I would have quit Tottenham if we won Champions League – Pochettino

Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino [Courtesy]

Mauricio Pochettino has admitted he would have quit Tottenham had they won the Champions League final.

Spurs lost the final 2-0 to Premier League rivals Liverpool in Madrid on June 1, with Pochettino revealing he was ready to walk away had his side lifted the trophy.

But the Spurs boss said coming so close and then losing the final had served to revitalise him for the challenge ahead and redoubled his determination to lead the club to success.

Asked if he had questioned his future in the wake of the final defeat Pochettino said: "After five years in a difficult project at Tottenham, we talk a lot about perception and reality, how we fight and all the energy we expend trying to get Tottenham fighting with the best teams in Europe and England.

"Of course it’s always in your head, you never know. With the way I am, I am always going to prioritise the club over myself.

"Maybe if it was a different result after the final you can think, ‘OK, maybe this is a moment to step out of the club, leave the club and give them the possibility of a really new chapter with a new coaching staff’.

"But after the final I felt this was not great to finish like this. I’m not a person that avoids facing problems or a difficult situation.

"I am more on that side of - I love a massive challenge, a difficult challenge and of course now to rebuild that mentality, to make it possible to repeat a similar season, that is exciting and motivates me a lot."

Pochettino, 47, who has been at Spurs for five years, said winning the Champions League would have put a different slant on his situation and almost certainly seen him leave to take up a new challenge elsewhere.

"For sure, for sure," said Pochettino, speaking in Singapore ahead of Tottenham's friendly against Juventus on Sunday. "You know very much when you touch glory you behave differently or you feel different or the players feel different and the challenge becomes different.

"It’s like Kieran [Trippier] explained to me in private and to the media in Madrid that he loved to be at Tottenham and work with us but at 28, 29, sometimes a player needs to discover need things and new challenges.

"That's inside yourself and it’s only you who knows how you feel - it’s not about agreeing or disagreeing, it’s about accepting how you feel. You are an individual, you have individual challenges and you have to accept if all the parts are happy."