JUNE 4 — Sometimes I wish I could find a lamp in some desert cave, rub it and meet a genie who could either a) ensure Tottenham win the English Quadruple — the Premier League title, the FA Cup, the Carling Cup and the Champions League title — every year or b) genuinely make me want to support another football club.
Because, up to and including last Sunday, being a Spurs fan can be a perennially painful thing.
Last weekend, after having accomplished no fewer than three miraculous feats in the Champions League to reach the Final — namely, qualifying for the knockout rounds by drawing with Barcelona at Camp Nou, going through the quarterfinals despite losing to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium, and scoring three goals in the second half (including one in stoppage time) to beat Ajax Amsterdam in Holland — the Spurs fizzled out in a 2-0 defeat to Liverpool.
It was heart-breaking that nobody wearing a lily-white shirt could find the back of the Reds’ net (despite the barrage of attacks in the second half).
In fact, during the first half, a barely-dressed woman ran onto the pitch; unfortunately, she seemed to show more enthusiasm for the match than Tottenham’s first 11.
Yet, having said all this, every Spurs fan can will say without a doubt the team has come a long way.
Because, as most football fans know, Tottenham Hotspur is NOT the team anyone would bet money on to become a Champions’ League finalist.
Until this year (and last weekend), football history simply rendered that impossible.
The “Best of the Rest” in the Premier League
I only "seriously" started supporting Tottenham in 2004, just about when Martin Jol took over.
These were the years when Arsenal could go to the Lane and trash the homeside 1-3, when Tottenham missed out on Champions’ League qualification because they lost a final game to West Ham on account of (allegedly) some poorly cooked lasagne they ate the night before, when defeating Chelsea 2-1 felt like winning the league, when — essentially — coming in no better than 5th was virtually a given at the start of the season.
I can only imagine the pain of older fans, especially those throughout the 80s and 90s, who at best could only enjoy the dazzling skills of stars like Gary Lineker, Paul Gascoigne, Jurgen Klinsmann and David Ginola without seeing the club go anywhere near European glory.
I can vaguely remember an FA Cup semi-final when Gazza hit a crazy freekick to open the scoring against Arsenal, which Spurs went on to beat.
That goal, plus the FA Cup Tottenham eventually won by beating Nottingham Forest 3-1 (how on earth can I recall all this?!) was one of the very few shining moments in Tottenham’s story worth writing home about.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, would’ve bet even a cent on Tottenham reaching the final of the tournament consisting of the top clubs in Europe, usually the top four from any country’s league.
Even in 2010, when Harry Redknapp finally led Spurs to face the European giants (after God only how many decades), the team was unceremoniously knocked out 5-0 by Real Madrid.
Seven years later, Tottenham would defeat the Spanish Vikings 3-1 at Wembley in the same competition — but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Up, down and up again
The Jol years gave Spurs fans hope because it brought something new to the team.
Suddenly the chances of achieving top 4 was no longer a bookmaker’s dream.
Players like Dimitar Berbatov brought real class to the club; his partnership with Robbie Keane remains one of the most memorable in Premier League history.
But after Rednapp’s firing in 2012, the club went through a familiar pattern of depression.
Managers Andre Villas-Boas and, for a few months, Tim Sherwood, failed to bring back that feeling of glory to the club.
I can still remember looking in disbelief at Spurs losing by five or six unanswered goals to teams like Manchester City and Liverpool (themselves in the heyday of the Suarez-Sterling-Sturridge trio).
It seemed like the club was back to the familiar "not terrible but nowhere near great" pattern.
With the arrival of Mauricio Pochettino, of course, everything changed. Within just two years, Tottenham Hotspur became title contenders, losing out to Leicester in 2016 (and also to Arsenal for the second spot at the very last game).
Even in 2015, Tottenham was the only team to hit five goals past Chelsea in a thrilling post-New Year Day 5-3 victory.
In 2018, they came in second in the Premier League, beat the likes of Real Madrid in Europe and, oh my, this year reached the final of the Champions’ League in 2019 against all the odds.
And, yes, Tottenham is in the Champions’ League for the third straight year, something almost unfathomable 10 years ago. And to think I actually preferred Louis Van Gaal to replace Sherwood.
As your football enthusiast friends will tell you, Tottenham achieved all this in the 2018/2019 season without buying any new players, with the likes of Harry Kane injured for months and while playing most of the year at Wembley while waiting for their new stadium to open (having been delayed many months).
Success factors?
How do you explain a football club’s meteoric rise from "always fifth" to "regular top four" and even Champions League finalist?
The best answers I’ve heard are, well, the influence of Pochettino himself.
Only watch some of his interviews online and you can see that one of his most clearly defining traits is humility and friendliness.
Poch, as he’s affectionately known in the press, has none of the arrogance of a Jose Mourinho, the combativeness of an Arsene Wenger, the grand hyper-confidence of a Pep Guardiola.
Who knew that emotional calmness, flexibility and friendship could be a motivating factor for top performers to gel well as a team?
Poch’s tears after the semi-final win against Ajax melted, I’m sure, many hearts other than those of Tottenham fans. There’s a passion and authenticity to the man which, I suspect, has filtered down to the team.
And what a team. All credit to the Spurs’ talent scouts and the coaching staff. It’s not often that world-class players like Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Huge Lloris, Son Heung-Min, and many others, can be nurtured to become household names from previously being virtual nobodies.
Whatever the reasons — and no matter how clichéd this sounds — this year Tottenham Hotspur has embodied that crazy persistence to keep on trying and never giving up no matter what.
Despite many setbacks — including an away game against Bournemouth last May in which two players were sent off, and overall earning only 10 points in about three months since February — the club has shown that in the end, the past doesn’t matter as much as the continual effort to keep pushing ahead, in spite of everything.
Come on, you Spurs! Keep daring, keep doing!
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
