The New York Times

If you have ever caught yourself scrolling on Instagram Reels or TikTok, chances are you have come across a retired forward “building” their perfect Premier League striker.

In almost every category, the options are plentiful and debate-worthy. Wayne Rooney chose Cristiano Ronaldo for heading and finishing, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for speed. Alan Shearer opted for Duncan Ferguson for heading and Andy Cole for finishing, though he would be an appropriate pick for both. There are almost zero undisputed masters of one skill across all Premier League strikers, but when it comes to first touch, there is only ever one answer: Dimitar Berbatov.

Berbatov scored 94 Premier League goals across spells at Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and Fulham, and is a two-time Premier League and League Cup winner, yet his deft control became his trademark. Having retired in 2018, the 45-year-old regularly posts videos on social media of himself practising his touch at home in his native Bulgaria, and describes it as his best skill.

On May 31, he will display that feather touch on English soil again when he features for the World XI in Soccer Aid.

He has played twice previously in the charity game run by UNICEF, scoring twice in the 2016 edition and playing primarily in defence in 2022. In a much deeper role than he’s used to, he bossed the game from centre-back in that second run-out, completing 37 of his 38 passes (97 per cent), according to FotMob, Soccer Aid’s official data partner.

This year, Soccer Aid returns to the London Stadium, home of West Ham United, who are currently in a tense relegation battle with Spurs, the club where Berbatov made his name in England. He arrived in north London in 2006 and helped win the 2008 League Cup before leaving for Manchester United a few months later.

A crucial 2-1 victory on Sunday against Aston Villa lifted Tottenham out of the bottom three, one point ahead of West Ham in 18th, and Berbatov is confident they have enough to beat the drop.

“I want them to stay in the Premier League. I can’t even imagine them going down,” Berbatov, who scored 27 league goals for Spurs across two seasons, tells The Athletic. “They’re in a tough spot, and I’ve been there, actually, with my former team Bayer Leverkusen (in Germany), so I know how nerve-racking it can be to be near the bottom and fighting for survival.

“Even to associate this type of sentence with Spurs, survival in the Premier League and Spurs — I never thought that I would ever talk about something like this.

“When you’re in a position like this, the pressure is too much sometimes. I hope the boys can stay strong in the head. They have the quality. They have good players, they just need concentration and to stay strong in the head.”

Roberto De Zerbi’s side impressed without the ball at Villa Park, led by midfield trio Joao Palhinha, Rodrigo Bentancur and Conor Gallagher. This high-intensity style may be the Italian’s best route to success in the final three matches of the Premier League season, after inheriting the ongoing injury saga that started under Ange Postecoglou last season and continued in the current one under Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor. De Zerbi will be without Dejan Kulusevski, Mohammed Kudus, Cristian Romero and Xavi Simons for the remainder of the season.

“They do have the qualities, but the injury to Xavi Simons is a big blow,” says Berbatov, referencing how the Dutch forward ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in the 1-0 win against Wolverhampton Wanderers last week. “He was just starting to show how big a talent he is. I like him a lot. This is how cruel football can be.

“The list of injured players can show you a deeper issue going on. It’s about how the players take care of themselves before, during and after the games, how they relax and take care of their bodies. Then comes the medical department, the physios, the doctors and how they’re caring for injured players. It’s all connected. And sometimes, if there are many injuries, you need to check this over. Also, the training methods: are they training when they’re a bit injured? Sometimes players should rest, and training can cause muscle stress. It’s been a problem for Spurs for quite some time.”

Tottenham’s injury woes may be the main reason for their alarming slide from perennial European-qualification contenders to relegation candidates over the past two seasons. But there have also been frequent changes in the dugout, with seven managers since Mauricio Pochettino was sacked in November 2019, and a major change in the boardroom, with the Lewis family removing Daniel Levy from his role as executive chairman last September.

Levy had been chairman since 2001, and Berbatov became well aware of his infamously tough negotiation style, waiting until the final day of the summer 2008 transfer window to sanction his move to Old Trafford.

In Berbatov’s view, a lack of continuity leads to instability within a club, which eventually seeps into the dressing room.

“If there’s no stability in the football club, it’s going to affect everybody down the chain,” says Berbatov. “In the case of Daniel Levy, who I obviously had a working relationship with back in the day, he was always there to support the team and put it first. The stadium, the training ground, state-of-the-art facilities… he knows how to do business and make money with the team, and then invest it into the team and into the new stadium and training facility.

“When that time is gone, and a new chairman steps in, it can raise questions. It can lead to instability within the team, especially when you’re losing games. So that can altogether bring a stressful situation for the players. And it can lead to losing games, as simple as that. Are Levy leaving and Spurs’ current position interconnected? Would they be in this position if Levy were still there? They’re relevant questions, but I don’t know the answer.”

But for the Bulgarian, there’s no doubt about what decision Manchester United’s board should take on his former team-mate Michael Carrick. Since replacing the fired Ruben Amorim on an interim basis in January, Carrick has won 10 of his 14 matches in charge, including beating Manchester City, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Liverpool. In Berbatov’s view, that makes him a no-brainer permanent appointment come the summer.

“United were in a bad situation before, now we are third, and qualified for the Champions League,” he says. “So if that’s not Michael Carrick and his team doing the right job, I don’t know what it is. So I truly hope that whoever needs to decide their next coach says, ‘Michael, you’ve done a terrific job, pulled us out of a difficult situation, and you deserve to continue’. I mean, that’s logical thinking. But sometimes in football, logic is not present.”

Carrick immediately switched away from the rigid 3-4-3 formation used under Amorim and implemented a 4-2-3-1 shape, restoring many of United’s best players, notably Bruno Fernandes, to their most comfortable roles. They are also playing more passes, focusing possession through the middle of the pitch, and not committing to such a high press.

“The players are the same from Amorim, but you can see the clear difference in how the team is playing,” Berbatov says. “Sometimes it’s not even about tactics; it’s about the manager’s ability to communicate with the players. When you’re talking about big teams, it usually means big players with big egos, so you need to know how to speak with them. You need to know how to put your message into them so they can put it onto the pitch.

“Sometimes, these players just need to know that you believe in them and give them the freedom to do what they need to do on the pitch. You know this is also about conversation, dialogues between each other. Casemiro has won five Champions Leagues — he knows how to boss a midfield. Just go out there and do your job.

“You have managers who understand man-management, how to speak with you differently, because everybody is different. That’s exactly what United needed, and Michael has produced it.”

It felt very strange, disconcerting even, to watch a top-five Premier League side at the weekend waving the white flag of surrender so meekly against a team that had the chilly fingers of relegation closing round their necks.

“Angry fans claim Unai Emery’s line-up against Spurs needs investigating,” read the headline on the Daily Mail’s website after Aston Villa’s obliging 2-1 home defeat to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.

Other newspapers and media outlets reported the same. And while it is not usually recommended to base entire articles on social-media discourse, it was easy to understand on this occasion why so many people had been worked up into a froth of indignation.

Emery had made seven changes to his team, conscious that Villa had a six-point cushion in the Champions League qualifying positions and prioritising their Europa League semi-final against Nottingham Forest on Thursday.

His team went on to produce the most half-hearted performance you might see from any club in England’s top four divisions this season. Don’t be fooled by the scoreline. Villa were atrocious and the ramifications for West Ham, in particular, could be grievous bearing in mind Spurs have gratefully leapfrogged their London rivals to move out of the relegation places.

Don’t assume either that this might be the last occasion this season that something of this nature occurs.

Just imagine Crystal Palace’s priorities if they were to get to the Europa Conference League final. Oliver Glasner’s team have a 3-1 lead over Shakhtar Donetsk from the first leg. The return fixture is at Selhurst Park on Thursday and, if Palace make it through, they will head to Leipzig, Germany, on May 27 for the first-ever European final in their history.

Yet, three days earlier, they have a Premier League game that might go a long way to deciding the destination of the title. Their opposition on May 24 is Arsenal, currently locked in a two-way battle with Manchester City for the silverware. And who, realistically, could imagine Glasner fielding a full-strength side against Arsenal if the alternative is to keep back his first-choice XI for the final?

Unfortunately for City, five points adrift with a game in hand after their draw at Everton, there isn’t a whole lot that can be done about it.

They can feel aggrieved, yes, and we can be sure there will be complaints about the integrity of the competition being in question (not that City, for obvious reasons, usually get much sympathy on that front). Yet it would be futile calling for investigations or top-level intervention when the reality is that if City were in that position — or any other team, for that matter — they would do exactly the same.

The same applies to West Ham, as the team that has suffered the most from Villa’s anaemic performance at the weekend. West Ham, indeed, should know better than most that this is not a new development. They have, after all, been on the other side of this story in the past.

On the final day of the 2006-07 season, West Ham needed a point at Manchester United, then the best team in the country, to avoid relegation. Sir Alex Ferguson’s team had already secured the title and, the following weekend, played Chelsea in the FA Cup final. So you can probably guess what happened next. Ferguson held back some of his big-hitters for Wembley and Carlos Tevez’s goal meant West Ham winning 1-0 at Old Trafford to send Sheffield United down instead.

Neil Warnock, then Sheffield United’s manager, never forgave Ferguson for his team selection. “I was disappointed. You would have hoped and thought that, in the last game of the season, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nemanja Vidic and probably two or three more, might have played,” he said. “I think Sir Alex sold me a dummy in midweek when he said he would field a strong team. Maybe the FA Cup final is more important to him.”

The previous weekend, Liverpool had a game at relegation-threatened Fulham. Yet Rafael Benitez, the Liverpool manager, was also preparing for a Champions League final against Milan and rested players for the trip to Craven Cottage. Fulham won 1-0 and stayed up.

“At least I knew the players that (Manchester United) were playing,” Warnock added. “I didn’t even know two of those that played for Liverpool at Fulham… but when you are a foreign manager like Rafa Benitez, you probably don’t give two hoots about what Sheffield United think.”

The counter-argument from Ferguson was that he should be allowed to pick whoever he wanted without being blamed, in a 38-game season, for another team’s relegation. And that, in short, is the bottom line here, especially when every club is required to submit a 25-man squad at the start of the season.

Palace did the same in their goal-less draw against West Ham last month (Nuno Esperito Santo’s side just weren’t able to take advantage) and it could conceivably happen against Everton on Sunday, too. But the point remains: who can blame Palace for prioritising their European games at this stage of the season and the possibility of a historic trophy?

As for the idea that the Premier League should take action against the relevant clubs, that is largely mooted because it has happened in the past. Wolves were given a suspended £25,000 fine for making 10 changes in a 3-0 defeat at Manchester United in 2009. Blackpool, then a Premier League club, had to pay £25,000 for doing the same in a 3-2 loss against Villa the following year. Both clubs reacted angrily to the sanctions and Blackpool’s manager, Ian Holloway, threatened to resign in protest.

Since then, however, the rules have been changed to allow teams to make extensive changes. And, if you want the evidence why, what happened at Chelsea is a good place to start.

Vitor Pereira, manager of Nottingham Forest, made eight changes to his line-up. He, too, was prioritising the Europa League semi-final at Villa Park on Thursday. Forest hold a 1-0 lead over Villa from the first leg and, when the teams were announced from Stamford Bridge, there must have been supporters of West Ham and Spurs who were delighted to see Pereira gamble that way.

Yet Forest were 2-0 ahead inside the opening quarter of an hour and ran out 3-1 winners. They were quick to the ball, strong in the tackle and decisive in their passing — everything, in fact, that Villa had not been the previous day.

For that, it was easy to understand why so many Villa fans were leading the outrage, particularly as they have to pay some of the highest ticket prices in English football. A lot of supporters walked out in disgust. Others made their feelings clear and it was strange, in the extreme, to see Emery looking so indifferent to his team’s shortcomings. Usually such an animated presence on the touchline, Emery watched like a statue while his players sleepwalked through the game.

The upside for Villa of losing to Spurs was that it put extra pressure on Forest, with their own relegation worries, not to rest players at Stamford Bridge. Villa already had an extra day’s recovery. That additional day, every sports scientist will confirm, can be crucial. So it could, in theory, have handed Emery’s team a considerable physical advantage for the second leg.

As it was, it didn’t change Pereira’s plans. The difference was that Forest’s back-up players gave everything they had at Chelsea, whereas Villa’s surrender against Spurs was completely out of keeping with how they have previously played this season.

It was some response from Pereira’s team, who are virtually safe from relegation now. Forest play Bournemouth on the last day of the season. And Bournemouth, of course, are the club chasing down Villa for Champions League qualification. There is some irony, in other words, that Emery & Co, having lost a lot of admirers over the weekend, might end up relying on Forest to go full-strength.

When Georginio Rutter buried his 95th-minute equaliser to silence the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium two weeks ago, it felt to many people like the knockout blow.

To have come that close to a first league win of 2026, to have worked so hard, to have ridden the emotional wave of Xavi Simons’ goal, only to throw it all away at the end, it could barely have been more painful. The Spurs players looked utterly devastated, collapsed on the ground, struggling to get back onto their feet. The whole stadium felt as if someone had pressed the mute button.

But while most fans sank into a very understandable fatalism, there was one man who refused. And that was Roberto De Zerbi. This was only his second game in charge of Spurs, but he already knew what Spurs needed if they were to have any chance of staying in the Premier League. He knew he had to get Spurs back off the mat.

So De Zerbi walked into his post-match press conference and immediately talked up his broken players. “This team is able to win five games in a row”, he said about a team that had not won a league game since December, had not won two in a row since August, had not won three in a row since February 2025, had not won four in a row since October 2023 and had not won five in a row since December 2018.

“Now it is difficult to hear my words,” he admitted, “but if you watch the players, if you analyse the level of the players, I think we can win five games in a row.”

It felt vaguely fantastical at the time, but the thinking was clear. Someone at Tottenham Hotspur had to be ambitious, had to be positive, had to talk up the players and the club. And who better to do it than their new head coach?

Ever since De Zerbi arrived just over one month ago, he has profoundly grasped the psychological aspect of his job. He knows that he has to be the one who sets the tone for the dressing room, for the football club, and for the whole fanbase. No one else is going to do that for him. And so it carried real weight when De Zerbi insisted that anyone who showed up to training on Monday without a smile would be sent home, and that he had “no time to see negative people”, whether players or coaches. “I don’t like people who cry, who think in a negative way.”

Two weeks on and De Zerbi’s Spurs have two wins from their last two with three games left. They have responded to the Brighton game with two consecutive away wins at Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa. Sunday night was their best league performance since the early months of Ange Postecoglou’s time at the club. Given the dizzyingly high stakes, and Spurs’ injury crisis, it may be even more valuable than that.

What especially stood out on Sunday was the total conviction and confidence of the Tottenham players. Not since Postecoglou have they gone into a game looking like they had a religious belief in what the manager has asked them to do. Given that De Zerbi only took his first training session on 3 April, that is testament to the buy-in he has already generated from the group.

Everything that De Zerbi has said and done since his arrival has shown that he knows that Tottenham’s fundamental problem is psychological, which means that the solution must be psychological too. How else to diagnose the collapse of a big team into the relegation zone?

After months of negativity, De Zerbi has talked up his players at every opportunity. After his first game, De Zerbi spoke about the players needing him to be a “brother or father” rather than a coach. What he needed to do, more than anything else, was to get inside the players’ heads. Even if clearing out that mental block was an act of Herculean plumbing.

Last week, for example, De Zerbi detailed his motivational work with Randal Kolo Muani, a player who had not always looked fully motivated, and who many fans had given up on. But that work was justified by Kolo Muani’s far-improved performance on Sunday. It was his best for the club. He was a constant nuisance to opponents, winning 50-50s all over the pitch. Suddenly, good players are playing at their level again. Suddenly, Spurs, for the first time in a long time, look like a team.

That, more than a complicated playing style, has been the essence of De Zerbi’s work so far. Spurs pressed Villa brilliantly on Sunday, their best performance without the ball for years. But the point is that De Zerbi is giving his players clear, simple instructions — and that the players believe that those instructions are the gospel truth. Just look at Conor Gallagher’s post-match interview on Sunday night, when he spoke about how De Zerbi makes the players feel, and how much they trust him. The fact that he continued to believe in them and talk them up even when things looked lost will mean the world to the players

There was a strange feeling watching the scenes at the final whistle on Sunday. This season at Spurs has been dominated by discord and rancour, by players, managers and fans being at each other’s throats. Far too many games have ended in toxicity. The fans and players were talked down far too often, when in fact what they needed was a shared enterprise, a shared belief. This club only works when everyone pulls together. On Sunday night, you could sense the first glimmer of unity Spurs have experienced since Bilbao almost one year ago.

You could even sense the first glimmer of momentum, or at least positive momentum, after these two away wins in a row. Of course, Tottenham are still in a perilous position, a position that should still keep people awake at night. If West Ham get a result against Arsenal on Sunday, then Spurs will be back in the relegation zone with all the pressure returned to them.

The challenge for De Zerbi will be to maintain that new psychological dynamic he has found. It has released Spurs players to be themselves again, to perform as they used to, to make Tottenham look like Tottenham again.

He has already got into the players’ heads, cleaned out the mental block and got them playing again. Now they have to go and do it again against Leeds.

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Hello! The Premier League isn’t good at keeping its hair on. And it’s found something new to fight about.

Coming up:

👀 EPL hair-pulling dispute

🧱 Wrexham hit the wall

🗣️ Cracking manager rant

🙏 New hope for Tottenham

Pulling power: Why was Ballard’s tug on Arokodare’s hair a red-card offence?

Tolu Arokodare, the Wolverhampton Wanderers striker, is going to develop a complex at this rate. Twice this season, he’s been the victim of red-card offences — as a result of opponents pulling his hair.

Arokodare has long dreadlocks, meaning he’s more susceptible to having his hair pulled than many others (more susceptible than me, it’s fair to say) but, unintentionally, he’s at the forefront of a hot debate in the Premier League. Should hair-pulling constitute violent conduct? And why, from nowhere, has it become a thing in 2025-26?

Recently, it’s been causing friction in both the men’s and the women’s games. Earlier this month, Chelsea Women’s head coach Sonia Bompastor took umbrage with Arsenal’s Katie McCabe tugging the locks of Alyssa Thompson during a Champions League tie. On that occasion, VAR didn’t want to know. But while pulling hair would seem more likely in women’s football, the Premier League is where it’s becoming a real bone of contention.

Sunderland’s Dan Ballard was sent off on Saturday for that crime against Arokodare, dismissed in the 24th minute of a 1-1 draw with Wolves at Molineux. In January, Everton’s Michael Keane incurred a red card for exactly the same transgression against exactly the same player, and failed with an appeal against his dismissal. Likewise, Manchester United’s Lisandro Martinez had a red card upheld after pulling the hair of Leeds United’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin at Old Trafford three weeks ago.

Michael Carrick, United’s caretaker head coach, called Martinez’s punishment “one of the worst” decisions he’d seen — and football is struggling to accept that hair-pulling ought to be judged as violent conduct (and therefore subject to a three-game ban), particularly if it’s not flagrantly intentional. Having barely been a point of discussion before, we’re experiencing something of an epidemic this year.

Phil Buckingham outlined the relevant laws of the game for us and while hair-pulling isn’t specifically referenced within them, referees and VAR reviews are taking a dim view of it. The dial was turned up after Tottenham Hotspur’s Cristian Romero yanked back Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella by his sizeable mane in 2022, a foul that went unpunished at the time but one which that game’s VAR Mike Dean later admitted should have been reviewed.

Howard Webb, the man in charge of England’s match officials, reckons hair-pulling “crosses the line”. “There’s absolutely no reason to do that,” he has said. “People don’t want to see it happening.” And in principle, he’s right. But in the heat of battle, when defenders and forwards are scuffling for possession and high balls, it’s a contentious grey area and an offence which the sport’s lawmakers might soon have to specifically define. As Sunderland’s head coach Regis Le Bris said on Saturday: “The execution of the rule is very hard to digest” — meaning nobody quite knows where they stand.

News round-up

Inter Miami are still waiting for that elusive first win at their new stadium. The MLS champions raced into a three-goal lead after 33 minutes against Orlando City on Saturday, but then collapsed to a 4-3 defeat. At least Lionel Messi had time to attend the Miami Grand Prix (above) yesterday.

Vancouver Whitecaps, meanwhile, ended a turbulent week with a 1-1 draw at LA Galaxy. Joshua Kloke summed up the mood with the threat to the MLS franchise’s future intensifying.

Inter took the Serie A title last night, having been champions-elect for weeks. Barcelona need a point to wrap up La Liga’s crown, which they could do during El Clasico at home against Real Madrid next Sunday. Convenient timing.

Former Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson, 84, was taken to hospital before the club’s match with Liverpool yesterday. It wasn’t a medical emergency, however, and he has since been discharged.

Newcastle United are backing head coach Eddie Howe. He’ll remain in charge next season, despite the club drifting to 13th place in the Premier League.

This generated plenty of headlines on Friday: Brighton coach Fabian Hurzeler revealing that he had called on the services of an MMA fighter to help his team defend set pieces. Certain boxes can resemble a royal rumble, to be fair.

Big steps: Tottenham’s crucial win in relegation scrap, Arsenal six points clear

Hope springs eternal for Tottenham Hotspur, courtesy of Aston Villa throwing themselves to the wolves. West Ham United must have facepalmed when they saw Unai Emery weakening his line-up with seven changes for yesterday’s game in Birmingham — and double-facepalmed when they saw the state of Villa’s performance.

Emery is, it seems, prioritising Villa’s Europa League semi-final against Nottingham Forest, the second leg of which takes place this Thursday. Satisfaction and silverware lie that way, but the natives at Villa Park are extremely restless, and Spurs’ 2-1 win there last night could have a huge bearing on the Premier League’s relegation battle. Tottenham are now out of the bottom three amid a desperate fight to make the best of their underwhelming resources.

Also in the top flight over the weekend:

Arsenal’s simple 3-0 rout of Fulham on Saturday was a serious step towards the title. Bukayo Saka is back, and there’s huge pressure on Manchester City, who lie six points adrift with two games in hand (the first of them away to Everton tonight). Art de Roché is asking whether it’s better to chase or be chased in these circumstances. I’d take Arsenal’s position all day long.

Manchester United have qualified for the Champions League, which is mission accomplished for Michael Carrick. They got there yesterday by beating visitors Liverpool who, frankly, will be slightly fortunate to make Europe’s top competition themselves. Coach Arne Slot moaned about VAR but his problems lie much closer to home.

In a former life, I spent my time covering Leeds United home and away. I went back to Elland Road on Friday to see the club all but sew up Premier League survival. Manager Daniel Farke deserves his flowers.

“Rob Edwards, you’re a w****r” coming from Wolves’ home support suggests to me that he’s in a bit of trouble there after relegation. In the face of such mutinous fan behaviour, will the Molineux board stick or twist?

Wrexham dream dies: Welsh club miss out on play-offs as Ipswich return to Premier League

Finally, we’ve discovered Wrexham’s ceiling (for now, at least). They fell short of the Championship play-offs on Saturday, drawing 2-2 with Middlesbrough at home and finishing seventh, and they’ve now got a long summer in which to rue a couple of big chances that went begging for them late on.

Ipswich Town, however, made good their return to the Premier League, and there were heartwarming scenes at Sheffield Wednesday, where misery had abounded from almost the first kick of the season to the last.

Wednesday, after multiple points deductions, had no other target to aim for than avoiding the humiliation of a negative final tally — and they got to zero by beating West Bromwich Albion 2-1. More than that, it was announced before kick-off that they’d secured new ownership. And better still, that the EFL has waived a further 15-point penalty which might have been imposed on them in League One next term.

Before the West Brom game, the club used their scoreboard to count down the potential deduction and reveal they had dodged it completely. They wouldn’t ever want to experience a repeat of the past 12 months — but equally, they won’t forget this campaign in a hurry.

Watford sacked head coach Ed Still after finishing 16th in the 24-team Championship. That will make it 23 first-team bosses since 2014 at Vicarage Road, maintaining Watford’s status as the most trigger-happy club going.

Around TAFC

Adam Leventhal has put together a fantastic podcast on the backdrop of war to the 2026 World Cup. It’s free to download and it gets to the heart of various geopolitical issues. You can find it here.

George Wickens amassed four assists for Lincoln City this season. That might not sound like many — except Wickens is a goalkeeper, and his tally equalled an English record. He analysed his game with Eduardo Tansley.

Christian Pulisic has now gone 16 games straight without scoring for Milan. He isn’t coming up with much in the way of assists either. The USMNT will have to count on him finding form from nowhere, just as he did at the World Cup in 2022.

Switzerland’s FC Thun have been on the go for 128 years. At last, they have a trophy to their name after winning the country’s top flight. Not bad for a town with a population of 45,000.

America’s United Soccer League (USL) is getting closer to thrashing out a new collective bargaining agreement with its players. That situation has been a mess and it led to threats of strike action.

Most clicked in Friday’s TAFC: the tendency of Millwall fans to call a spade a spade.

Catch a match

Selected games (times ET/UK)

Premier League: Chelsea vs Nottingham Forest, 10am/3pm; Everton vs Manchester City, 3pm/8pm — both USA Network/Sky Sports.

Scottish Premiership: Heart of Midlothian vs Rangers, 12.30pm/5.30pm — CBS, Fubo/Sky Sports.

La Liga: Sevilla vs Real Sociedad, 3pm/8pm — ESPN, Fubo/Premier Sports.

Serie A: Roma vs Fiorentina, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+, Fubo, DAZN/DAZN.

And finally…

The weekend’s telling-it-like-it-is award goes to Richie Wellens, the boss of League One side Leyton Orient.

It was Joao Palhinha on the edge of the Tottenham Hotspur box flying in to block Ross Barkley, who looked set to shoot. His celebration afterwards, kneeling and pumping his arms, was met with the travelling support chanting his name.

It was Rodrigo Bentancur floating around the middle of the park, faultless when he had possession and directing traffic and tempo without it.

It was Conor Gallagher, who almost signed for Aston Villa in January, delivering his first decisive moment in a Spurs shirt at Villa Park, firing low and controlled into the bottom corner from the edge of the area to open the scoring.

Much of the discussion leading into Tottenham’s 2-1 win at Villa Park was centred on how they could cope without Xavi Simons, who De Zerbi described as one of their “best” and “most important players” since coming into the starting line-up for the 2-2 draw with Brighton & Hove Albion.

Simons — like James Maddison, who was again named in the matchday squad at Villa but has not played a competitive match for more than a year, and Dejan Kulusevski, who is still without a return date having been injured since last May — is set for a long spell on the sidelines as he recovers from a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament.

Without the creative talents of their injured No 10s, Tottenham needed to be dogged and determined, and deliver just enough quality to win a Premier League game. And in that, it was Roberto De Zerbi’s midfielders who led by example.

Before Sunday, Tottenham had not won back-to-back league games since beating Burnley and Manchester City in their first two games of the season. Perhaps that 2-0 win at the Etihad Stadium was the last time Tottenham played this well in the league. Fittingly, it was the ‘Bentinha’ pivot, which swarmed Nico Gonzalez, Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Cherki and prevented Pep Guardiola’s side from building from the back, which inspired that win, too.

Justifiably, the Bentancur-Palhinha pairing became one that many Spurs fans were content to see the back of. Before suffering a hamstring injury in January, the ‘Bentinha’ label was synonymous with the elements of Thomas Frank’s football Spurs fans hated: slow, sideways, unimaginative. Particularly at home, where Tottenham have been under par for successive seasons, Bentancur and Palhinha were tasked with hurting the opposition with the ball, but they lacked the invention or tactical direction to progress through the middle of the pitch.

At Villa Park, their roles appeared to maximise their strengths and minimise their weaknesses, with Palhinha dropping back into the defensive line, allowing Pedro Porro, a more gifted technician, to push ahead into the right half-space, while Bentancur relieved pressure on team-mates, providing an outlet in possession.

In Manchester, it was Pape Matar Sarr who buzzed around ahead of them, crunching into every tackle, driving the press and hunting down every loose ball. In Birmingham, Gallagher was the workhorse No 10.

Even when he appeared to be running on fumes, Gallagher drove the team forward with a maniacal press. He led the team in defensive contributions, registering one interception and one block, three tackles and a remarkable six recoveries in midfield.

“When Gallagher plays like this, we play with 12 players because you can find him as a striker, as a midfielder, as a full-back — everywhere on the pitch you can find him,” De Zerbi said in his post-match press conference. “Great player, great passion, great qualities.”

It’s the type of performance Tottenham have been waiting for from the England international since the club spent £35million ($47.6m) on him in January. De Zerbi has consistently namechecked Gallagher in his press conferences, hoping to see the midfield dynamo who impressed him as a Chelsea player. And his faith in his qualities, in and out of possession, was repaid in a man-of-the-match performance.

While it is true that Villa may have had their eyes on the Europa League semi-final second-leg on Thursday, with Unai Emery resting seven players in a manner reminiscent of Ange Postecoglou’s rotation leading to Tottenham’s triumph in Bilbao, Spurs, led by their dominant midfield, were comfortable and convincing in a manner they have rarely been since the Australian’s first season in charge in north London.

“I’m really pleased with the performance with the ball, without the ball,” said De Zerbi. “Without the ball, we showed great courage; with the ball, great qualities. I’m happy with this type of performance, more than three points. OK, we are one point more than West Ham. But the most important thing tonight is to play a great game, to believe more and more in ourselves, to believe in our qualities.”

Ahead of the game, De Zerbi said it would not be a miracle if they beat Villa. But perhaps the miracle is helping a team bereft of confidence, symbolised by a midfield that lacked the vigour to offset an absence of magic, believe in themselves again.

Like Postecoglou, who was sniggered at for his second-season trophy prophecy until it came true, De Zerbi’s suggestion that Tottenham could win all five of their matches this season after the deflating Brighton draw seemed ludicrous.

Now, the fans and the players believe it. And if there are still some doubters, at least they believe he believes it — which is just as important.

Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday this season, The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions from the weekend’s football.

This was the weekend when Arsenal got the drama-free win they needed, West Ham United dropped back into the bottom three and Manchester United secured Champions League qualification.

Here, we will ask what is standing between Michael Carrick and the Manchester United job, whether Tottenham Hotspur have fixed themselves or if Aston Villa were just too accommodating, and if Bukayo Saka’s injury might have been a good thing for Arsenal.

What else does Carrick need to do?

Carrick couldn’t have really done anything more to secure the Manchester United job permanently.

Since his appointment on January 13, they have the best record in the Premier League. United have won 10 of his 14 games in charge, including victories over Manchester City, Arsenal, Aston Villa and, on Sunday, Liverpool: or, if you prefer, the other four teams in the top five. Kobbie Mainoo, United’s rejuvenated match-winner yesterday, summed up the squad’s feelings after yesterday’s victory, telling Sky Sports, “You want to die for him.” A bit extreme, maybe, but you get the point.

United were seventh, 11 points behind third-placed Aston Villa, when Carrick signed up. Champions League qualification looked like a long shot, but under him, they’re now six ahead of Villa and have secured their spot with three games to spare.

You would think that at most other clubs, that would be more than enough to get the full-time gig. But there are a couple of other factors at play.

The first is the spectre of what has come before. United have previously fallen into the ‘trap’ of a club playing hero taking over temporarily, achieving impressive results and being given the full-time job.

But this cautionary tale ignores that Carrick is a different figure from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, and also exaggerates how bad Solskjaer was. Sure, he wasn’t the greatest manager and if United had left things a bit longer during his caretaker spell, then he probably wouldn’t have been appointed, but he still finished third and second in his first two full seasons.

The other factor is what sort of manager minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe wants. Since his arrival, Ratcliffe has repeatedly discussed United’s stature, the desire to get them ‘back where they belong’. Usually, what comes along with that is an exciting ‘name’ as manager, which can mean the hot young thing (Ruben Amorim) or an elite big beast: something sexy, either way.

Ratcliffe and United have been burned by the former, so it’s possible that their next move is the latter. The trouble being that those big beasts are rather an endangered species. There are a few at the World Cup, but they won’t be available until mid-July at the earliest. There’s Luis Enrique, but would you leave Paris Saint-Germain for United right now? Unai Emery might fall into that category, too, but the Aston Villa manager succeeds at clubs where he has more control than he would at United. He also struggled at PSG and Arsenal.

Carrick isn’t an especially sexy name and doesn’t have decades of coaching experience, but his record over the last few months means he should get the job.

Did Villa give Spurs too much of a helping hand?

Are Tottenham back? Has Roberto De Zerbi fixed them? Or, at least, fixed them just enough to stay in the Premier League?

Perhaps. The relief among their fans at the end of the 2-1 win over Aston Villa was powerful, unsurprising given they’ve now achieved back-to-back victories for the first time since the opening two games of the season.

They certainly looked much more impressive and should feel much better about life, particularly given West Ham, the team they have just leapfrogged, play leaders Arsenal next weekend.

One caveat is their opponents for those two wins: the first came against Wolves, who have been relegation certainties since the autumn and have reverted to type after their brief revival a couple of months ago.

The second victory was against a Villa side who could not have been more accommodating. With the second leg of their Europa League semi-final against Nottingham Forest on Thursday taking priority, Emery made seven changes, including a rest for Ollie Watkins, and the injury-enforced absences of Amadou Onana and John McGinn.

Some affiliated with Tottenham’s immediate rivals may bleat about the integrity of the league, upset that Villa played a shadow side against a team who desperately needed the win, but that feels pointless.

‘Team rests players for more important fixture’ is not a new concept, and Emery’s responsibility is to his own team’s priorities: it’s not his fault that West Ham lost against Brentford, or that when they played Crystal Palace in a similar situation a few weeks ago (Palace also rested key personnel days after a tough European game at Fiorentina) they could only manage a 0-0 draw.

The team selection was justifiable, but the performance was not. Villa were pathetic, embarrassingly bad, even considering the personnel. They barely offered any resistance in the first half when they went 2-0 down, and at absolutely no stage did they look like mounting a comeback. It was no surprise they were booed off, and perhaps the worst thing you could say about Villa is that they looked like Igor Tudor’s Tottenham.

Villa are six points ahead of sixth-placed Bournemouth, so they should still qualify for the Champions League, but they still have Liverpool and Manchester City to face: if they play like they did against Tottenham, they could still let it slip. Then winning the Europa League would not just be desirable, but essential.

Was Saka’s injury actually good for Arsenal?

It’s not normally good news for a title-chasing team to lose their best player for a month at a crucial stage of the season, but oddly, it might have been for Arsenal.

Saka has not been himself for much of the campaign, which maybe isn’t a surprise given he’s been troubled by an Achilles problem for long stretches. That injury saw him miss five games in April, including both legs of their Champions League quarter-final against Sporting CP and the 2-1 defeat against Manchester City.

It’s an injury that can be a killer for a player whose acceleration is one of his strengths, and after Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Fulham on Saturday, Mikel Arteta hinted that it had been inhibiting Saka.

But not anymore. “I think the pain is gone,” Arteta told the media. “That was always something that was restricting his capacity to deliver certain actions.”

He only played 45 minutes, with Arteta sensibly withdrawing Saka at half-time with Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final second leg against Atletico Madrid in mind. But the winger really did look like himself again, scoring once and creating another against an admittedly dreadful and virus-hit Fulham.

More than that, there was a zip back to his performance, the sort of verve that has been missing for a lot of the campaign. And you can’t help but wonder if that month away has reset Saka, not just in terms of recovering from the Achilles problem but perhaps also serving as a mental refresh, allowing him to become sharp again.

“He’s come back in the most important period of the season,” said Arteta, “and now he’s fresh, his mind is fresh, his hunger is at the highest possible height, and he needed a performance like that to impact the team.”

Perhaps Saka would have made a difference in the defeat against City, but if that time away has perked him up again, being at the top of his game during these last few weeks could be much more beneficial for Arsenal, at home and in Europe.

Coming up

Was this the day Tottenham Hotspur pulled themselves back from the brink?

Roberto De Zerbi’s side began the weekend in the Premier League relegation zone but a potentially pivotal set of results means they are out of the bottom three.

Victory at an abject Aston Villa, coupled with West Ham United’s loss at Brentford on Saturday, will surely give De Zerbi, his players and the club’s fans renewed belief they can retain their top-flight status.

First-half goals from Conor Gallagher and Richarlison secured the victory, with boos ringing out from the home fans at Villa Park, four days before their players return to the stadium for the second leg of their Europa League semi-final against Nottingham Forest. Even a stoppage-time consolation from Emi Buendia barely brought a reaction from the home supporters.

There is plenty to dissect for both teams after this game. Jack Pitt-Brooke and Jacob Tanswell analyse the main talking points.

Is the De Zerbi effect taking hold?

The last time Tottenham won back-to-back Premier League games was their first two matches of the season, two managers ago, when Thomas Frank opened with a 3-0 victory against Burnley and then beat Manchester City 2-0.

So much has happened since then that it feels like something from another geological era. But that just underlines the significance of what De Zerbi’s Spurs have achieved in recent weeks.

Remember that when the Italian arrived, just over one month ago, Tottenham had not won in the league since December. The players’ confidence had totally drained out to zero. And that, more than anything technical or tactical, is what he has been working hard on.

After losing his first game, at Sunderland, Spurs were far better in his second and only a 95th-minute equaliser stopped them beating Brighton & Hove Albion.

But then they won 1-0 at Wolverhampton Wanderers and were able to follow that up with this unexpectedly routine success at Villa Park. The spirit, courage and organisation that Spurs showed on Sunday make this one of their best performances of the season, regardless of how poor Villa were. And it shows the impact De Zerbi has had in only a few weeks in charge.

Spurs are up to 17th, a point above West Ham with three games left, and he has put them back in the box seat.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

What was wrong with Villa?

Boos echoed out frequently in the first half of this game. There have been plenty of those directed at Tottenham this season, but on this occasion, it was the home fans who were becoming increasingly angry at the malaise affecting their team.

Unai Emery made seven changes to the starting XI from the first leg of the Europa League semi-final against Nottingham Forest, clearly showing where his priorities lie.

However, it was evident from the outset that Villa were dysfunctional and lacking in intensity, demonstrated by the absence of pressure put on Gallagher for Spurs’ first goal.

Frankly, the 2-0 half-time scoreline was merciful on Villa, whose players looking sluggish and devoid of any inspiration.

Fans expressed their frustration at the slow, laborious nature of their play, particularly when Villa either cheaply gave the ball away in the attacking half — they managed only one touch in the opposition box and zero shots during the first 45 minutes — or were tediously passing the ball around at the back.

Indeed, in the first 36 minutes, 45 per cent of Villa’s overall passes were completed by the two central defenders, Victor Lindelof and Tyrone Mings.

This did not look like a club on the verge of qualifying for the Champions League — Villa sit six points ahead of sixth-placed Bournemouth — with the atmosphere fraught and the fans pleading for more vigour from the players.

Why the ferocity of feeling? Villa have taken 19 points from 16 games in 2026, so have not been in good form for some time, with Emery’s raft of changes only compounding the sense that the team are sleepwalking towards the end of the season. They will need to wake up in time for Thursday’s second leg against Forest.

Jacob Tanswell

Were Spurs’ hard-working front three the difference?

The big fear most Spurs fans had going into this game concerned the quality of their forward line.

With Xavi Simons and Dominic Solanke both getting injured at Wolves last Saturday, De Zerbi was down to the bare bones this time, starting the only three forwards he had available: Richarlison, Mathys Tel and Randal Kolo Muani. None of them could exactly be said to be in good form.

But all three ran hard, pressing Villa, never giving them a second on the ball and creating opportunities in the final third. Gallagher scored the first goal, but the second came from Tel’s perfectly driven cross, which Richarlison headed in.

In truth, Spurs should have scored far more than they did. Tel and Kolo Muani were not perfect and at times they did not make the right decisions, or execute perfectly. But it was still far improved from the norm. That was especially true of Kolo Muani, who delivered his best game for Spurs, running hard, winning 50-50s, looking for the first time like the player the club thought they had signed. It is another testament to De Zerbi’s work on the training ground.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

Where does this leave Villa going into their semi-final?

This latest Villa performance — a third straight defeat — increases the pressure going into Thursday’s home game against Forest. This, unmistakably, is the defining match of the Emery era and there is a shared feeling that the time to win is now.

Villa are struggling to break down low blocks. Players looked lost against Spurs, short of confidence in front of a Villa Park crowd that expects and demands more.

Director of football operations Damian Vidagany called Thursday “the match of our lives”, with the defeat against Spurs showing it should be treated as such.

Villa could not find any impetus in the second half. Emery, tellingly, was at his least extroverted and there was little of his usual intensity. The Spaniard, along with his substitutes, stood either with their hands on their hips or in their pockets for much of the second half.

Villa are vulnerable and the home crowd will be nervy on Thursday. They have to start well and hope Forest do not capitalise on the pressure that is building.

Jacob Tanswell

What next for Spurs?

Monday, May 11: Leeds (Home), Premier League, 8pm UK, 3pm ET

What next for Villa?

Victor Wanyama has no hesitation when asked to explain Tottenham Hotspur’s catastrophic season.

“They started well, but injuries, you know? Having 10 to 15 key players injured. That’s where I think it went wrong,” Wanyama says.

Wanyama, who has kept close tabs on his former club since leaving Spurs in 2020, has experience of the devastating impact of injuries, which is effectively the theme of his interview with The Athletic.

Speaking shortly after announcing his retirement as a player last month, the Kenyan admitted for the first time that injuries — or rather one specific knee problem — derailed his career.

It came while playing for Spurs in a 2-1 defeat to Chelsea at Wembley in August 2017. Wanyama was coming off the back of what he believes was his best season: Tottenham’s 2016-17 campaign, in which Mauricio Pochettino’s side went unbeaten at home in the final year at White Hart Lane, pushing Antonio Conte’s Chelsea close for the league title.

“I played my best football at Southampton and Spurs, especially the season we were unbeaten at home,” he says. “I was cruising but some things you can’t escape. What happened, happened.

“I did play all the (Chelsea) game but when I went out, I felt like I couldn’t move my knee. It was so stiff and from there they diagnosed the issue. Cartilage defect.”

Does he view that match as a before-and-after moment in his playing career?

“I can say yes,” says Wanyama, who was fleetingly one of British football’s outstanding midfield enforcers for Celtic, Southampton and Spurs.

“I would say before the injury, I was cruising. After, it restricted me. I was changing my game.

“I wanted to play every game but I was cautious, I didn’t want to go into tackles 100 per cent. I wanted to be fit, available for the next games. That wasn’t good for me. Sometimes I had to skip training, ice the knee so much, and do a lot of rehab.

“I couldn’t play back-to-back games. I had to skip games. I wasn’t training because I was rehabbing the knee. It was a really tough time.”

After more than four months on the sidelines, Wanyama returned to action in a win over Swansea at the start of 2018, and four weeks later produced his most memorable moment in a Spurs shirt: a thunderbolt into the top corner in an entertaining 2-2 draw at Liverpool (a goal the club is still fond of reliving on social media).

But he was never the same all-action player who had dominated the middle of the park alongside Mousa Dembele for Pochettino’s hard-running, exhilarating side.

Spurs fans — who have probably never been more reliant on nostalgia — still reminisce about that 2016-17 team, which is widely considered the best of Pochettino’s five-year spell. It began to break up around the second half of that season, with Kyle Walker’s move to Manchester City and a knee injury for Danny Rose, which was arguably just as impactful.

“It feels great (to be remembered that way), but that was the truth, I think,” says Wanyama. “We enjoyed playing together and we played with no fear. We did what we had to do and everybody gave their all on the pitch. We had such a good group at that time. We gelled well as a team on and off the pitch; we were really close. I think we were closer as a team than (our rivals). We emptied the tank on the pitch.

“Off the pitch, Pochettino knew what to tell everyone. All players are different but he knew how to handle everyone individually. He demanded a lot from individuals and knew how to push people to the next level.

“And players listened to him and did everything he asked for. With him, it was special because he improved us as players. He knew how to get the best out of players.

“We needed another year, with all of us, and we could have won something.”

Now he has officially hung up his boots — a year after his last match as a professional during a four-game stint for Scottish club Dunfermline — Wanyama is more open and accepting about his limitations post-injury.

In a previous interview with The Athletic, in 2020, shortly after leaving Spurs for Montreal Impact, Wanyama said the club “should have trusted” him more when he returned from injury and revealed he was “really, really p***ed off” not to start the 2019 Champions League final.

Seven years on, though, he says he understood why Pochettino left him on the bench for Spurs’ 2-0 defeat to Liverpool in Madrid after he had been forced off in the epic semi-final decider at Ajax at half-time with more knee pain.

“(I’m) not at all (pissed off) because I was struggling with the injury in that campaign,” he says now. “Semi-final, going out with the injury, it was a bit tough. So I have no regrets.”

His knee was also the reason for Wanyama’s move to MLS in March 2020, when he left the Premier League to join the Canadian side, then coached by Arsenal legend Thierry Henry.

“There was a plan to go to MLS – because of my knee,” he says. “The league wasn’t as demanding as the Premier League, so there I could manoeuvre easily.”

Wanyama spent four seasons in Montreal, never getting used to the freezing winters or the long flights to matches, but enjoying his football again and working under Henry, who he compares to Pep Guardiola.

Today, the former Kenya international is back in London, taking his coaching badges and eyeing a reunion with Spurs.

“I’ve done B and now I’m doing the A Licence,” he says. “Also, training every day, trying to make the knee stronger! That’s my life now. Hopefully, one day, I can be a manager. Wherever I get the chance in Europe, I’d be grateful. To just get some experience first and then one day be a good manager.

“Hopefully, I can get to a club to get some experience in youth coaching. I haven’t spoken to Tottenham yet but soon we’ll have that conversation.

“I’m happy,” he adds. “For six years, managing my knee was really hard, but I’m proud of what I achieved.”

Tottenham Hotspur head coach Roberto De Zerbi said James Maddison can play an important role in the relegation run-in but was unsure if he could feature against Aston Villa on Sunday.

Maddison, 29, has missed the entirety of the season after rupturing the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee in a friendly against Newcastle United on last summer’s pre-season tour to South Korea. He last featured for Spurs in a competitive match a year ago today, scoring in the 3-1 Europa League semi-final first-leg win against Bodo/Glimt.

De Zerbi named Maddison in his matchday squad for the 2-2 draw against Brighton and Hove Albion and last week’s 1-0 win against Wolverhampton Wanderers, citing his “important” influence in the dressing room. On Friday, the Italian said he does not know whether he will be fit enough to feature against Villa this weekend or in the following league match against Leeds United.

“I don’t know,” De Zerbi replied when asked during a press conference whether Maddison could play against Villa or Leeds. “I would like to play with him, because he is a special player, a different player. But we have to consider the physical condition, a lot of things. But I think he can be important in the next three games.”

There is an increased need for creativity in the team, with Xavi Simons rupturing the ACL in his right knee against Wolves on Saturday, the third time Tottenham have had a forward player ruled out with an ACL injury in the last 12 months, following Maddison and Wilson Odobert in February.

Simons joins Dejan Kulusevski — who has missed the whole season with a patella injury — and Mohammed Kudus on the treatment table, with the Ghana international in a race to prove his fitness to represent Ghana at the World Cup. There is also no timeline yet for Dominic Solanke’s return, after the England international was replaced in the 40th minute of last weekend’s win due to a muscle injury.

Tottenham’s medical department has come under fire from fans on social media when videos circulated of Simons conducting fitness tests on the sidelines after receiving immediate treatment for his long-term injury. According to an expert, these tests are not entirely uncommon when treating a player. But De Zerbi said his focus is on keeping everyone together.

“I think we win together and we lose together,” De Zerbi said. “And it’s not the right time to make polemic or to give responsibilities. Every one of us has to feel the responsibility for a big club, but now we have to stay together, close with just one target on our head, and to move on forward together.”

Destiny Udogie is available after missing the Wolves game with a muscle injury, as is Pape Matar Sarr, who was absent from successive matchday squads with a shoulder issue. Guglielmo Vicario, however, is not yet fit enough to make the squad after undergoing hernia surgery over the March international break.

Despite Simons representing another injury setback, De Zerbi maintains the “most important challenge now is to silence the (negative) voice inside of us”.

“The voice says we are unlucky,” De Zerbi added. “We have too many injuries. We lost Xavi Simons, and he was, in the last two games, one of the best and most important players for us. Our medical staff is not good enough. The pitch of the stadium is not good. The pitch of the turning ground is not good.

“It’s impossible to win two, three games in a row because we have not won too many games in 2026. It’s all negative things, and it’s rubbish. I want to keep my focus on ourselves, on the qualities of my players.”

Spurs face Villa on Sunday, who are fifth in the Premier League and played in the Europa League semi-final first leg against Nottingham Forest on Thursday, losing 1-0.

United States men’s national team head coach Mauricio Pochettino has spoken on a variety of topics, including the state of football in America and what has happened to his former club Tottenham Hotspur.

Pochettino, 54, took the USMNT job in the summer of 2024 — shortly after leaving another Premier League side, Chelsea, after only one season — and is approaching his biggest challenge in the role: a home World Cup.

Speaking on The Overlap podcast on Thursday, Pochettino revealed his hopes for the tournament, why “women are ahead of men” in the U.S., and his views on why “massive club” Spurs, whom he managed for six years until November 2019, are facing relegation from the Premier League.

World Cup – ‘Why not?’

The USMNT is approaching the World Cup with star player Christian Pulisic out of form, yet to score in 2026, and having lost twice in recent friendlies — or “non-official games” as Pochettino calls them — against Belgium and Portugal.

Unlike the 45 teams travelling to the U.S., Canada and Mexico in the summer, the USMNT has not played any qualification games with real jeopardy — having automatically qualified as co-hosts.

“We knew it would be a problem, how to approach the games, because we have already qualified,” Pochettino said on Thursday. “Friendly games is what you play with your friends.

“We are fighting to change that mindset, (we) need to create that habit that we are fighting.”

Nevertheless, when asked if the USMNT could win the World Cup he said: “Why not? It is all about belief. Look at Morocco (reaching the semi-finals) in Qatar — I think anything is possible in football.”

The American Messi

According to the United States Census Bureau, its population is over 342 million. On the podcast, Pochettino spoke about being asked by people involved in U.S. soccer why America has yet to find its Lionel Messi.

“One of the things that is key is the emotional relationship with the game,” he said. “The kids in America don’t develop (that relationship) until they are 11, 12 or 13 — that is the difference with the other countries.

“I know (in) Argentina, the way that I developed my emotional relationship with football is when I started to walk, before I started to walk. That is a problem because (in the U.S.) you need to go to a school, go to a private school — because the relationship is with basketball, with American football.”

How do you solve that issue? “It’s about creating more spaces for the kids to go and play,” Pochettino said. “That is football, it’s not a factory, the ball teaches you not the coach.”

In the sense of developing elite soccer, “women are ahead of us, of men, in America”, he said, as co-presenter ex-England midfielder Jill Scott raised how the U.S. women’s national team has been dominant on the world stage.

‘Very sad’ Spurs

Pochettino spent six years in north London with highs of a second-place Premier League finish in 2016-17 and leading the club to their first Champions League final in 2019.

Just over six years after his departure, they sit in the relegation zone with only four games left to bridge the two points to safety.

“It is really sad,” he said. “I really love Tottenham; it’s one of the most important parts of my life as a coach and in my personal life too. I can talk from my experience in Tottenham and what I can tell you for me it’s one of the biggest clubs in the world.

“Tottenham is a massive club with a massive following.”

But why was it such a “difficult situation” when he was there? “We went 18 months without one signing, that was a record in the Premier League,” Pochettino said. “We had money to spend but not the type of money to improve to win, we challenged but we missed this last step.

“We wanted to sign (Sadio) Mane and (Georginio) Wijnaldum and for different reasons, we couldn’t achieve that. The problem is the assessment was coming from outside the club not inside — people start to intoxicate things.”

As well as Spurs, Pochettino has also coached Chelsea in the Premier League, and says he has unfinished business in the English top flight.

“One day, yes because I really like England,” he replied, when asked if he wants to return to the Premier League. “I think my human profile and coach profile match very well with the Premier League and with the culture, the idea, the idiosyncrasy, and the philosophy.”