Given the chance to offer a little clarity and reassurance, though, Pochettino demurred. Over the following weeks, rather than backtrack, he doubled down. He might leave even if Spurs did not beat Liverpool, he said at one point, accompanied again by that enigmatic smile.

No more than five months later, Pochettino is gone, dismissed by Daniel Levy, the Tottenham chairman, after a dreadful run of domestic form that has left the club drifting in 14th place in the Premier League, not just left gasping for air by Liverpool and Manchester City in pursuit of the championship, but by Leicester City and Chelsea, too, in the race for a place in the Champions League.

It is no momentary stumble: Spurs has taken only 25 points from its last 24 league games, dating to February. Maintaining that form for much longer and relegation would become, if not a genuine concern, then at least a hazy possibility. Levy and the club’s board were “extremely reluctant” to relieve Pochettino of his duties, the chairman said when announcing the decision, but felt they had to act in “the best interests of the club.”

Looking back now, it is hard not to wonder if perhaps Pochettino saw something like this on the horizon; perhaps not to this scale, or with this immediacy, or even this outcome, but enough to make him wonder if the final in Madrid signified if not the high point of his time at Spurs, then certainly the end of the road.