The free kick was 25 yards from goal, just to the right of the D, a good position for a left-footer. Hugo Lloris was concerned enough to demand no fewer than seven of his outfield team-mates form his defensive wall.
From left to right, there was Aaron Lennon, Vlad Chiriches, Danny Rose, Paulinho, Emmanuel Adebayor, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Christian Eriksen. Not the most imposing collection of players, physically speaking, but at least they had 6ft 1in Paulino and 6ft 3in Adebayor — both broad-shouldered and barrel-chested — slap bang in the middle. It all seemed to make perfect sense. Stewart Downing was going to have to work hard for this.
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In the event, the West Ham midfielder scuffed his left boot over the top of the ball. The contact was poor. It wasn’t an accurate strike, and not an especially powerful one either. It sailed at waist height towards the middle of the Tottenham wall. Irony of ironies, it turned out you could’ve just stuck Lennon and Rose in the middle after all. It was easier to block the ball than not. Relax. Regroup. Try and find a way back into this game.
Goal — 2-0 West Ham.
Adebayor and Paulinho had inexplicably both turned their bodies to avoid contact with the ball. Not expecting to see it appearing on his side, Lloris couldn’t react quickly enough to keep the tame shot out.
They had already lost matches by more humiliating scorelines in the 2013-14 season — 6-0 at Manchester City, 5-0 at home to Liverpool, 5-1 at home to Manchester City, 4-0 at Liverpool and Chelsea, and 3-0 at home to West Ham — but this limp act of indifference on a sweltering May afternoon summed up everything wrong with Tottenham Hotspur better than any of those defeats.
They had lost a game — not just any game either, a London derby — and the players didn’t seem particularly bothered about stopping it happening. Two had literally stood aside and let it happen.
When manager Tim Sherwood called it a “spirited performance”, he was fooling nobody.
This was a club that needed fixing. This was a club that needed a proper manager.
“We will try to give everything to make you proud of this football club.”
It’s the kind of soundbite that can so easily come back to haunt a new manager, particularly at a club they don’t know or understand, but these were the final words uttered by Mauricio Pochettino in his first interview as Tottenham Hotspur manager, on May 28, 2014.
In terms of league finish (sixth), the 2013-14 season had been far from the worst in Tottenham’s recent history. Yet the loss of Gareth Bale, the failure of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ brought in to replace him, the public and unedifying unravelling of Andre Villas-Boas, the unsuitably brash and cocksure bluster of Tim Sherwood, and the aforementioned litany of on-pitch maulings meant pride wasn’t exactly the foremost emotion felt by the club’s fans.
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There had been some high points, but the previous four years had seen four successive failures to score another sweet hit of Champions League football — the holy grail for fans as much as it was for the chairman Daniel Levy. Spurs just missing out on the top four had become a punchline. They’d come close, convincing themselves they were over the line, then just missing out to Arsenal and spending the summer licking their wounds and convincing themselves it was better to try and win the Europa League anyway, before doing the whole thing over again from August.
It was an era when the term ‘Spursy’ was used liberally and not without good cause. It had all become rather repetitive, rather draining.
The club didn’t help themselves. Evocative highlights of the 2010-11 wins over Inter and AC Milan were being shown before every match along with the classic clips of Hoddle, Blanchflower and the rest. Fans already just longing for the days of Bale, Modric and Van der Vaart weren’t able to escape the team they had just lost, let alone the legends of the dim and distant past. That said, the fans weren’t much better — one genuinely dreadful fan-produced music video contained the lyrical meme-in-waiting: “top four’s our everything”.
To compound matters, in the early days of Pochettino’s reign, the top four felt as far away as ever.
Yes, a dramatic late win at West Ham on the opening day represented a decent first day on the job for Pochettino — resplendent in an Under Armour tracksuit that made him look like some hip 1960s spaceman — but what is often now forgotten is that his first few months at White Hart Lane were patchy at best.
There was a highly-encouraging 1-1 draw at Arsenal — where Nacer Chadli was booked for shushing the Emirates crowd, and Ryan Mason was not for booting Jack Wilshere into orbit — but wins were proving hard to come by.
Five defeats in 11 league matches will do little to endear a manager to his sceptical new fanbase — not least when four of those losses come at home. By the time Stoke City left North London with the points on November 9, Spurs were 12th in the Premier League table. There were grumbles of discontent in the crowd and one newspaper columnist to lament: “We were promised one of the best coaches in world football, one of the most innovative in the Premier League when Pochettino was headhunted from Southampton. He doesn’t have the answers.”
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Fortunately for Pochettino, he did quite quickly find one answer, namely to the question, “how do you win away matches against lower-midtable sides?” His team would develop a habit for grinding out the kind of hard-fought away wins that were historically anything but a Tottenham trademark — not in the Premier League era, at least.
Often undeserved, often with dramatic late winners, and for some reason often broadcast live on Sky Sports, this run of gritty away performances did a lot to win over a fanbase used to seeing their side wilt when the heat was on. Harry Kane’s fortuitously-deflected free-kick had already seen for Aston Villa, before Christian Eriksen sealed wins in the cities of Hull, Swansea and Leicester. It doesn’t feel like much now (or perhaps that should be “this wouldn’t have felt like much in 2018”) but these wins made a big difference. Aside from anything else, they bought Pochettino some breathing space, a little longer to get his ideas across and implement his philosophy.
But he still needed something more. A showpiece victory. A win that was worthy of DVD release, one to tell the grandkids about, something that could be shown bi-weekly as one of those 15-minute highlight packages that pad out the Sky Sports schedule in the twilight hours.
When league leaders Chelsea arrived at White Hart Lane on New Year’s Day, the expectation was that this would be another home defeat. Jose Mourinho’s team had lost only once in the first half of the season, conceding just 14 goals in 19 matches.
When Diego Costa prodded in a scrappy opener, it looked like being more of the same but a superb Harry Kane strike from 30 yards beat Petr Cech to make it 1-1, and before Chelsea knew it, they were 4-1 down with less than an hour played. Spurs played with real spirit and attacking verve — they wiped the floor with Chelsea and the fans loved it. The final 5-3 scoreline flattered the visitors more than it did the hosts.
As Mourinho grumbled excuses and apportioned blame in the dying seconds, Pochettino — listening intently five yards down the touchline — pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. He knew that whatever Mourinho said, the best team by a distance had won the game.
Ironically, given the events of the last few days, the slow but steady decline in Mourinho’s standing from unquestionable genius to chuntering yesterday’s man can probably be traced back to this humbling at the hands of Pochettino.
“For me, it’s only three points,” Pochettino said after that match. “It is a good victory against Chelsea, who I think are one of the best teams in the world. But this is nothing — in the end, it’s only three points.”
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But it was more significant than that. His team — a Tottenham team — had gone toe-to-toe with one of the elite, and thrashed them. And better still, the club’s own academy graduates were at the heart of it all.
Kane was naturally the poster boy, but Mason, Andros Townsend, Rose (signed from Leeds at 17) and Nabil Bentaleb (signed from Dunkerque at 17) had all played their part too, all having started the match. They helped drag the club to the League Cup final, the dramatic nature of their semi-final win over Sheffield United at Bramall Lane is still recalled fondly by fans despite the subsequent success in more glamorous competitions.
Pochettino had already begun weeding out the players he could see didn’t have the heart for the battle — like Etienne Capoue, Younes Kaboul, not to mention Paulinho and Adebayor — to make way for younger, hungrier troops who would follow his instructions to the letter, without any backchat. If a manager can get his players eating from the palm of his hands, the fans will eventually follow.
By this stage, the nucleus of what will be remembered as “Pochettino’s Tottenham” had been formed. Five of the players that started that rip-snorting win over Chelsea would also start the Champions League final in Madrid four and a half years later, and a more recognisable style had been established; those swashbuckling full-backs, the interchanging of midfield playmakers, the aggressive pressing of the attackers, and Kane scoring goals for fun.
Weeks later, Kane scored another memorable brace in a rousing 2-1 home win over Arsenal — the latter of which, an expertly-placed header back across David Ospina, almost blew the roof off White Hart Lane. This game was a display of passion, aggression and technical brilliance the likes of which Tottenham fans had rarely seen. They had a team they could love again, even if they were still outside the top four.
It wasn’t entirely plain sailing for the rest of the season (a meek 3-0 loss at Stoke left fans shunning the action on the pitch in favour of downing a few more beers and singing “we’re fucking shit” ad nauseum in the stadium concourse), but another narrow away win, this time at Everton, was enough to secure a creditable-but-not-earth-shattering fifth-place finish.
Tottenham were a club moving forward again. More than that, the pride was back.
The name of Leicester City must haunt Mauricio Pochettino more than most. In any other season, an unfancied, underspending side defying the odds to finish third ahead of a glut of cash-rich superclubs would’ve been the fairytale; they would have been the people’s champions. Yet in 2015-16, Spurs were deemed to have finished third in a two-horse race.
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Leicester made history with their incredible title win, ultimately leaving Spurs 11 points behind them. They may have played in two cup finals during Pochettino’s reign, and even finished closer to league winners Chelsea in 2017 but to the fans, that 2016 title will always feel like the one that got away.
The perception is that Spurs bottled it at ‘the business end’ of that season but the reality is that they probably lost the title before they were even in the race.
They followed up a 1-0 opening-day defeat at Old Trafford by blowing a 2-0 lead to draw at home to Stoke, conceding within a minute of going ahead in drawing at Leicester, and failing to break down Everton in a goalless stalemate. It was Tottenham’s worst start to a season in seven years.
Things quickly picked up, thanks in no small part to combining aggressive attacking verve with a newfound ability to defend resolutely and competently.
The arrival of Toby Alderweireld to partner Belgian team-mate Jan Vertonghen in the heart of defence made Spurs more defensively sound than perhaps they ever had been — even the double-winning side of 1961 shipped 59 goals that season (granted, they also scored 136).
This not only allowed Eric Dier to make the step forward as a midfield destroyer and shield; it also gave full-backs Kyle Walker and Danny Rose carte blanche to hurtle forward with gay abandon, safe in the knowledge they had the best in the business behind them to mop up.
Joining playmaker Christian Eriksen, goal-king Kane and snide-in-chief Erik Lamela in the attacking ranks were the boy wonder Dele Alli and happy-go-lucky Son Heung-min. A team that had previously succeeded by combining flair with industry was now oozing sheer class and bristling with the right kind of aggression. And if there are two things supporters love to see from their players, it’s showboating and shithousing. Lamela and Alli in particular were masters of both, and Pochettino loved them for it as much as the fans did.
Continuing to emphasise these strengths helped Spurs win league matches with a regularity not seen since the good old days of Bill Nicholson. Finishing third in 2016 represented their best league placing since 1990, finishing second a year later was their best since Nicholson’s side in 1963. Spurs went from consistently missing out on the Champions League to feeling like tournament regulars, seemingly in an instant. Tottenham was a club transformed, at the dawning of a new golden era like those overseen by Nicholson in the sixties and Keith Burkinshaw in the eighties.
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What Nicholson and Burkinshaw did that Pochettino did not, of course, was bring Tottenham silverware.
He came relatively close a few times, but probably couldn’t claim his side were ever particularly unlucky in falling short, even in domestic cup competitions. In his first season, there was the uninspiring 2-0 defeat to Mourinho’s Chelsea in the League Cup final. Another two-goal Wembley defeat to Chelsea followed, this time 4-2 in the FA Cup semi-finals two years later. Then came another FA Cup semi-final defeat and another loss to Mourinho — with Manchester United in 2018 this time.
Many were, at times, left frustrated by Pochettino’s somewhat dismissive view of those domestic cups. He would regularly downplay the importance of winning such trophies, suggesting winning one “wouldn’t change anything”, and it’s not entirely inconceivable that may have eventually led to some underwhelming performances in cup ties, culminating in 2019’s duo of dismal defeats at Crystal Palace (in last season’s FA Cup) and Colchester United (in the League Cup in September).
But all this was being played out to a backdrop of exciting Champions League adventures the likes of which fans had rarely seen before — watching Tottenham on a Tuesday/Wednesday night when certain other teams were playing on Thursday because they were, in relative terms, ‘fucking shite’.
Pochettino’s side may have struggled in their first Champions League campaign but they bounced back in the next two seasons with wins over Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Inter, Manchester City and Ajax — not to mention credible draws away at Juventus and Barcelona, the latter of which secured progress to the knockout rounds last season when all had appeared lost three games in.
He had moved the club into a whole new stratosphere. Forget putting Tottenham back on the map — he’d dusted off the globe and cracked the lid off his Sharpie. He stopped the club from being a punchline and made it one that others aspired to emulate.
He stopped the club being one people thought could win trophies and made it one many thought should. Ironically, in doing that, Pochettino has also taken Tottenham to a place where they can hire an established trophy-winner such as Mourinho, a man Daniel Levy has wanted at the club since his days at Porto.
It’s impossible not to see that lack of trophies as a blot on Pochettino’s copybook, but to denigrate his achievements completely on that basis would be churlish, not least as what he actually did bring to the club perhaps had more real value to fans.
Other Spurs managers of the last 30 years have enjoyed qualified success, but none have been as universally loved as Pochettino — not since Burkinshaw took the club back into the First Division before winning two FA Cups and the 1984 UEFA Cup. There were always debates surrounding the propriety of Terry Venables and Harry Redknapp, the tactical nous of Martin Jol and Ossie Ardiles, and the personality of George Graham and Villas-Boas.
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A unified fanbase is usually a happy fanbase — gone were the days of terrace squabbling over whether Redknapp had taken Spurs as far as he could, or Villas-Boas was the man to take the club forward. Without question, Pochettino was the boss, and he made going to watch Tottenham a genuinely joyous experience, particularly in that incredible last season at White Hart Lane, before the Wembley experience slowly sucked the life from those in the stands as well as on the pitch.
The simple reason for Poch’s undisputed iconic status is that, when asked who they support, fans would no longer have to sigh or roll their eyes when replying ‘Tottenham Hotspur’.
The pride he promised to instil had been delivered long before May 8, 2019, but That Night In Amsterdam will unquestionably be seen as the high point of the Pochettino era, even if it came two years after his team were at their peak.
They may have been the bookmakers’ slight favourites ahead of the first leg but to see Tottenham win a European Cup semi-final in such an incredible manner would have been inconceivable even 12 months previously, let alone five years or two decades.
Spurs fans loved the images of Pochettino roaring in teary-eyed celebration at the full-time whistle because it tallied perfectly with their own emotions and experiences. For the same reason, they also loved the pictures of the Spurs manager celebrating with his players on the pitch by chugging a beer and singing boisterously — in a far happier mindset than those who had been in the away end at Stoke four years earlier. More than any other moment, this felt like a manager and fanbase completely in sync.
“It’s difficult with words to describe my feelings and my emotions,” Pochettino said after he eventually finished his Heineken and strolled off the pitch. “I think it’s one of the most important nights in my life. It’s impossible to live without the type of emotion football brings. A lot more is in my head but the most important thing I want to say is to congratulate my players. They own the football, they delivered a great job. I’ve told you over the last six months that they are heroes. I think they are superheroes now.
“To get the club to the final of the Champions League I think is very close to a miracle. No-one believed in us from the beginning of the season.
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“It can be amazing to close this chapter by playing a final. If we won, it would be an amazing book. In the last five years, we’ve been so tough on the players to get the best from them. I’ve learned a sentence — no pain, no gain. When you realise this satisfaction, it is all worth it.”
Spurs may have lost the final in Madrid but none of the tens of thousands of fans who made the trip to Spain will regret it. It was, quite possibly, a once-in-a-lifetime experience, even if those same rival fans who had years earlier laughed at Spurs for finishing fifth were now laughing at Moussa Sissoko sticking out an arm and giving away a penalty in the first minute of the biggest game in the club’s history.
Perhaps, then, Pochettino’s greatest achievement was to make getting all the way to the Champions League final only to lose feel like the new ‘Spursy’.
Fans who lived through Alan Sugar’s schmaltz herring, John McGinlay’s hat-trick, Darren Anderton’s injuries, 6-1 home defeats to Chelsea, Andy Booth’s loan spell, “Andy Cole is not a natural finisher”, Rivaldo’s ‘nice’ letter, Roy Carroll, Jon Macken’s header, Grimsby Town, Grzegorz Rasiak, Lasagne-gate, David Bentley kicking a ball into a skip, ‘mind the gap’, ‘1-1 at Newcastle’, ‘selling Elvis and signing the Beatles’ and Tim Sherwood playing Kyle Walker as a No 10 will probably be happy enough with that.
(Photo: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images)
