It was almost 6.40pm at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium when the music was turned off and the South Stand found their voice again. They belted out Ange Postecoglou’s name over and over again as he stood down in front of them, surrounded by the players and their families.
This was a strange day at Spurs, one where the real occasion was everything that happened after the final whistle. It started just before 6.15pm when Son Heung-min walked back out onto the pitch holding the Europa League trophy, roared on by a stadium that was still almost full. Postecoglou came out after his players, making sure to hug every one of the club icons — Ossie Ardiles, Steve Perryman, Ricky Villa, Pat Jennings — forming a guard of honour.
It felt like a symbolic moment, one that marked how significant Postecoglou now is to the modern history of this club.
In a sense, this was his day. His name was sung louder and more frequently than it has been all season. He was warmly applauded when he walked around the pitch at the end. As he was about to leave the field, he kept being grabbed for photographs by people who wanted to share the moment with him.
All of these images, all of these memories, will be in Daniel Levy’s mind in the coming days as he prepares to make one of the biggest decisions of his life. Simply: does Postecoglou, the man who delivered the biggest trophy, the greatest moment of the 24-year ENIC era, get a third season as manager or not? Is it worth sacrificing this unique climate to start again with someone like Thomas Frank or Marco Silva?
Less than one week ago, it felt inevitable that this would be the last week of Postecoglou’s tenure. That had been the expectation for the last few months, and nobody said anything to seriously challenge it. Even in Bilbao, the night before the final, he spoke about how he had been in this position before, “where the big game was the last game”. It sounded like he was preparing for the end. It felt like this would be yet another reset summer for Spurs: new manager, new ideas, new direction.
But then Bilbao happened and everything changed. What if this direction was always the right one after all?
This is a different football club now. It has been transformed by what happened in Spain on Wednesday night, and then back here in Tottenham on Friday afternoon. You could see it as soon as you walked down the High Road and saw the ‘Europa League Winners’ signs attached to every lamp post. Or the ‘champions of Europe’ scarves that have been hurriedly made to sell at the merchandise stands. Or the huge ‘WINNERS’ sign over the glass entrance on the west side of the stadium.
The change of the last few days is about more than signage. It is even about more than Postecoglou fulfilling his line on winning in his second season. It is about something more fundamental than that. It is about a change in mood, in energy, in status and prestige.
During the 17 years between Ledley King lifting the League Cup at Wembley and last Wednesday night, Tottenham became increasingly synonymous with not winning. In a sense, this was unfair, given that they had a good team under Harry Redknapp and then a very good one under Mauricio Pochettino. But there has always been an element of luck about which teams win which trophies. And Spurs always found themselves on the wrong side of it.
When this stadium was opened six years ago, the hope was that it would help Tottenham bridge the gap to their rivals and bring about the trophies the fans had been waiting for so long. It nearly happened sooner than anyone planned. Within weeks of opening the stadium, Spurs were in the Champions League final. If they had beaten Liverpool in Madrid, it would have been Pochettino, Hugo Lloris, Harry Kane, Dele Alli and the rest parading the trophy down the High Road.
But that did not happen and the dominant moods here for most of the time since 2019 have been variations on disappointment, frustration, apathy and anger.
Up until Wednesday night, the abiding images of this season were the anti-Levy protest marches, attracting thousands of disgruntled fans who had run out of patience with the running of the club. And yet those images have now been supplanted in the shared Spurs consciousness by everything we saw last week. Tottenham Hotspur has never in the modern era been a happier, prouder, more positive or more unified place than it is right now. And that is all down to Postecoglou masterminding the Europa League triumph, guiding Spurs all the way to Bilbao and then beating Manchester United in the final.
Just last week, any survey of match-going Spurs fans would probably have given you an ‘Ange Out’ majority. Those 21 Premier League defeats (made 22 with the 4-1 loss to Brighton) — the most in any 38-game league season in the club’s history — ground the fanbase down. Incidents between Postecoglou and Spurs fans, not least the ear-cupping moment at Stamford Bridge on 3 April, suggested that the relationship between the manager and the matchgoing fans was badly damaged. When that happens, it usually just points to one outcome.
There have been plenty of moments this season where sacking Postecoglou would have been acceptable, even popular with large sections of the crowd. Some of Spurs’ worst defeats — Liverpool at home, Everton away, Leicester at home, Liverpool away — did have an end-of-days feel about them.
But Wednesday prompted a shift among the fans in favour of Postecoglou. Many of those who previously favoured a change now feel Postecoglou has earned the right to have a third season, and a shot at the Champions League. Sacking Postecoglou is a far riskier proposition now than it was just a few weeks ago. It would risk being as unpopular as the sacking of Pochettino in November 2019.
The prospect of deciding to keep a manager after he wins a cup will make people think of Manchester United u-turning to keep Erik ten Hag this time last year. That turned out to be an expensive waste of time, which ruined United’s season. But this would not necessarily be the same as that. Tottenham winning the Europa League is simply a more significant, more transformational event than United winning yet another domestic cup.
The support that Postecoglou has within the dressing room is also far deeper than Ten Hag enjoyed at Old Trafford this time last year.
Of course, you can still construct a rational case for changing the manager. The league form really is abysmal. That can be contextualised, given Postecoglou’s prioritisation of the Europa League, but it cannot be entirely ignored. Sunday’s game against Brighton existed in a context all of its own, given the partying since Wednesday night, but the second-half collapse still echoed some of Spurs’ struggles this season.
Then there is the issue of squad management.
Spurs won the Europa League in part because of Postecoglou’s clear-sighted prioritisation of Europe, resting his best players for league games in recent months. They never looked comfortable competing on two fronts simultaneously. But Tottenham will be in the Champions League next season. They will need to go all-out every weekend and every midweek, every single time. At the very least, they will need a stronger, deeper squad to balance those demands. Postecoglou said in the post-match press conference they would need more experience in the market.
The point here is not only the assessment of what went right and wrong in the league this season. If Spurs had not won in Bilbao, then you could easily make the case that now was the time for a safe pair of hands, someone pragmatic, experienced in the Premier League, who could help calmly steer the ship through next season. It could well be the time for Silva or Frank to tighten up the defence and find a more robust, repeatable approach.
But this is not a choice between Silva or Frank (or similar equivalents) and the Postecoglou of 22 league defeats. That would be a simpler call. Nor are Spurs weighing up the possibility of bringing in a box-office manager, a Jose Mourinho or an Antonio Conte, not that either of those appointments ever came close to giving them a week like this one.
The choice is between a new manager starting from scratch and the one who has delivered their greatest moment for a generation.
When Postecoglou was appointed, the hope was that he would bring the whole club back together, and he has finally done that in what may be his penultimate match in charge. But because of the events of this season, the way he pursued glory through disaster and got there in the end, he has a special aura now. After saying that he always wins things in his second season and delivering on it, at Spurs of all places, he has the distinct energy of a far-sighted prophet.
Levy has sacked 13 managers over the course of his chairmanship of Spurs. There have been many moments this season when sacking Postecoglou might have been the obvious thing to do. But to do it right now, after Bilbao, after the parade, after today, and after Postecoglou got the fans back on side, would make it one of the boldest, hardest calls of the last 24 years.
Right at the moment, Tottenham have achieved glory and unity again, Levy would be risking it all, hoping that the grass is greener with a different man in charge. Postecoglou will go on holiday on Monday, still waiting to hear about his future, but at least he will not have to answer any more questions about it.
“I’ve done something that no one believed I could,” he said at the end of his press conference. “And I shouldn’t be sitting here talking about it.”
(Top photo: Catherine Ivill – AMA/Getty Images)