“I Always Win Things in my Second Year”

After yet another home defeat against rivals Arsenal, few expected Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou to have positive sentiment to share. The loss demonstrated the weakness in Postecoglou’s strategy—his side had 64 percent possession and nearly doubled the opposition, but failed to defend a corner which saw the game’s only goal. Over the course of the season, the Spurs would lose many more matches in a similar fashion, even against teams far weaker on paper. The book was already out on how to dominate Big Ange’s strategy: play defense, send the ball long, and exploit Tottenham’s high defensive line. However, at the end of the game, Postecoglou doubled down on his confidence in his side to capture a title. “I’ll correct myself—I don’t usually win things, I always win things in my second year,” he said to Sky Sports after the match.

By February, however, hope had faded into the horizon. Spurs sat in the bottom five of the Premier League table. The bottom had completely fallen out for Postecoglou’s men, whose starting 11 was a shell of what they once were. Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario injured his ankle in November, which necessitated a 78-day hiatus between starts; star center back Cristian Romero suffered an 86-day absence nursing a hamstring injury; speedy center back and fan-favorite Micky Van De Ven suffered a similar fate requiring 122 days of treatment across the season; and new signing Radu Drăgușin experienced a cruciate ligament tear in January, which will keep him out until at least December 2025. Even second-choice defenders for Postecoglou, like Ben Davies and Destiny Udogie, served significant injury periods (45 days and 44 days, respectively). 

These injuries were just on the defensive end of the pitch. Spurs also spent significant time without attacking midfielder Dejan Kulusevski, midfielder James Maddison, wingers Heung-min Son and Brennan Johnson, and strikers Wilson Odobert, Dominic Solanke, Timo Werner, and Richarlison de Andrade. Many of these injuries were hamstring-related, leading critics of Postecoglou to point to the recovery speed expected of defenders. Since they were playing such a high defensive line, they were expected to make long runs after losing the ball to defend, which correlated with hamstring injuries. Others point to the luck involved with such a string of injuries, given that many were incidental and occurred after contact. 

In spite of these injuries, the Spurs had trophy hopes entering their February matches in both domestic cup competitions. After securing a 1-0 first-leg home victory against Liverpool, the Lilywhites had their Carabao Cup hopes high. However, Liverpool battered Tottenham 4-0 in the return fixture. Even still, they had a shot at securing European football through the Europa League and the FA Cup.

Confidence dampened and hopes diminished, Tottenham had a fixture with Aston Villa in a fourth-round FA Cup tie three days after their disappointing Carabao Cup exit. Even considering injuries, Tottenham had a poor showing by their standards, allowing Villa to dominate every offensive statistic, from possession to shots to passes. Their one showing of offensive threat came from a late consolation goal from loanee Mathys Tel in stoppage time to bring the game to 2-1. Now, there was only the Europa League to break their 17-year curse.

Tottenham turned their focus onto Eredivisie side AZ Alkmaar, a team much weaker in size and quality. However, even with an almost fully healthy lineup, the Spurs lost the first leg 1-0, lacking any attacking threat throughout the game. To make matters worse, striker Solanke, who subbed into the game after returning from injury, had to be taken off after 20 minutes due to another injury scare.

After the game, Son said, “We are going to have to move on [...] We have already passed this game, and it was basically very, very poor.” Though fearful, fans clung to the return fixture against AZ Alkmaar as their final hope, their last chance of redeeming themselves in a season gone horribly wrong. “It is too early to let heads down and give up. We have a massive, massive chance next week, and we need to be ready to try to turn it around,” Son asserted.

In the return leg, Tottenham delivered clinically, putting up three goals and staying defensively sound to secure the 3-2 victory on aggregate, pushing them through to the quarter-finals. After narrowly squeezing by German side Eintracht Frankfurt (2-1 aggregate) and blowing FK Bodø/Glimt out of the water (5-1 aggregate), the Spurs were through to their first European final since the heartbreaking 2-0 Champions League loss against Liverpool in 2019.

The most interesting part of the Spurs’ run to the final was the tactical switch-up facilitated by Postecoglou. AngeBall, Postecoglou’s philosophy of football, which emphasizes a high back line, speedy defensive runs, and possession-hungry pressing, was nowhere to be found in Spurs’ trips to both Frankfurt and Bodø/Glimt. Instead, Tottenham played with a defensive focus. In the second leg in Norway, they allowed FK Bodø/Glimt the lion’s share of possession and focused instead on long clearances and counter-attack play. When speaking with the media, Postecoglou remained headstrong about his tactics. However, for many supporters, it was clear that Postecoglou had to give up his philosophy that limited his side in the Premier League earlier in the season. 

Their opponents in the final would be a Manchester United side hungry for a spot in the Champions League. Alongside the Spurs, they sat in the bottom five of the Premier League table for most of the season, but history was against the Red Devils. In their three meetings this season (twice in the Premier League and once in the EFL Cup), the Spurs managed three wins. A fourth wouldn’t come easily, especially with United manager Ruben Amorim growing comfortable in his role, having thrashed Athletic Bilbao 7-1 on aggregate in the semi-final. 

Postecoglou’s men, though slightly battered, had the luxury of starting much of their first-choice lineup in the match in Bilbao. The match was a cagey affair from its start, with the Red Devils only slightly having an edge. Yet before the break, it was the North London side that found a way, with Sarr’s cross somehow finding Welshman Brennan Johnson, who forced the ball over the line. After the interval, Postecouglou’s side looked completely different, tucking in and fiercely holding onto their narrow lead. With under half an hour to go, in the face of a header from United striker Rasmus Højlund, Tottenham center back Van de Ven acrobatically swooped in and cleared a bouncing ball off the goalline, keeping the hopes of millions of Tottenham fans alive. The men in white managed to hang on to their lead, clearing the ball and putting 11 men behind it at all times.

As the final whistle sounded, not a single Tottenham Hotspur fan cared about how ugly the previous 90 minutes of football were. They were finally freed from a trophy drought that made them one of the laughingstocks of English football. In a year full of fairytale trophy stories, Tottenham Hotspur have finally caught their whale. White Hart Lane had not seen a trophy paraded down its length in over 17 years, but that long drought is finally over.

Beyond adding to their once-dusty trophy cabinet, this game did more than that; it was a game that hit home to Tottenham’s core motto: “To dare is to do.” So often, recent Tottenham sides lacked that cutting edge. But in one of the most unlikely and unexpected seasons, the North London club recaptured that boldness that had defined great Tottenham teams past, daring under Postecoglou’s leadership to become the Tottenham of old once more.