Roberto De Zerbi’s reputation precedes him.
On one hand, he is recognised as one of the most brilliant minds in coaching. Pep Guardiola, who is arguably the best coach the Premier League has ever seen, hailed the Italian as “one of the most influential managers of the last 20 years”. Chelsea’s new head coach, Xabi Alonso, has said De Zerbi’s teams are among those he enjoys watching most, and Jurgen Klopp praised his work at Brighton and Hove Albion as “incredible”.
For the 47-year-old, who started in Serie D — the fourth tier of Italian football — with Darfo Boario after a relatively unremarkable playing career, listening to such strong praise from some of the game’s most celebrated figures is “embarrassing”.
“It is one of the few things I feel a bit embarrassed about,” De Zerbi tells a group of reporters, including The Athletic, during Tottenham’s pre-season tour. “I am sure about myself, always fully charged. But when I started to be a coach, I couldn’t imagine ever coaching in the Premier League, a coach in the Premier League with Tottenham, or a coach in the Premier League with Tottenham and the biggest coaches in the world speaking well about me. Or that some coaches said that I am a reference for them.
“I become shy. I am not used to that, and I don’t think I will ever get used to it. Last season, when I went into the big stadium, I spoke with my assistant and said we are not used to working in this kind of stadium with this atmosphere. We are lucky because we started from the sh*t of football.”
On his way from ‘the sh*t’ to one of the biggest clubs in England, De Zerbi built up another side to his reputation. At Brighton and Hove Albion and Marseille, his last two jobs before Spurs, De Zerbi left under a cloud after public disagreements with players and staff. For all his undisputed brilliance as a coach, there is an outside perception that you’re never far away from a crisis with the Italian.
However, he has a different view.
“Yesterday evening I spoke with the CEO of Juventus (Giovanni Carnevali),” he says. “(He was) my former CEO at Sassuolo, my friend. I have a great relationship with (Brighton CEO) Paul Barber.
“With Benevento, my first experience in Serie A, with the owner I stay like this, ” he adds, crossing his fingers.
“But if the owner doesn’t respect me, it doesn’t matter if you’re an owner or not. In my life, I always thought like this. Sometimes I have had bad ends of relationships, but with 80-90 per cent we have a great relationship. Sometimes it can happen that there are two different ambitions: the owner wants one thing, and I push to go for more or higher. But the owner is the owner, and I have to respect the owner, for sure, also the owner has to respect me. Owner, director or the board.”
After a dramatic seven-game spell to close last season, in which Tottenham came closer to relegation to the Championship than at any time in their Premier League history, De Zerbi kept the north London club in the top flight with a 1-0 win over Everton on the final day. Over that time, English fans saw a different side to the Italian: one that sacrificed free-flowing football for a more pragmatic style than he is accustomed to coaching.
It was an emotionally charged spell, in which De Zerbi recognised the need to flip the club’s mental state, from the performance staff to the players. While he put on a brave face around Hotspur Way and during press conferences, the changing-room atmosphere in the 1-0 defeat to Sunderland in his first game drove home the desperate nature of their situation.
“I don’t feel last season was my achievement — it was the players,” he says. “Because when I came, I saw the players after Sunderland in the dressing room. I didn’t tell you in the press conference, but it was like this: everyone crying, lying down on the floor in the dressing room. I said, ‘(Have) we passed away?’ and I tried to transfer positivity and to observe the situation from another perspective.”
He set about entirely changing the mood and spirit in the camp. He told staff at the club’s training ground, who were “sad and negative” after the defeat at the Stadium of Light, that he would send them home if he heard them say anything negative. He arranged a dinner at the Bacchanalia restaurant in the affluent Mayfair area of central London and allowed his players to drink alcohol, because “alcohol is a good medicine”. In building a bond and brotherhood among his players — as evidenced on the final day of the season, when the team celebrated together on the pitch — De Zerbi tapped into an aspect of successful team building that he believes is crucial to success.
“If you have respect, it is normal,” says De Zerbi. “If you have respect and value a person, it’s much better. If you have respect, value, and love — friendship, care — I think you become top, top, top.
“Respect is normal. ‘Coach, good morning, hello’, you have respect. If I believe in you, it’s much better. If I love you, between the players, between the coach, you become unbelievable.”
The special bond he creates with players is already paying dividends. Pedro Porro became a World Cup winner with Spain over the summer, but before he did, he signed a new long-term contract to remain at Tottenham, despite interest from some of the world’s biggest clubs. Micky van de Ven described the football under De Zerbi as “really enjoyable”, putting the club in a better position to negotiate a new contract for the Netherlands international, whose current deal expires in 2029.
He also set up the crucial meeting to secure the record-breaking £100million signing of Sandro Tonali in Brescia, the town where De Zerbi was born and where Tonali was raised as a footballer, and played an essential part in winning the race to sign Jan Paul van Hecke, whom he had at Brighton. While transfer business is often seen as a laborious part of the job for many coaches, De Zerbi revels in using his charm and charisma to connect with players and get deals over the line.
“If the coach calls the player, you can build a special connection at the beginning because the player knows you are the key for this transfer, and maybe this player feels (they) have to give you back something more than if Johan Lange calls,” he says. “You can create the special connection. With Mateus Fernandes, I spoke with his parents, with mum, with the father.
“With JP (Van Hecke), after the Everton game, I sent the message ‘F*ck off, you wanted to push down Tottenham for Brighton when you made the assist to Georginio Rutter, now you have to come to me, yes or yes, you have no choice!’ After the game, in my office at Tottenham Stadium, I sent a message to my daughter, and then JP.”
None of this would be possible without the investment from the Lewis family, and the positive working relationship with club chief executive Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Lange, which he describes as “the best of his career”. De Zerbi has said he expects two or three more signings before the end of the window, but after undergoing a “university” education from Brighton owner and chairman Tony Bloom in the economics of the transfer window, he understands the value of selling players, too.
One of the players to depart north London this summer was Luka Vuskovic, who went the other way to Van Hecke, joining Brighton for a club-record initial fee of £46million. The 19-year-old is considered among Europe’s most exciting centre-back prospects, but he is yet to make a Premier League appearance after several loans in Belgium and Germany. If Spurs are to stay within the Premier League’s squad cost ratio (SCR) boundaries while remaining ambitious in the market, De Zerbi believes the club should not be afraid to sell — as long as it is done as a team.
“For Vuskovic it was together. (After) Vuskovic’s (transfer request), we spoke with Vinai and Johan together, because I consider Tottenham’s money as my money. It’s like the owner is my father; you don’t want to ask your father to spend money or to lose money.
“I think the top clubs are not worried about selling players. Not even Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich: when they have to sell, they have to sell. Right price, you don’t have to be shy. But when you have to spend money, you have to do that. Strong, fast, quick, the right player, the right investment.”
And, while those clubs are at the top and have been consistently for decades, De Zerbi conceded Spurs are at the start of their journey to get back there. Tottenham finished 17th in the Premier League in successive seasons, an embarrassment for a club of their stature. To reach a point where the club is consistently challenging for trophies again, De Zerbi is unafraid to pressure the board for investment, as he believes the club deserves it and so does he, having accepted the proposal to join in a relegation scrap.
“I like to think I deserve to stay here and deserve to want the top players, because now Tottenham deserves to build up a top team,” he says. “Because the words… they are not clear, but the facts are clear on the table (bangs on table). Now we have to bring in top players to become competitive; I don’t know if to win, but for sure to be better than the last two seasons’ results in the Premier League.
“I consider the trophy the end of the journey. I can’t manage the end of the journey; I can manage the journey from the beginning until the end. And now is not the moment to think of the trophy. The trophy arrives if you, in this journey, have worked well, have been your best version, and the players have been able to play in the best way they can.”