It was back to where it all began for Kevin Danso on Saturday - returning to Reading 11 years on as a European champion.
The imposing centre-back actually started his youth career at the other end of the pitch as a striker for Reading Under-9s, staying at the Berkshire club for five years before moving to MK Dons in 2014. He moved on to FC Augsberg in Germany in 2016 and arrived here at Spurs in January via spells at Southampton, Fortuna Dusseldorf and Lens.
Under-9 striker to UEFA Europa League winning centre-back - quite a journey!
“Reading was my first glimpse of Academy football,” he told us after playing the first half of a 2-0 win against the Royals in our pre-season opener. “I played for the Under-9s a bit, good memories, and there are other players who made it professionally - Gabriel Osho (now at Auxerre), Tom McIntrye (Portsmouth), it’s good to be back, I haven’t been back for a while. It’s been a long time.”
Kevin and Cuti Romero were relatively untroubled in their 45 minutes before Micky van de Ven and Luka Vuskovic took over in the second half - Vuskovic impressing with an assist and goal in his first appearance, Will Lankshear also on target.
“You could see we tried to implement the new things we’ve learned from the gaffer, I thought it went really well, it felt good… good to get the first minutes under our belts,” he added, before giving an insight into the some of the information Thomas Frank is getting into the squad.
“To be aggressive on everything we do, give 100 percent and have that mentality, especially for defenders, have that clean sheet mentality, always being awake and alive to what’s going on, being alert, even when we’re attacking, to lock onto the opposition strikers, respecting every aspect of the game and playing it big, playing it as well as we can.”
As for that UEL medal - Kevin played an important role late in the final against United in Bilbao - he beamed: “At the moment it’s somewhere where I can always see it, in the morning or when I come back home from training, it’s right in front of the TV, a nice little place for it, and every now and then I’ll look at it just to remind me we’re champions.”