Gus Poyet Interview (2026)
Ahead of this Friday's match between England and Uruguay at Wembley Stadium, Andy Greeves speaks to former Uruguay international Gus Poyet about his extensive career in English football and his thoughts ahead of this summer's FIFA World Cup.
Hi Gus. First of all, to cast your mind back 31 years to a friendly international between England and Uruguay in March 1995. What was it like for you playing at the original Wembley Stadium for the first time?
It was a special game for me for a number of reasons. I was at the beginning of my Uruguay career, so it was a big opportunity for me to play. Playing England at Wembley was hugely significant. It was my first visit to Wembley.
Coming up against a team like England was a way of testing your levels, from a physical point of view especially. We knew that the Uruguay team at the time was able to play football, but I remember preparing for that game, thinking about the importance of competing for the ball in the air and matching the England players' physicality.
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What memories do you have of the game (which finished in a goalless draw)?
It was a difficult game. I remember us having a few chances… I had one myself - a header which went close. I think it ended up being an important result for us. You don't have that many opportunities to play against a team like England and the result gave us a lot of confidence.
On a personal level, I took a lot from that game. It gave me the confidence I was able to play for the national team and also to compete and hold my own against some of the best players around.
That same year, Uruguay won the Copa América on home soil, beating Brazil on penalties in the final…
The feeling across the country was that we must win the Copa América. It was as simple as that. I think Uruguay's record across the whole of the century was that we never lost a Copa América match on home soil. 15 or 20 years prior to 1995, the Copa América was played on a home and away basis, so many games were played during the century and Uruguay never lost at home. So, the remit was also, win the tournament and don't lose a game.
Talk about pressure, eh?!
It felt, as we progressed through the tournament, that we were getting better and better. Once we got to the knockout phase, we knew we had to be at our best with the opponents we were up against.
I have many anecdotes from the tournament but the one that springs to mind was the journey from the training camp to the stadium to play the final. I think the journey was something like 30 minutes. But it felt like the whole country was on the streets of Montevideo that day. It was unbelievable.
I remember when we reached the stadium, our goalkeeper Fernando Álvez said 'we'd better make sure we win, because that's going to be a difficult journey back if not!'
Brazil had a fantastic team, they were reigning world champions. It was difficult in the first half. The coach made the decision to go a bit more offensive in the second half. He brought on Pablo Bengoechea, who scored the equaliser.
So, the game went to penalties, which is a lottery. We scored our first five penalties, which I was very happy about because I was down to take the sixth penalty! When Sergio Martínez stepped up to take our fifth penalty, I think I was more nervous than him because I knew I was taking the next one!
We knew going into the shootout that Fernando Álvez would save one. He was an amazing goalkeeper. So, it was a matter of scoring the five, which we did.
The feelings that came with that victory are very difficult to put into words.
When you win something for your club, that's incredible. But winning with your country… it's the ultimate. It's on a different level. Especially for a small country like Uruguay, winning a competition like the Copa América and beating a team like Brazil was exceptional. It was a victory that brought people together with celebrations in every corner of the country.
Your relationship with English football began when you signed for Chelsea in 1997. How did that move from Real Zaragoza to Chelsea come about?
I was out of contract for the second time at Zaragoza. An agent mentioned to me that I might have the opportunity to move to England. At first, you don't believe it. But there was a day in April when this agent called and asked if it would be ok for (then Chelsea managing director) Colin Hutchinson to come and meet me in Zaragoza. And, of course, I said 'yes'.
I agreed a pre-contract with Chelsea and I travelled with my wife to London to see everything and complete the deal. I played my last five or six matches for Zaragoza with everyone knowing I would be leaving. Of course, I still played for Zaragoza in exactly the same way, with no thoughts of the move to Chelsea when I was playing for them.
It was probably the game at Wembley in 1995 that helped me make the move to Chelsea two years later. It planted a seed in my head about possibly playing in England one day.
How do you look back on your time at Chelsea?
It was too easy! Haha! What I mean by that is that I took advantage of a team playing in a certain way which allowed me to go there and do what I did best.
I have said this many times, but I'd be standing in the tunnel pre-match. We'd be going out with a midfield four that was myself, Dennis Wise, Roberto Di Matteo and Dan Petrescu. And then Gianfranco Zola in front of us. And I'd look at the opponents and think 'you've got a problem'. That feeling made you play even better. I became friends for life with my Chelsea teammates and that helped massively on the pitch too.
After four seasons with Chelsea and three with the Blues' London rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, your coaching journey began with assistant roles alongside Dennis Wise at Swindon Town and Leeds United…
Those experiences were key to me being the coach I am today. I learned the basics in those roles.
We are all different and we learn in different ways. The coaching course you do will always be important. You learn completely different things to what you think you need to do. I learned a lot about organisational skills for example. But things like reacting to situations, making decisions… that's not something you can learn in a book. I was very lucky to be learning from Wisey. He was making decisions and I was observing reactions to his decisions.
Anyone who wants to be a manager but that has the opportunity to be an assistant for one or two years first, I'd definitely recommend it. You're learning from the inside and for me, that was key.
You returned to Tottenham Hotspur in 2007 to work alongside the club's new head coach, Juande Ramos…
It was a big jump in my coaching journey going to Spurs in the Premier League. Juande Ramos was a different kind of coach, a different character to Wisey. So now, I had the experience of seeing two totally different coaches making decisions.
You must be very proud of the job you did in your two managerial roles in English football to date with Brighton & Hove Albion and Sunderland?
There are always objectives at clubs. My first objective at Brighton was to avoid relegation, which we were able to do. We were originally 20th out of 24 clubs when I went there in the November. We had massive teams in League One at that time… Leeds, Southampton.
The following season, the ambition of (Brighton chairman) Tony Bloom - who I had a tremendous relationship with - was to get promoted. We managed to win the division playing amazing football.
At Sunderland, the big objectives were to stay in the Premier League and beat Newcastle. Somehow, and it was a miracle, we stayed up. And I came up against Newcastle three times as Sunderland manager and we won on each of those three occasions!
For me, it was always so important to achieve and surpass the objectives at clubs when I went there.
After subsequent managerial roles at AEK Athens, Real Betis, Shanghai Shenhua, Bordeaux, Universidad Católica and the Greece national team, you were in charge of Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors in South Korea between 2024 and 2025. And what an experience that was for you?!
I always push British coaches to coach abroad. It's so different to what we see every day here in England. I think it's important as a human being to experience different cultures and ways of life. From a footballing perspective, it was probably the best year of my career. I went to a big team who were struggling and nearly went down in 2024. To take that team from that position to then win the 'double' - the K League and the Korean Cup - was just incredible. It gave me a feeling of; 'ok, I'm not bad!' Haha!
I was able to implement my ideas, build a relationship with the players and do something important. For different reasons, I agreed to part company with the club after a year. It was a bit too far away from home and my family, as a grandfather now. But my relationship with the club is for life.
Are you keen to return to management?
Yes absolutely. I had a little bit of time off after South Korea. I went to Uruguay to see my mother and took my granddaughter. But now I'm fully focused on returning to management. Sadly, someone probably needs to be sacked for that to happen. That's the sad reality of football.
Looking ahead to this summer's World Cup. What do you make of Uruguay's Group H opponents - Spain, Cape Verde and Saudi Arabia?
Naturally, Spain are huge favourites to win that group and I think Uruguay will go through also. After that, there's the possibility of meeting Argentina in the knockout phase! Wow! That will be like a World Cup final for us.
The most important thing for Uruguay is to have issues in the national team resolved by the time of the tournament. We've had a lot of issues to deal with in recent years and we need our players to go to the tournament in the best shape possible.
What are your thoughts on the expanded 48-team World Cup?
I have to say, I am not a fan of the 48-team format of this World Cup. I respect the decision to increase the size of the tournament, to give more teams a chance to take part. This is the first time the World Cup has had this many teams in it - and let's see how it goes. I just hope we don't have any 6-0, 7-0, 8-0 matches. That's not what you want at a World Cup.
Marcelo Bielsa was appointed as head coach of Uruguay back in May 2023. What do you make of his tenure so far?
At the start of his reign, things were spectacular. The way he implemented his football was amazing. Last year, there were lots of issues off the field which had an effect on the national team.
With six teams plus one from South America able to qualify for this summer's World Cup, it was impossible for Uruguay not to make it.
What I want now is for all the outside issues I mentioned to go away from the national team and the focus to be fully on football and this World Cup. I want to see the players deliver what Marcelo Bielsa wants, for the players and coach to be connected and for the team to be successful.
We have the best Uruguayan midfield in a long time, if everyone is fit. We have Federico Valverde, Rodrigo Bentancur, Manuel Ugarte. Big players from big clubs. Giorgian de Arrascaeta did well for us in qualifying.
We have more box-to-box midfielders now which I think is important. In the past, we have tended either to have a number 10 or a defensive midfielder but we have more of a balance now. We previously had world class strikers… Luis Suárez, Edinson Cavani and Diego Forlán at the 2010 World Cup for example. The team then was set-up around seven players all looking to give Suárez, Cavani and Forlán the chances to score.
Now, our approach is different. The team doesn't necessarily have the look or set-up of a traditional Uruguay team. There's always a process, a period of time involved when the dynamic of a team changes and we'll see how they do this summer.
What do you make of the England national team currently?
I'm an interested observer. I've been living in England for a long time and I've heard the thoughts pre-tournament in the past… 'this team is amazing… we're definitely going to win the tournament'. But then, it didn't happen.
Now, England don't have the big names… the Gerrards, the Beckhams etc. But they do have a real team. I'm not really sure how they will do, but they certainly go into this tournament more as a team rather than a collection of big-name individuals as it might have been in the past.
© Andy Greeves & Soccerphile.com
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