There are plenty of things to talk about after Tottenham Hotspur’s thrilling 3-4 friendly win over the K-League All-Stars in Seoul today, part of Spurs’ ongoing preseason tour to Asia. The heat and humidity were by all accounts oppressive, but both teams put together solid performances, and the seven goals gave the 63,000+ fans in attendance an exciting viewing experience.
Son Heung-Min had a brace in his home country with additional goals from Dejan Kulusevski and Will Lankshear, and Spurs continued to give important minutes to young and new players with the Premier League season fast approaching. Spurs fans also got their first real look at new signing Yang Min-Hyeok, who started at left wing for the All-Stars and had some exciting moments in attack against his new team. In addition, defender Radu Dragusin got his first preseason minutes a couple days after joining his teammates in Korea.
One of the notable things to come out of this match was Ange Postecoglou’s decision to start the match with an extremely young central midfield of Pape Sarr, Lucas Bergvall, and Archie Gray. While this is unlikely to be Spurs’ midfield lineup in week 1 of the Premier League, it is probably a glimpse into Tottenham’s future and it especially gave Bergvall and Gray an opportunity to play significant minutes in what we assume will be their long-term positions at the club.
All three midfielders had some good and not-so-good moments during the match. Ange Postecoglou was asked about the midfield three in the post-match press conference, and he seemed to admit that this was about development and not necessarily what we’ll see against Leicester City on August 19.
“Yeah, I thought it worked ok. Obviously they are three very young players in that midfield set up and as you said, the first time they had played together. But yeah, for the most part I thought they handled it pretty well. I think Lucas found it tough physically. It’s a very demanding role in there and it’s going to take us a while to get him up to speed from a physical perspective, but you can see the quality he has when he’s on the ball.
“And Archie, he’s what he’s shown the whole time. He’s been very composed, he seems to understand the game really well and for the most part, I thought he was taking up the right positions. But again, physically I think we’re gonna have to build him up. I thought Pape’s running is just unbelievable. He’s a benchmark for us in that midfield area.
“So, yeah, I think the three of them - considering they’re so young and that’s the exciting bit - if we keep pushing them and improving them, they’re going to be very good footballers for us.”
Postecoglou admitted that he’s worked his players pretty hard in preseason and especially while on tour. The heat in Japan and Korea has been notable, and the players did seem to wilt a bit as the match went on. Postecoglou was caught on a hot mic at one point angrily exhorting to his players to up their intensity at one point late in the first half, as his players seemed to be backing off in the press. When asked about it, Ange said it was about fitness and mentality in harsh conditions.
“Nothing really specific. It was more just about making sure we kept pressing on, because with the conditions the way they are and the training loads been pretty high, I didn’t want us to back off in that moment and really [wanted to] push to half-time just more for our fitness than anything else. We thought it was a good opportunity for us to push on and try to be even more aggressive than we had been up to that point. you guys signed a big young talent in Korea.”
Tottenham led 3-0 at the break, but the K-League All-Stars roared back early in the second half with a fully rotated XI, scoring two goals to cut into Tottenham’s lead. Postecoglou was asked about the defensive let-up, but Ange didn’t want to make too much out of a friendly that was more about fitness and challenge and less about results.
“I thought it was a good game. It’s difficult obviously, you know, the side in the first half I thought still did well against us but the side coming on in the second half are fresh and they’re going to look a lot fresher than our guys who are backing up.
“I think for us all these friendly games, the important thing is that they’re good exercises for us to keep building our fitness and keep building the way we want to play our football. I thought both the teams today in the first half and second half gave us a good test, gave us a push which I want the players to have and we entertained the crowd. I think both teams.
“I think that’s important. We had 63,000 people here today, a great atmosphere. From the moment we arrived, we’ve had people really excited to see us and I think our responsibility is to, to make sure we put on a good game for them and there were some great goals from both teams tonight and I’m sure they enjoyed the night.”