My eyes have seen the glory

Sport Review #325

Tottenham Hotspur, famously, do not win anything. But somehow, we beat Manchester United yesterday in a final, and were given a trophy at the end.

It feels unusual. It’s fair to say this has been a tough year decade century to be a Spurs fan.

Spurs ultras dominating a Hamilton 21st, White Hart Lane, East Coast Bays (L-R)

To bring you up to speed, Spurs are a north London football team who pride themselves on doing things stylishly, passing the ball and being creative. We’re special, not like the other teams prepared to put up with boring football to win trophies, we’re about Gazza, Ginola, Modric, Hoddle, mercurial talents who can do things you and I can’t even think of.

That’s all very laudable, but the game caught us up. Everyone plays nice football now, and also win things. We had a generational talent in Harry Kane, who came up through our youth system to become a multiple Premier League golden boot winner and England captain and we still couldn’t win a trophy. Poor old Harry had to go to the Bundesliga to win something.

As an organisation, Spurs love self-inflicted howlers. We’ve had 13 managers since 2000, not including caretakers. Our last great manager Mauricio Pochettino, a big Argentinian with a big heart, made us a consistent contender and took us to the Champions League final despite not being allowed to buy players. We repaid him by giving him no money to build with and sacking him a few months later.

Last year, we hired the big Aussie Ange Postecoglu. I believe in Ange. I drifted in and out of the Tottenham church through the Mourinho and Conte eras of boring football, but he was a breath of fresh air who wears his heart on his sleeve more than seems healthy and had the team playing extremely high wire football that was spectacular when it worked. He got me back in the routine of getting up early to watch Spurs - I’ve watched pretty much every game we’ve played in the last couple of years.

Unfortunately, we’ve been abject this year, losing 21 Premier League matches, a wholly unacceptable number that means Postecoglu will more than likely be managing someone else next season.

But somehow, we made the final of the Europa League, the ‘other’ European competition against Manchester United. The game? Awful. We scored a ridiculously scrappy goal / own goal, and then shut up shop completely, playing with 28% possession and no shots on target.

It was torture - watching the clock, heart racing, cursing the inexplicable seven minutes of injury time produced from nowhere. I had no idea what to do with myself when the whistle went. I ineffectively punched the air and kind of yelped at the video stream on my computer. Then walked the dog and had a busy day at work.

My celebrations so far consist of listening to Tottenham podcasts. And because I am a deeply petty man, also listening to non-Tottenham podcasts and enjoying the haters eating shit.

Our problems are far from over. ‘Spursy’ is still a word people use for failing at the last. We’re a long way from being consistently good, and it’s not even clear what we’re going to do with our current manager.

But fuck it, football is about glory and winning things. Believing and being part of something really cool. I 100% take this trophy won the hard way, our first for 18 years and am enjoying the crap out of this moment. Come on you Spurs.

All about Ange:

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Thanks for reading - Richard

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Video nasty

Calm down.

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