Hello! It’s all change in the technical area at Tottenham Hotspur again. They’ll get it right this time — won’t they?
Coming up:
Tottenham’s Tudor era last 44 days
(Michael Regan/Getty Images)
If nothing else, Tottenham Hotspur’s choice of interim head coach was good for jokes about the shortest Tudor reigns in history (I’m making the assumption that you know the lineage of the English royal family). Igor Tudor achieved little more at Spurs, and yesterday, he and the club went their separate ways.
His tenure spanned 44 days — the fourth-shortest seen in the Premier League — and the speed at which he and Tottenham faced facts was an admission from both sides of how badly they called this. Spurs were in a poor state when they sacked Thomas Frank. They’re in an even worse position now. Tudor wasn’t cut out for a crisis (or not this one, anyway) and if anything, six weeks of him have made the shadow of relegation darker again.
At the same time, Tottenham’s failings didn’t start or end with Tudor (a point Tim Spiers was at pains to make when the inevitable news about his departure came). Put bluntly, they cannot pick a coach for toffee, and one more error could be fatal for their Premier League status. We’re in an era of sporting directors, heads of recruitment, layer upon layer of technical management, and some of these figures like to think of themselves as the cleverest people in the room. Often, the evidence is to the contrary.
As a rule, a club’s head coach carries the can, and so it is at Spurs. Tudor made mistakes, the worst of them the decision to start goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky on a dire Champions League night against Atletico Madrid. Jay Harris has summarised the various missteps. After one point from five Premier League matches, he had to go, but who would feel confident that another change is the answer to Tottenham’s prayers?
Can Spurs coax De Zerbi to north London?
The man Spurs aim to enlist next is Roberto De Zerbi. If they get their way, he’ll answer their immediate SOS but also sign a long-term contract. For all his volatility, he’d be a better solution than paying a further temporary measure for the seven games that are left — and hoping to God whoever it was had a defter touch than Tudor.
Tottenham’s hierarchy have made a substantial offer to De Zerbi, the former Brighton boss who is out of work after leaving Marseille last month. There are two complications with him, however. One is that De Zerbi would rather take the job in the summer (who can blame him?). The second is that a section of Spurs’ support are running a ‘No to De Zerbi’ campaign, objecting to him on the grounds of his support for forward Mason Greenwood at Marseille.
Greenwood was arrested in January 2022 while playing for Manchester United. He was charged with attempted rape, assault and coercive control, but the case was later discontinued. The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service said “a combination of the withdrawal of key witnesses and new material meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction”. Greenwood denied all charges against him, but United decided to move him on and the accusations made subsequent transfers politically sensitive. De Zerbi took him to Marseille in 2024.
Somehow, and with all the noise around them, Spurs have to find a sober remedy to the mess they are in. And having misjudged Tudor’s capacity to save them so badly, they’re embarking on a fretful last throw of the dice — as big a decision as the club have ever faced.
News round-up
- Senegal won’t be letting the Africa Cup of Nations trophy out of their sights any time soon. Though they’ve been stripped of the 2025 title, they made a pointed gesture by parading it around the pitch before a 2-0 friendly win over Peru on Saturday. “Everybody knows we are champions of Africa,” said coach Pape Thiaw.
- Mexico’s Estadio Azteca, which hosted the 1970 and 1986 World Cup finals, reopened at the weekend after vast renovation work. Now officially called Estadio Banorte, the moment was marred by the death of a fan at the arena. The authorities are investigating the circumstances.
- Romania head coach Mircea Lucescu is recovering in hospital after being taken ill at the team’s national training base. At 80, Lucescu would have been the oldest coach at this summer’s World Cup had his side made it through the UEFA play-offs (Turkey eliminated them last week).
- Wrexham lost £14.85million ($19.7m) on their way to promotion from League One during the 2024-25 season. But an annual turnover of £33.35m is extraordinary for a team in that division — and it won’t be far off £50m in the Championship this term. They’re punching.
- No fewer than 10 Arsenal players have withdrawn from international duty for medical reasons. Martin Zubimendi is the latest to head home. We’ll watch with interest to see how many of them miss Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final at Southampton.
- Eagle Football, the multi-club empire controlled by ex-Crystal Palace shareholder John Textor, has been placed into administration. A London-based insolvency firm is looking for buyers for Textor’s stakes in Brazilian side Botafogo, French side Lyon, and Belgian side RWDM Brussels.
Some serious eye ache in USMNT defeat
There’s a lot to unpack from the USMNT’s friendly defeat to Belgium over the weekend, but let’s start with amateur hour involving the teams’ respective kits.
If you followed the game on television, you’ll have seen the absurd clash between shirts that weren’t far off identical to the naked eye. Colour-blind spectators find similar tops hard to distinguish from time to time. Everybody was struggling to see the difference between the hosts’ red-and-white-striped jerseys and Belgium’s pale blue-and-pink strips on Saturday.
It was so obviously bad that the U.S. considered sourcing a different kit from their team hotel after the match in Atlanta kicked off. Christian Pulisic said the situation was “difficult to deal with”, Belgium’s Amadou Onana called it “awful”, and Senne Lammens complained to Belgium’s kitman at half-time, to no avail.
There’s a commercial aspect to the shambles because the two groups of players were wearing newly released kits that were on show for the first time. They were approved because, somehow, none of those responsible spotted an issue. The match officials didn’t intervene either.
As for the game itself, the USMNT took a bit of a hiding, accentuating the negatives. Henry Bushnell wrote last week about a defence that wasn’t picking itself, and a 5-2 defeat hardly helped in that respect. Pulisic (incredibly) has gone almost two years without a goal internationally, and has yet to score for Milan in 2026: a worrying drought.
This month marks 10 years since the forward’s American debut, and our desk has done a top piece on his decade with the USMNT. He is key to their World Cup fortunes, but my word, he needs to find his mojo. As do Mauricio Pochettino’s squad, full stop.
Three in four fans want video refereeing scrapped, says survey
(Molly Darlington/Getty Images)
As unpopular as the Premier League’s Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system can be, I’ve long assumed that it’s here to stay. The cogs are turning, the technology’s been paid for, and like it or not, we have to lump it.
But the results of a new survey published this morning suggest I’m being presumptuous. Carried out by the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA), it found that 76 per cent of FSA members — those who follow Premier League teams — want the VAR system scrapped. Nine out of 10 think it has made football less enjoyable to watch. A mere 3.2 per cent believe it has improved the game.
It’s a damning vote of no confidence, considering that the Premier League’s system has been in operation since the 2019-20 season (so into its seventh year now). Tweaks to it have been endless, but the masses are more unconvinced than ever. Can any concept survive such extreme levels of disillusionment?
Around TAFC
- Adam Ankers was a player for the foundation team at English club Wycombe Wanderers. He died in 2024, aged 17, after suffering a cardiac arrest during a game. His family hope lessons will be learned from the sudden loss of their son. Danny Taylor heard them tell their story.
- Iraq got themselves a highly capable managerial team when they paired up Australian head coach Graham Arnold with assistant Rene Meulensteen. Tomorrow’s play-off against Bolivia stands between them and a World Cup place. Meulensteen found time to chat to Phil Buckingham about their chances.
- Spain winning the 2010 World Cup was the culmination of one of the biggest forces of nature international football has seen. It was Spain’s time and they seized it, albeit without hitting their swashbuckling best. Michael Cox looked back at their triumph.
- Quiz question: Name the 10 countries who have played at every World Cup in the 21st century (that’s 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022). You’ll find the answers here.
- Most clicked in Friday’s TAFC: Brennan Johnson’s costly penalty miss for Wales.
And Finally…
(Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
They pay him a mint, they’re giving him shares in the club, and now Inter Miami have gone the whole hog by naming a stand at their new ground after Lionel Messi. The Nu Stadium stages its first match this Saturday.
It’s kind of weird because a) Messi is an active player, and b) he’s been on Miami’s books for less than three years. All four of the stands at Leeds United’s Elland Road, for instance, are named after footballers or managers who achieved iconic status for them in the 1950s, ’60s or ’70s. But then again, Miami weren’t founded until 2018 — and who, in reality, has done more to enhance their profile than Messi?