RevSportz Comment
This is Tottenham Hotspur, the club where the fans revolted against managers of the calibre of Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte because they couldn’t identify with their pragmatic approach to winning. This is the Spurs that were the first English team to lift a European trophy – the Cup Winners’ Cup in Rotterdam in 1963 – after a swashbuckling 5-1 demolition of mighty Atletico Madrid.
This is also the club that had last won a European trophy in 1984, when Glenn Hoddle – their talisman, with whom Johan Cruyff had swapped shirts in an earlier round – missed the two-legged final against Belgium’s Anderlecht that was won on penalties. It’s also the institution that hadn’t won a trophy of any kind since 2008.
How do we even make sense of what transpired in Bilbao? Tottenham completed 115 passes all game. Andre Onana in the Manchester United goal didn’t have a save to make, other than the Brennan Johnson effort that was fumbled into the net via Luke Shaw. Spurs spent almost the entire second half camped in front of their own penalty box, and Micky van de Ven produced a goal-line clearance so miraculous that it might one day be immortalised by a statue.
Forget 1963 and the ‘Spurs way’, this was all about 2010, when Mourinho’s Internazionale went to Barcelona and defended for their lives to see off Pep Guardiola and his team 3-2 on aggregate. Ange Postecoglou had arrived at Spurs with a reputation for hard-pressing and attacking football and a certain tactical naivete that had been ruthlessly exposed when his Glasgow Celtic sides played in Europe.
But on the most important night of his football life, the Greek-Australian – whose words about always winning a trophy in his second season had been used to insult and deride him in every imaginable way – tore up the blueprint of a lifetime. The three workhorses in midfield stifled Bruno Fernandes to such a degree that he completed just 11 passes in the first half.
Before anyone gets too critical, remember that Spurs were missing Dejan Kulusevski, their best player this season, and James Maddison, their most creative midfielder. Son Heung-min, who deserved this more than anyone after a decade of sterling service, was only fit enough for the bench. Johnson, who bundled in that winner, had been so mocked by his own fan base, that he had deactivated his social media accounts last September.
But prevail they did, with Guglielmo Vicario producing stunning saves from both Alejandro Garnacho and Luke Shaw, in the dying seconds of added-on time. Afterwards, Postecoglou was his usual combative self.
“It wasn’t me boasting,” he told TNT Sports of his second-season remark that had become an a stick to beat him with for months. “It was me making a declaration. I believed it. Finishing third wasn’t going to change this football club. Us winning something changes this football club.
“There’s no reason why they can’t go into next year believing they can win again and building a team that strives to win things. If you see yourself in that way, irrespective of what the noise is, that’s what the great clubs do. They expect success as they’ve had it. Hopefully this takes the club forward.”
Whether they move forward, go back or stand still, the Spurs faithful will never forget this. Luka Modric, Gareth Bale and Harry Kane couldn’t get them to the promised land, and neither could coaching titans like Mourinho and Conte. Postecoglou and Johnson did. Football can be a funny old game.