There was a moment midway through the first half in Seoul on Wednesday when the Tottenham players came over to the touchline for a drinks break and Ange Postecoglou ripped into them.
This might only be a friendly but the Australian was anything but. He was furious and could be seen gesturing and shouting towards them as they stood in a group, getting some much-needed liquid into their bodies in the South Korean heat and humidity.
The Spurs players had looked dangerous at times in the first half of their latest pre-season friendly but also gave their Team K League opponents a lot of space to break and get the ball out of their own half.
Postecoglou has worked his players hard in training and they looked leggy throughout but he wanted their minds and bodies to be used to push even in the most extreme circumstances in the Seoul heat.
"Boys there's only one (insert swear word) thing to say. We go in on the press, man to man. Just go man for man!" he yelled at them.
It's amazing how a bellowing Aussie can suddenly remove fatigue and hesitancy from the human body, because within moments Tottenham brought a whole extra level of football to the remainder of the first half.
First Brennan Johnson swept a good ball into Pape Matar Sarr and he quickly fed Son Heung-min, who cut inside and saw his shot saved by goalkeeper Jo Hyeonwoo. However, his parry fell for the quick-thinking Dejan Kulusevski and the Swede rolled the ball away from one lunging defender, swivelled and smashed it in off the unfortunate keeper.
Kulusevski then picked out Lucas Bergvall who rocketed a shot off the underside of the crossbar before Son brought a bit of trademark magic for his South Korean fans.
Jamie Donley had got into a good inverted position from left-back and spread the ball through to the Tottenham captain. He danced inside and past challenges before curling a classic right-footed effort into the net. If Postecoglou has a favourite type of goal with the low crosses and finishes, Son's is the cut inside and curler.
The chastised Spurs players were not done yet as Sarr and Son played a quick one-two before the skipper did the same with Kulusevski to put himself through on goal via a nutmeg on the covering defender and he slotted home his second clinically. It was a beautifully worked goal from the hosts and the epitome of Postecoglou's desire for them to push on and create.
Son and Kulusevski have been the sharpest senior players in pre-season by a long, long way. The former returned this summer ready to wreak havoc on the Premier League and the latter eager to prove his place within Postecoglou's team wherever he plays on the pitch and he's been a very effective false nine in recent games.
football.london asked Postecoglou what else he had said during his angry outburst on the touchline midway through that first half and as he often does following such moments, the head coach played it down once the air conditioning had cooled him down.
"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," said the Spurs boss.
"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."
It was all about the fitness because the Premier League is going to be fast and furious from the off and Postecoglou teams need to be relentless from minute one to minute 100 as today's games last even longer.
These two weeks have been about using the conditions to push the players' bodies to new limits so the normal week in, week out football will not feel as taxing. It's been tough on them though and that was clear as the game wore on, not only just in their lack of pressing early in the first period.
It was clear also in the possession stats which Spurs usually boss, with the two teams sharing the ball exactly 50-50 with Tottenham playing marginally more passes with 475 to Team K League's 461. However, they did have 27 shots at goal to the Korean All Star side's 18, with 10 on targets for the north London outfit and eight for the K Leaguers.
"We've been training pretty hard so we didn't probably look as sharp as we have been, but within that, I thought the players still gave everything and some good passages of play. The game was very open at the end I think, very stretched," said Postecoglou.
"The conditions were really difficult for the players but they never stopped, they kept trying to play and I think overall we were better for that game."
Team K League changed their entire team for the second half while Postecoglou only made three changes with Brandon Austin, James Maddison and Oliver Skipp replacing Guglielmo Vicario, Lucas Bergvall and Pape Matar Sarr.
Sarr had endured another mixed game with some shaky passing and touches blended with good movement and balls in key moments while Bergvall had shown a sure touch and quick thinking but faded in the heat as the half wore on. The young Swede admitted to football.london earlier on this tour that he has never faced anything like he has in the speed and level of the training under Postecoglou. It will take him time to adapt.
Tottenham fans got to see the potential midfield trio of the future in Sarr, Bergvall and Archie Gray, who was playing as the number six and once again showed that he's got a football brain far older than his 18 years of age.
Postecoglou was pleased with the £40million teenager and the young trio as a whole even if he knew they faded.
"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, nut yeah, for the most part I thought they handled it pretty well," he said.
"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's words hinted at what was already assumed, that Bergvall will be used in cameos in the Premier League to begin with this season in order to build up his stamina while Gray will be more ready made but will still need to adapt his body to the tougher demands.
Maddison came on for the second half with Bissouma. The latter was unable to meet the levels of his previous performances, while the former looked sharper as the second half wore on and his corner was headed on to the crossbar by Emerson early on before he sent his own effort on to the left-hand post in the final seconds.
Maddison has also had an occasional, frustrating tendancy this pre-season to veer away from passing to some of the academy players in moments.
On Wednesday evening in Seoul, the first Team K League goal originated from such a moment. Maddison had the ball on the left-hand edge of the opposition box and had Donley in plenty of space on the edge of the pass to pass to.
The vice-captain overlooked a couple of opportunities to make the pass, then turned back into a cluster of players before knocking it across just in front of Gray, who lost the ball, Kulusevski couldn't quite regain it and Team K League broke away, with Donley now out of position, and scored through Stanislav Iljutcenko tapping home after Austin could only get one hand on a shot.
The same had happened between Maddison and Donley a minute before that goal, the former picking the ball up in the midfield with four players around him, seeing the 19-year-old makeshift left-back in space and instead turning back towards the quartet of opposition players, who fortunately didn't press him at all and he was able to get a ball to Skipp instead on the other side.
Skipp had struggled with the first Team K League goal, being turned and falling over as they broke up the pitch. It was Donley who will have felt he should have done better for the second goal of the half, not fully making a challenge on the edge of his own box and allowing the player to get back to his feet with the ball and it was eventually worked across to Iljutcenko to dive in between Emerson and Pedro Porro and head home.
Postecoglou made a flurry of further changes around the hour mark and Tottenham found a goal back on 67 minutes. Maddison found the run of Timo Werner and the German showed once again that few are better in this squad of delivering one element of the Postecoglou edict of getting past your man down the wing and hitting it low across the six-yard box.
This time he picked out 19-year-old striker Will Lankshear, who made the required run to score once again in this pre-season. The forward combined with Mikey Moore moments later and curled an effort inches wide of the left-hand post.
Lankshear has done his cause the world of good this pre-season and once again he was preferred to Alejo Veliz and Dane Scarlett, who both didn't make it on to the pitch, which is testament to Lankshear's efforts this summer.
There was a similar situation with Moore, with the 16-year-old chosen over Manor Solomon to come on and the Israel international was the only senior player on the bench who didn't get any game time.
The little winger has understandably looked rusty after 10 months out with his knee problems and has lacked that explosive acceleration of last season so far. Moore in contrast has looked a handful every moment he's been on the pitch and looks set for plenty of pockets of first team game time across this season despite his age.
Tottenham fans had earlier got to see another winger for the future in the first half in Yang Min-hyeok, who was selected to start the game for Team K League following his fantastic maiden senior campaign so far with eight goals and four assists from the flanks in 25 matches.
He was warmly greeted by a number of his future team-mates and Postecoglou inside the stadium ahead of the game and he looked bright up against them and had the crowd on the edge of their seats every time he got the ball.
Yang has got a good turn of pace and skill on the ball, leaving Emerson dizzy with one run past him in his own half and fashioned a chance for himself soon after with stepover after stepover before firing his shot just over the crossbar.
It was a promising 45-minute glimpse of the 18-year-old, even if Postecoglou said he wasn't paying too much attention to it.
"Yeah, look, you know, there's a game of football tonight. I was focused on our players, so I wasn't really following the opposition players. When he comes in, in January, we'll have plenty of time to look at him," he said.
"I think what's important now is that we've made the announcement and he concentrates on his club football here in Korea, finishes his season strong. He's had an outstanding season so far and then when he gets to us, he'll have plenty of time and plenty of opportunity to show us what he can do and we'll help him with that process."
The fully-changed fresher and fully match sharp Team K League side in the second half did manage to score a third goal, Oberdan sending a wonderfully-struck volley back past Austin, who had sent it his way with a flying punch.
The Spurs goalkeeper was unfortunate on the night. He could have done better perhaps with Iljutcenko's first goal but could do nothing about the second and then made two great saves around the third goal - one from a one-vs-one and another with a low dive at his left-hand post. Oberdan's strike was just one you have to accept as a beauty.
Tottenham continued their run of winning every pre-season game with four official wins and two behind-closed-door ones, even if the scoreline reflected another shaky defence display.
It's difficult to judge Spurs properly though when it comes to their defence. It's been a makeshift backline all summer so far with midfielders and full-backs filling in. Even the one natural centre-back in Ashley Phillips was unable to play through injury on Wednesday.
Radu Dragusin at least got his first game time late on with 23 minutes or so in his legs following his much-praised exploits at the Euros. Destiny Udogie is back in training following his long-term injury absence and is expected to get some time against Bayern Munich in Seoul on Saturday.
Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven will return to Hotspur Way next week ahead of the second match against Bayern at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, along with Rodrigo Bentancur and Giovani Lo Celso.
This isn't a fully formed Tottenham side yet, both in terms of missing personnel and new faces yet to arrive this month. The Postecoglou football is there though and it's being built upon with extra layers, it just needs the right defence behind it and the fitness to carry it out across 90-plus minutes.
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