Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison have returned to the Tottenham side, and their influence helped Spurs to a first league win of the season at home to Coventry, giving the Roberto De Zerbi project fresh life.
There was no grand emotional outpouring, no quiet moment of reflection and no vulnerable look to the heavens as Kulusevski prepared to make his long-awaited comeback from injury. He shared a brief exchange with the oft-impassioned De Zerbi, glanced at the tactics board and went on to the pitch, roared on by the 60,000-strong Spurs support.
Kulusevski puts the team first
It is a testament to Kulusevski’s selfless, God-fearing personality that he could put his own emotional return to one side to help Spurs over the line against Coventry.
De Zerbi introduced Kulusevski with the game finely balanced and Coventry pushing for an equaliser. It was evident that the steely-eyed Swedish playmaker was not there for moral support alone.
His rampaging runs into the channels got Spurs up the pitch at a time when they threatened to retreat into their own box. Despite nearly 18 months on the sidelines, there was no sign that Kulusevski felt physically inhibited as he put Coventry on the back foot.
After the full-time whistle, a wave of relief rippled round the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Kulusevski indulged in the emotion of an occasion which, only a few months ago, he thought might not be possible. He shared a long embrace with Maddison, who has been on his own journey back to fitness.
“Football for me is like breathing”
Speaking to the media in the tunnel, Kulusevski described how he had told his loved ones that he may never set foot on a football pitch again. Then, as if by chance, his daughter ran past wearing a shirt with “my hero, 526” written on the back. Family has been his driving force, his will to return even when it felt impossible.
“Imagine when everyone give up on you. Imagine that you can’t, and you know football for me is like breathing,” Kulusevski said as he paused to reflect on a momentous evening for himself and his family.
“Imagine you can’t breathe for two years, but still you have a family, you show up, you do it with a smile, you go with your teammates, you hype them up, and that takes a lot of love, a lot of courage and a lot of belief.”
A different Spurs with both back
Spurs looked a more confident, more clinical team with Maddison and Kulusevski back fit. De Zerbi believes that “with them in the dressing room, there is another atmosphere.”
The two are different characters with similar journeys, and De Zerbi knows Spurs must look to them for inspiration on and off the pitch.
The result was a rare home win, just their sixth in the past 37 home league games. It owed a lot to Maddison’s influence on his first start in 17 months, and also to Kulusevski, and it showed Spurs exactly what they have been missing.
The north Londoners’ issues are myriad, but it is no coincidence that they have lacked creativity and conviction without Maddison and Kulusevski in the side.
If Spurs are to push on this season, they would do well to learn from the pair. Their mental resilience is an example for the rest of the team, and something that has been in short supply.