Every team has a window. Opportunities at success are fleeting, enabled by the perfect alignment of myriad factors — health, age, form, coaching, the relative strength of rivals. Spain’s dominance of international football between 2008–12, Argentine basketball’s golden generation in the early 2000s, the English rugby union team between 2000–03, Leicester for the nine months of the 2015–16 season. These collectives hit their peak and achieved glory. There are countless more that missed their chance. Once a team is assembled the hourglass is turned and the clock starts counting down to a time when key players get too old or leave, a squad becomes disenchanted with their manager or each other, or their rival simply surpass them.
Mauricio Pochettino’s side find themselves in the midst of that countdown ahead of next week’s FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea. The Argentine was defeated by the same opponents in 2015’s League Cup final in his first season in North London and has yet to win a trophy since taking over the club in 2014. His side return to Wembley a bolder proposition. Just as in the 2014–15 season Chelsea will finish the season atop the table but Tottenham will likely be their closest challenger. With seven games remaining they already have four more points than the 68 they achieved two years ago. Pochettino has fashioned the greediest defence in the division, an uncompromising midfield, and in Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Heung Min Son, and Christian Eriksen, he has forged a devastating attacking symphony. Following two consecutive title challenges and a return to the Champions League, expectations are high in N17. There is also concern. Tottenham fans are pessimistic in nature, there have been false dawns before. Times are good, but how long will they last? Now is the time for their side to turn talent into trophies.
The average of Tottenham’s starting eleven is a little over 25 years old — the lowest in the Premier League. Hugo Lloris is the only starter over 30, though Mousa Dembele and Jan Vertonghen will pass that landmark this year. Time is on Tottenham’s side, and yet it diminishes with every passing game. This is not a team that will age out of contention — as you may have heard Dele Alli only turned twenty-one this past week — but the hourglass is emptying. They will only have so many opportunities to win the Premier League before Guardiola’s tactics (and Manchester City’s finances) start achieving traction at the Etihad, before Manchester United return to dominance. Maybe, just maybe, next year will be Liverpool’s year. Arsenal might even replace Arsene Wenger. Tottenham need to strike while they are ascendant, and relative to their rivals, have their shit together.
Leicester’s improbable title win last season was the epitome of taking advantage of the failings of other, something Tottenham failed to do in spectacular fashion. The decline of Wes Morgan this season, the purple patches of Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy, the brief tenure of N’Golo Kante. The window may be a brief but — in American sports parlance — ‘flags fly forever’.
The footballing food chain is such that Tottenham will always be a club whose players are subject to the attentions of others. The departure of Luka Modric and then Gareth Bale in consecutive summers serves as a warning to Daniel Levy and supporters alike. The apex predators of Europe’s major leagues offer the biggest threat to this Tottenham side. Dele Alli, Harry Kane, and Spurs’ other English stars may provoke the most gossip in the British Isles with talks of swoops, raids, and coups from Manchester and West London, but the likes of Lloris, Alderweireld, and Dembele will also be coveted by clubs with deeper pockets and larger trophy cabinets.
This represents the biggest threat to Tottenham’s hopes of securing silverware with their current team. The age of the exceptional player committing his prime to a team unable to provide the glory they crave is increasingly rare. The age of four or five players doing it never happened. Spurs fans need only look over to their North London rivals to see how quickly a young core once trophies were not forthcoming. Inevitably players will move on from Tottenham, Dele Alli has already spoken of a desire to play abroad, but silverware could certainly extend their stay. It’s imperative for Tottenham fans that this iteration doesn’t go it’s separate ways empty handed.
Bela Guttman, who won back-to-back European Cups with Benfica in 1961 and 1962, never stayed anywhere long. His mantra, that ‘the third year is fatal’, has become increasingly prevalent among elite coaches. Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, and Luis Enrique have favoured short but intense periods before moving on to pastures new. Mauricio Pochettino apes this style. He favours an exhausting approach on and off the pitch, one that risks wearing thin with his charges. A style that was easy to implement and enforce with young players but may start to chafe now that they have developed into international stars. Like those players he has also become coveted around the continent, in the past few months he has repeatedly denied links with Barcelona, and even Arsenal. As Southampton fans can attest, the Argentine is unsentimental and ambitious when it comes to his future. Just as Alli, Kane, and co will outgrow North London so might Pochettino as he comes to end of his third season with the club.
In truth Tottenham may never have a better chance of silverware than last year, a season in which they finished third in a two horse race and concluding the campaign with a 5–1 defeat against a side already relegated. But for now the window of success is right there in front of them, but how much longer? Chelsea will win the league this season, this summer will see both Manchester clubs invest vast quantities, and Liverpool may finally work out to beat the bottom half flotsam that has seen them fall away this season.
Tottenham will be one year older, wiser, and stronger, but also one year closer to Pochettino returning to La Liga, or Harry Kane replacing Wayne Rooney at Old Trafford as he has for England. You need only ask Arsenal and Manchester United fans to discover that the FA Cup has become more of a salve than a cure but victory against Chelsea at Wembley will take this young Tottenham side a step closer to something tangible to mark their inexorable rise.
