Anybody that knows me knows that soccer is one of my greatest passions. Tomorrow, my club Tottenham Hotspur will face Liverpool to play for the most prestigious trophy in club soccer- the Champions League, formerly known as the European Cup. On this occasion, and before I celebrate or mull about what the actual result may be, I want to describe what is something of a spiritual journey for me.
I started supporting Tottenham in 2011, when the club was led by the outspoken and thoroughly British Harry Redknapp. The club’s underdog identity and perhaps idealistic emphasis on footballing style had a certain romance that I was instantly drawn to. Back then, Spurs were led by three terrific footballers: Luka Modric, Gareth Bale, and Rafael van der Vaart; while others had their moments, it was these three that led Spurs to the 2010-11 Champions League quarterfinals run in their first-ever participation in the tournament, which included a defeat of European champions Inter Milan and the elimination of A.C. Milan. I was instantly enamored by their beautiful and daring play, and the first mainstream English Premier League television coverage in the United States that year enabled me to follow this exciting team more every week.
A young Gareth Bale scored a famous hat trick against previous season’s European champions Inter
After finishing 5th in 2010-2011, the 2011-2012 season saw rivals Chelsea win the Champions League, meaning Spurs would miss out on the Champions League for the second successive season even after finishing in a qualifying spot, as Chelsea finished below Spurs in the league but took a berth in the tournament as the holding champions. Indeed, Tottenham missed out on the Champions League each season until 2016-2017. These years were rough- Redknapp left for the promising Andre Villas-Boas, who was replaced for Tim Sherwood- regardless, Spurs hovered in 5th and 6th, missing out on Europe’s greatest competition year after year by slight margins. Van der Vaart aged and left, while Modric and Bale both left for Real Madrid in what became a European footballing dynasty. New players such as Christian Eriksen, Roberto Soldado, and Erik Lamela came to replace them, but with the exception of Eriksen all of them failed to live up to expectations. Merely qualifying for the Champions League tournament was more than satisfactory to most Spurs fans after these disappointments.
The world record fee for Gareth Bale was re-invested into seven players. None but Eriksen and Lamela remain on the team today.
Things changed after Sherwood’s dismissal in summer 2015. A new coach named Mauricio Pochettino was signed from Southampton. Some fans were unhappy- apparently, legendary Dutch coach Louis van Gaal was also in talks for the Spurs job, yet chairman Daniel Levy had seemingly settled for the unproven Pochettino. This gamble proved to be the single most important thing Levy had done for the club- since finishing 5th in the 2015-2016 season, Spurs have qualified for the Champions League each year (including next year). Pochettino sold or released many of the old players and replaced them with Spurs Academy products like Harry Kane and Harry Winks. Players like Dele Alli and Heung-Min Son were brought in as relatively unheralded prospects who blossomed under the coach’s system. The players publicly praised the manager’s friendliness and his tactical nous became apparent as Spurs came back to win more points than any other team. The team finished 3rd, 2nd, and 3rd in the world’s most competitive league with far fewer financial resources in comparison to their title rivals. Fans began to hope…
Pochettino (left) and Levy (right)
This Champions League campaign has gifted fans some incredible moments. All Spurs fans today will remember these for the rest of their lives: finishing with 1 point from 9 in the first 3 matches, narrowly qualifying to the knockouts after drawing with Barcelona away, outclassing German powerhouses Borussia Dortmund in the first knockout stage, beating English rivals Manchester City in the most dramatic fashion in the quarters, and then topping that with the Lucas Moura strike that defeated Dutch giants Ajax in the sixth minute of stoppage time in Amsterdam. There have been unlikely heroes on like Fernando Llorente and Moura, and the team has rebounded from great adversity, including injury to talisman and top goalscorer Harry Kane.
Now is an incredible time to be a Spurs fan, a new era in the history of a storied club. This year, a new stadium was opened, one of the most advanced football stadiums in the world. Tomorrow Tottenham will play in the biggest game in its 137 year history, a match that generations of fans have likely dreamed of witnessing. We should be forgiven for feeling that we are on the precipice of something great- it’s been a long time coming. Win or lose, tomorrow’s match hopefully marks the first of many Champion’s League finals, as we push to be European elite.