I was there that night. I don’t get to many games, so that one sticks in the memory vividly.
As for Pochettino, he’s obviously not stupid. He’s seen how Madrid have performed in Spain, and even took 4 points off Zidane’s team in person. He would have known that there was a high probability of the Madrid job becoming available, so if he was interested would he really sign a new contract with us?
The Madrid job is a poisoned chalice. Maybe in ten years he’ll fancy spending 2-3 years on the Madrid managerial merry go round, but he’s in a great position right now and he knows it. Madrid will be looking for a new manager every other year or so, so it’s not as if this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
As are most PL managerial jobs which’s is why the average tenure is just over a year. When you have a club like Leicester sacking a title winning manager months after winning it we can no longer mock the Spanish. And we have history as well, Jol and Redknapp are proof of that - all it takes is a bad run of form and the sentiment changes completely. In such a capricious industry no manager can afford to wait and certainly not for a decade.