Tales of Mauricio Taricco – so much more than Poyet’s number two

During his four years at Brighton & Hove Albion, Mauricio Taricco had two very different roles.

Taricco’s day job was as assistant manager to Gus Poyet. While Poyet is the man often credited with transforming the Albion from League One plodders into a club capable of challenging for the Premier League, Taricco was every bit as important as the manager himself.

The South American duo weren’t quite equals, but it was a 65-35 partnership. They arrived as a managerial team, they left as a managerial team and they worked superbly as managerial team. The most Brian Clough and Peter Taylor-esque duo that Brighton have had since, well, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor.

We know this because Poyet, for all his brilliance, was often an attention seeking megalomaniac. And any half decent psychiatric expert will tell you that someone with that sort of profile doesn’t share the credit or the spotlight with anyone – unless they are really, really important.

Poyet did with Taricco. Whenever Gus signed a new contract with Brighton, he talked about him and Tano staying. It was always his and Tano’s project. The way that he and Tano wanted the Albion to play. You won’t find higher praise than a man who demands the spotlight be on him willingly sharing it with another.

But for however good Taricco was as an assistant manager, it is nothing compared to what he did on the pitch. When he wasn’t busy being Poyet’s right hand man, Mauricio Taricco took on a role as reluctant emergency full back for Brighton. A part he played with absolute brilliance.

It is no exaggeration to say that Taricco is probably your correspondent’s favourite ever Brighton player. Even at the age of 37 and having not played for over six years, he was still comfortably good enough for League One and the Championship.

But it wasn’t his talent that made Taricco a star. It was the astonishing amount of entertainment he provided every time he stepped onto the pitch.

Mauricio Taricco only played 19 times for Brighton, but he still managed to get booked five times and sent off twice. He even retired twice in that time too before u-turning his way back onto the pitch when Poyet begged him again to dust his off boots.

When Poyet first mooted the idea of using Taricco as a player, it all seemed like a bit of a joke. It was a line that Gus would trot it with increasing frequency over the course of his first year in charge, usually said with a cheeky grin plastered across his face and a twinkle in his eye

“Tano might even have to play.” All mind games to fool the opposition into thinking that Brighton had an injury-ravished squad or to put pressure on Tony Bloom to release some funds for a new full back.

Poyet surely wasn’t being serious about throwing a bloke who retired in 2004 into a League One promotion battle in 2010, was he?

The story of Taricco’s first retirement is interesting in itself. He had arrived in England at Ipswich Town, joining the Tractor Boys in 1994 from Argentions Juniors – the same club from where Brighton purchased Alexis Mac Allister for £7 million back in January 2018.

Taricco spent four years at Portman Road, playing 172 times for and winning Supporter’s Player of the Season in the 1996-97 season.

Tottenham Hotspur paid £1.7 million for his services in November 1998 and he stayed at White Hart Lane for six years, racking up 156 appearances as well as meeting Poyet and forging the friendship that would revolutionise Brighton a decade later.

West Ham United was Taricco’s next destination and he signed for the Hammers on Friday 19th November 2004. On Sunday 21st November 2004, he tore his hamstring after 27 minutes of his debut against Millwall.

On Tuesday 24th November 2004, he went to the West Ham board and told them to tear up his contract. Taricco’s injury would have ruled him out for two of the six months that he had signed on at Upton Park.

Rather take a wage for doing nothing, he offered to walk away so the Hammers could instead divert the money they were due to pay him into signing a replacement.

“From providing them with a defensive solution instead I handed them a headache and I didn’t want to do that,” Taricco told the Independent upon his departure from Upton Park.

“I played less than half an hour and I had agreed a deal for six months until the end of season. I didn’t want to bring them another problem having joined them to play. I didn’t like the idea of going into the club just to be in the treatment room. So I’m a free agent again.”

West Ham boss Alan Pardew called it the most honest thing he had ever seen in football. Pardew added: “He didn’t have to make that decision, which shows that his character and personality off the pitch is far removed from the image sometimes portrayed.”

Ah yes, that image portrayed on the pitch. Taricco you see was a bit of a bastard. He would kick people, foul them and loved nothing more than winding the opposition up. He was the most Argentinian of Argentinians.

Thierry Henry tells a great story about Taricco and his antics from when Arsenal won the Premier League at White Hart Lane in their 2003-04 Invincibles season.

When Spurs equalised to make it 2-2, Taricco made a bee-line to Henry and celebrated so wildly in his face that he somehow managed to injure himself. Tano then put that injury to good use, taking 10 minutes to hobble off the pitch, causing maximum angst to the Gunners and their talisman.

The Arsenal players had initially been asked not to celebrate on the pitch at the end of the game if they got the draw or win they needed to secure the title in case it incited a Spurs riot.

They had agreed right up until Taricco’s over-the-top-gloating, with Henry claiming to tell Tano as he left the field with a dramatic limp, “We need a point. Now we celebrate on your pitch.” Superb twattery on the part of Tano.

Taricco retired from the professional game shortly after he left West Ham and moved to Italy. He had a long-held dream of playing in the Italian amateur leagues and boy did he live it, spending the next four years turning out for Sardinian clubs AS Villasimius and Castiadas.

When he was enjoying a leisurely 90 minutes every week in Italy’s fifth tier, Taricco can’t ever have imagined that he would find himself lacing up his boots as a professional in England again. And yet that is exactly what happened.

Poyet had so frequently mentioned the prospect of having to play Taricco that the Brighton boss seemed to talk himself into believing it was a good and realistic idea.

What had started as a bit of a joke turned into Tano slipping into the number 27 jersey and stepping out at Kingfield Stadium, Woking for an FA Cup First Round Replay on Tuesday 16th November 2010.

He had the look of a bloke who really didn’t want to be playing at all, let alone away at Woking. It was like when your best friend asks you to go over to his house and help him put up some decking. You don’t really want to do it, but he’s your best friend – you feel like you have to.

That’s what this was, Taricco reluctantly agreeing to something because his best friend had asked him. Except rather than it be a spot of harmless DIY in the garden, this favour involved playing a game of professional football.

Still, Taricco only needed to get through 90 minutes against non league opposition and then he could hang up his boots again.

Or so he thought until the game went to extra time. Well, that was enough for Tano, who decided to get himself sent off for dissent in the 108th minute.

It is hard to know what the best part about that red card was. The fact it was Taricco’s first game in six years and he marked it by getting dismissed.

Or that he was the assistant manager playing in a young and inexperienced team in which he should have been setting an example. Not heading for an early bath for shouting at the referee over some trivial foul on the halfway line.

Brighton eventually beat Woking on penalties, which meant that Taricco was forced into playing again in the second round of the competition against FC United of Manchester. This was a far better experience as it was his shot that was deflected in by Fran Sandaza for Brighton’s equalizing goal.

Taricco had now elevated himself to backup for both Inigo Calderon and Marcos Painter in the full back positions. By this point, he was seemingly starting to enjoy playing again.

He told the Seagulls Programme following the FC United game, “I love playing football, so it’s nice to play, although I feel like I need a bit more power in my legs.”

“But I am 37 years old. It is nice to play, don’t get me wrong and I have enjoyed training with the team. But there are players with better legs than me in the squad.”

“I still see myself as part of the coaching staff rather than the playing staff. I’m there if we need to rest players or if someone is recovering from an injury, because it is a very long and intense season.”

Or if someone got suspended, which is exactly what happened later than month. Calderon picked up a straight red after just seven minutes of the 1-1 Withdean draw against Charlton Athletic on Wednesday 29th December 2010 and Taricco found himself again thrown into the starting lineup to cover for the Spaniard.

To make matters worse, Calderon’s ban coincided with the busy New Year period. Having not played a professional football game for six years until a month earlier, Taricco now found himself rattling through three starts in the space of a week against Leyton Orient and Exeter City in League One and Portsmouth in the FA Cup. The Albion won all three.

Mauricio Taricco finished the 2010-11 season with seven appearances to his name, announcing his first retirement as a Brighton player before the Albion had wrapped up the League One title.

Taricco said “If we manage to get the players we would like for playing and as cover then I probably won’t be registering again.”

Brighton did sign some full back cover in the summer of 2011 in the shape of the versatile Romain Vincelot from Dagenham & Redbridge, but that wasn’t enough to keep Taricco’s boots hung up.

He was named among the substitutes for the League Cup second round tie with Sunderland at the Amex six games into the campaign and with wonderful predictability, Vincelot got injured with 14 minutes remaining. Cue Taricco’s entry into the game, his retirement having lasted three months.

Taricco’s first Championship start of the 2011-12 season came against Crystal Palace a month later and, had he not been forced off on the hour mark injured, then it is very likely that the Eagles might not have become the first visiting side to win a league game at the Amex.

Wilfried Zaha had not been able to escape Taricco’s pocket once in the first hour of the match as Brighton led 1-0 through Craig Mackail-Smith’s early goal.

Taricco limped off with 60 minutes played with excruciating calf cramps. Without him on the pitch, Zaha ran riot and Palace scored three times in the final 10 minutes to pick up a famous three points.

Mauricio Taricco felt partly responsible for the defeat and so on Monday 3rd October 2011, he retired for the second time as a Brighton player. He believed that if he couldn’t complete 90 minutes, he was of no use to Poyet at that level of football.

This turned out to be Taricco’s shortest retirement yet. It lasted a whole 26 days before he was coming off the bench in a 0-0 draw away at Birmingham City on Saturday 29th October.

A week later and Taricco got through the entire 90 minutes as Barnsley were beaten 2-0 at the Amex on Sunday 6th November, his first full game since Tottenham lost 1-0 at Aston Villa on Sunday 2nd May 2004.

Completing the 90 for the first time in seven-and-a-half years – and being man-of-the-match for good measure – seemed like something of a landmark and Poyet and Taricco began to devise a training schedule and plan that would allow Tano to turn out more regularly.

Taricco said afterwards, “I still don’t feel fit, especially in the last 25 minutes. I didn’t come off but I could have, because I had aches and pains everywhere. Somehow I got through so for me it’s a great incentive.”

“I know Gus very well and I understand how difficult it makes his job to have somebody that can drop out of the team at any time.”

“All I can say is that I will be training as hard as I can and will rest and lead a professional footballer’s life as best as I can.”

Poyet was more bullish about Taricco’s chances of featuring regularly. “He was outstanding on the ball. He finished the game and that’s a big, big step forward.

“He is in a better position now and if he keeps playing he will get better and better. I told him I will see him Thursday after three or four days rest. He’s going to need that!”

Taricco could rest as much as he wanted, but he wouldn’t be completing 90 minutes if he kept getting sent off for ridiculous offences.

Which is exactly what happened in the Albion’s next game away at Southampton, when he was shown a straight red for questioning referee Peter Walton’s sanity after the Saints were awarded a penalty from a foul that was plainly miles outside the box.

Two dismissals in 13 games for dissent. A quick reminder again that Taricco was also assistant manager and probably should have been setting an example.

Taricco returned from his three game ban with another man-of-the-match showing in a 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest three matches later.

He played five more times between December 3rd and January 2nd with his final game – his actual final game – coming as Southampton were beaten 3-0 at the Amex.

Given how much Poyet and Taricco hated the Saints, that must have been a particularly sweet way to bring the curtain down on his playing career for good.

When Poyet was suspended in the wake of the playoff semi final defeat to Crystal Palace 18 months later, Taricco was also investigated for breach of contract.

Brighton were seemingly desperate to find something that Mauricio Taricco had done wrong too in order to justify sacking him along with Poyet, otherwise what was the point in putting him on the gardening leave?

They were unable to however and Taricco was cleared. Hardly a surprise given the class manner in which he had conducted himself throughout his football life, such as when cancelling his West Ham contract and by coming out of a six-year long retirement and playing through constant pain to help the Brighton cause.

Not only that, but when Taricco returned to work after the investigation, he was put briefly in caretaker charge. When he did eventually leave the club to clear the way for Oscar Garcia, it was by mutual consent.

Taricco could have pushed for a big payout to get him out the way given that he and Poyet were less than two years into the five-year contracts they had signed in September 2011. The club hadn’t exactly acted well towards him in the aftermath of the Palace defeat either. But Tano’s class again showed through.

As a result, Brighton went from suspending Mauricio Taricco for breach of contract and trying to sack him through an investigation to releasing a gushing statement about him on his departure.

“The club would like to sincerely thank Mauricio for his hard work, professionalism and great dedication during the past three-and-a-half years,” the club said. “We wish him all the very best for the future and are confident he will have a long and successful career ahead of him.”

Taricco has followed Poyet around as his number two wherever the Uruguayan boss has gone since. That has taken him to Sunderland, AEK Athens, Real Betis, Shanghai Shenhua and Bordeaux, although none of the supporters of those clubs have been lucky enough to see Mauricio Taricco lace up his boots, as us Brighton fans were.

Whenever Tano stepped on the pitch, he looked like he had stepped straight out of a time machine from 1980s Argentina. Socks rolled down over his shinpads, a shirt that was a little too baggy and his long, curly hair blowing around everywhere.

He played like a true Argentinian too, superb on the ball, technically brilliant and yet happy to kick people and question every single decision the referee was making. There was only one word to describe Tano – flair.

Nothing summed that up more than the Barnsley home game. With Brighton defending a narrow lead, Mauricio Taricco goes down on the far side off the pitch.

He stays down for some time and it looks pretty serious. Eventually, a stretcher is required to get him off the pitch from in front of the East Stand.

Vincelot is ready and waiting to take Taricco’s place with the game set to resume after what felt like an hour-long pause to get Tano off – only for Tano to suddenly jump off the stretcher and run back onto the pitch, absolutely fine. A recovery so dramatic that it could have come from the Bible and the Story of Lazarus himself.

Instead, this has been the Story of Taricco – and it is far more entertaining. What a player. What an assistant manager. What a man.

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