Antonio Conte in the stands. A partisan crowd at the Stade Velodrome. Fireworks outside the team hotel. A nucleus of current or former Arsenal players in the Marseille side. No Dejan Kulusevski, no Richarlison and after 25 minutes, no Son Heung-min due to injury. A contentious VAR decision the week before. The club’s infuriating tendency to scale the ladder only to come sliding down a big snake. The “history of the Tottenham” as Giorgio Chiellini put it. Tottenham‘s must-not-lose clash with Marseille seemed perfectly set up for another “Spursy” collapse.
Although Spurs topped their Champions League group heading into their final game, only the most optimistic – of which there surely can’t be many – supporters would have expected them to end the night in the same position. Thursday nights in the Europa League beckoned. So too the taunting of Arsenal fans, Chelsea fans, West Ham fans and the rest. And for 50 or so painful first-half minutes, the game went exactly as many had predicted it would.
Marseille, a team that had lost four of its previous six games in all competitions before kick-off, were made to look like world-beaters. It was an onslaught. The hosts had seven shots to Tottenham’s two (both of which came in added time), 69 per cent of the ball and were roared on by a vociferous support desperate to illuminate the night sky with bright flumes of red smoke at any whiff of an opportunity. They got their chance in first-half stoppage time when Chancel Mbemba powered a header into the bottom corner.
It was precisely the type of passive, negative first-half showing that Spurs have routinely served up this season. They have fallen behind in nine of their previous 12 matches and that doesn’t include a battering they took at Old Trafford when the scoreline could have been 5-0 at the break rather than 0-0. Rio Ferdinand described their latest show of non-ambition as “embarrassing” on BT Sport, while the words “Conte Out” were trending on Twitter. It looked certain to be an unhappy first anniversary for Antonio.
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Spurs seemingly caught their hosts off-guard with their sudden tempo shift and no player encapsulated their renewed energy more than Rodrigo Bentancur, who single-handedly dragged the team up the pitch with his relentless pressing from the front. Even in the data age, it is practically impossible to access footballer’s running stats, but Bentancur must have run David Beckham’s 16.1km against Greece in 2001 close. He covered every blade of the Velodrome pitch.
There is a suspicion that some Premier League stars have, quite naturally, started to play within themselves lately to try and ensure their participation at the World Cup. That is evidently not the case with Bentancur, who if anything has ramped up his effort even more. Uruguay’s head coach Diego Alonso must be watching Tottenham’s games from behind his fingers.
When Spurs signed Bentancur from Juventus, there was an expectation that they were acquiring an accomplished but unfussy ball player who would sit in front of the defence and keep things ticking over. That does the 25-year-old a gross disservice; he is rapidly becoming a complete central midfielder, marrying those technical qualities with the insatiable desire of a puppy chasing a tennis ball for the first time and the lung capacity of an ultra marathon runner.
You voted Rodrigo Bentancur as your Player of the Match
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) November 2, 2022pic.twitter.com/iHzQOrcvsK
Harry Kane and the match-winner in Marseille, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, run him close, but Bentancur has been Tottenham’s Player of the Season so far. Bentancur and Hojbjerg cost Spurs around £40m combined, which equates to roughly three-quarters of a Tanguy Ndombele. Considering the predicament that Juventus find themselves in, their decision to gift Bentancur and Kulusevski to Spurs appears more baffling by the week.
There will still be those critical of Conte’s tactical approach regardless of this result and performances on the whole and given the attacking quality in the squad, those complaints have some merit. Nevertheless, while Spurs made hard work of what was a relatively kind Champions League group, they warrant praise for turning it around as elimination beckoned.
Hugo Lloris, Eric Dier, Ben Davies and Kane have been ever-present in Spurs’ nearly years, playing in more lost finals and damaging defeats than they would care to remember. This time the experienced players stood up. Spurs teams have frequently been accused of lacking spirit, determination and fight, but in Marseille, they demonstrated such qualities. The jubilant dressing scenes suggested a mental barrier had been overcome.
Perhaps it’s time to give some credit where it’s due.
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