Standing on the grass inside a small Norwegian stadium in the north of the Arctic Circle this month, Ange Postecoglou, manager of the Tottenham English Club, flew kisses to his wife in the crowd. Around him, the players and fans who had made the walk joined in the celebration of a rarity in the 142 -year history of the club: a position in the final of the championship of a European tournament.
The Palaciete de Tottenham stadium in northern London, the installation of modern practice and the base of international fans rival those of its greatest competitors in the richest league of sport, the English premier league. His trophies case, however, does not. The club has not won an important trophy since 2008 or an important European tournament since 1984. Its history of approaching but not winning during the national season and the European championship that develop in parallel has generated a pejorative description: “Spursy”.
That drought could end soon. And Posttecoglou could also, the manager who took them there.
Because when Tottenham won in Norway to advance to the final of the Europa League on Wednesday against Manchester United in Bilbao, Spain, he put the club in the strange position of being on the verge of a trophy that has long dreamed to finish a terrible season that would otherwise prefer to forget.
That discordant contrast between the horrible season of the Premier League of Tottenham with his career towards the final of the Europa League, which guarantees the Victor a position in the next season champions league, the most prestigious club tournament in Europe and millions of income that come with the qualification of the qualification of what defines the success at the higher level of global football and if a trophian would be sufficient to save the subsequent work.
“Winning the first trophy of the club in 17 years and its first European in 41 years would be a great achievement and would transform it from the worst manager of the club statistically to one of its most successful,” Alasdair Gold, a reporter from Tottenham for a long time for football. London said NBC News by email.
However, win or lose on Wednesday, Gold believes: “A separation of forms seems inevitable.”
In the Premier League of 20 teams, in which the three lower teams are relegated without ceremonies to a lower division in the English football hierarchy, the Spurs feel 17º with a remaining game. (His opponent on Wednesday, Manchester United, is 16 and mired in his own strange season).
The injuries have eliminated many of Tottenham’s best players. Reaching the semifinals of an English tournament led to even more wear for a team that was already short on fresh legs. And yet Marcus Buckland, a television presenter who organizes a popular podcast about the club, said that the most “catastrophic” domestic performance since he began following the club in the late 1970s went beyond injuries.
“There is an element of disbelief about how bad the spurs have been,” Buckland wrote.
“Having 21 defeats in the Premier League is shameful and cannot be completely attributed to the lesions crisis during the three months of the campaign,” Gold said. “On Wednesday night it will bring a game to decide for many people if pain was worth it or not.”
It would be for Buckland, with a warning. The methods that helped Postecoglou and Tottenham advance through the Europa League, largely against competition with less resources, should not be confused with a foundation in which the club should continue to build.
“These are cutlery for the followers, so, if they win the Europa League, everything else (in the short term) will be forgiven and the 2024-25 season will be considered successful, particularly because the Arsenal failed to win a trophy and the Manchester United will have remained in the pains,” Buckland wrote by email. “However, that does not mean that the manager should keep his job.”
When Tottenham hired Postecoglou in 2023, it was a big difference with respect to their predecessors, which included celebrity managers José Mourinho and Antonio Conte, whose great personalities and championship records that Tottenham expected would be infected. Instead, each burned any good will in two years.
Posttecoglou, on the contrary, was Australian, affable and dear among its players, and had worked on low profile leagues.
He immediately faced skepticism that his style of play, which earned his teams a trophy level during his second seasons training in Australia, Japan and Scotland, would work against rich opponents of the Premier League. Called “Angoball”, the system presses aggressively to score, even at the expense of a vulnerable defense. Last season, his first, Tottenham finished fifth in the League.
This season, despite the numerous injuries, Postecoglou continued playing according to their ideals, without adjusting the system to account for the staff, aggravating failures between the manager and the club’s fans who opened for the first time last season. At one point, you can listen to fans this season singing from the stands: “You don’t know what you are doing.” When, in April, Postecoglou hosted his ear in the direction of fans after a goal from Tottenham, he took in response; He later tried to exhaust that interpretation, saying that he wanted to listen to fans to celebrate after a “crunch goal.”
Both Gold and Buckland said that, although the terrible luck of team injuries was widely recognized, Posttecoglou’s breakdown in communication with fans had contributed to the dissatisfaction of this season. Even so, considering the history of the club, “I think it has to” qualify as a successful season if Tottenham wins the title of the Europa League, Gold wrote.
“It would be a great moment for fans and the club, but it becomes more than one moment and something that changes the narrative around the club depends on what the Spurs do next and if they invest and improve,” he wrote.
When Tottenham and Manchester United align on Wednesday, it should be possible to forget, for two hours, the brutal results in the months that preceded it, said NBC analyst Sports Robbie Metoe, a former Premier League midfielder. Playing for a championship is weird, and you must enjoy.
However, Mustoe acknowledged that “I cannot separate it from a horrible season of the Premier League and a risky style of risk in the best case, reckless, particularly if you do not have your best defenders.”
“Can you imagine a success, a victory, a celebration in the field with fans who are there, a trophy stretch, a manager who really likes players, jumping up and down, a cheerful stadium by Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday to celebrate that, a bus trip open through the city or the area of northern London, and then shoot at the manager?” Mustone said.
“When they finally got a boy who takes them to the line, they will get rid of him and say: ‘I don’t care, it’s not good enough,’ I think that would be hard.”
The question is how much value Daniel Levy, Tottenham’s first Ingutable executive, who rarely talks to the media, would take a trophy. The celebration scene in Norway on May 8 reminded Gold Days Happy Early in the postecoglou mandate. It was also, he said, “something we have not always seen this season in some fractured and difficult moments.”
Postecoglou said Tuesday: “I don’t think my work has done here. There has been some growth that I would like to see.”
