by not playing their superstars.

Furthermore, the report states that the difference in wages between the duo and other members of the squad means it is difficult to garner a ‘collective team spirit’, despite agents understanding that world-class talents deserve a top-class wage.

But this supposedly does not fit in with Pochettino’s ethos in the French capital.

“When you know Mauricio, it’s very difficult for him to manage this type of player, this type of team,” one source told the Athletic.

“He needs to improve players, he wants players to have fundamentally good principles of play.”

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