Tottenham Hotspur rounded off their pre-season tour of Asia with a 2-1 defeat to Bayern Munich in Seoul on Saturday.
The Bavarians prevailed in the first of what is effectively a two-part friendly, with the sides set to reconvene in north London next weekend.
Goals in either half from Gabriel Vidovic and Leon Goretzka saw Bayern establish a two-goal lead, before a Pedro Porro screamer brought Tottenham back to within one, but they couldn’t find a late equaliser.
Here’s what we learned from Spurs and Bayern’s meeting in South Korea.
In an age where seasons seems to last a hundred years and the calendar is jammed full of fixtures right to the brim, the last thing you’ll want to hear is your team’s players are tired before the campaign has even begun.
Tottenham’s first-team stars were second-best to Bayern during a testing first half, and spaces began to appear when those players were physically unable to plug open gaps. You could feel the sticky, humid weather from behind a digital screen.
Spurs have racked up the air miles this pre-season, and while Postecoglou admits that’s not ideal now, he hopes his men will come out the other side better for it.
“Fair to say the players were showing the effects of us working hard here for 10 days. I think we’ll get an enormous benefit from the camp we’ve done here though, but tonight we perhaps just paid the price for it,” he told a press conference.
“I think for us, the really important thing for us was that we got 10 days of really solid training. I think the guys will feel the benefits of it when we get back. To train that much in this weather, I know from my time here [in Asia] that it’s physically and mentally draining. When we get back we’ll have a two-week period to freshen them up.
“Pre-season is about getting prepared for the season. We didn’t have Destiny [Udogie] and we haven’t had three of our back four all pre-season. What’s important is the 10 days of training. As far as I’m aware you don’t get points for friendly games.”
Nowadays, Tottenham and Bayern are bound by their connection to Harry Kane (and to a lesser extent, Eric Dier).
Kane remains on holiday after captaining England to the Euro 2024 final. In his place, 20-year-old goal-scorer Vidovic started up front, and versatile forward Mathys Tel came in off the left and made a strong case for his continued involvement.
Down the other end, Spurs floundered without either a false or proper number nine. Dejan Kulusevski has started through the middle in pre-season, but he didn’t have much of a sniff on this occasion.
There’s just a great irony to all this.
Reports earlier this week claimed that Tottenham were eyeing a move for Dominic Solanke, with Postecoglou later confirming this is the position he would like to strengthen in before the end of the window.
Spurs failed to lay a finger on Bayern until the lineups resembled that of… well, a friendly. This didn’t really come until the second half.
For the first 45 minutes, the north Londoners were trapped in their own half and just couldn’t get the ball to stick in the attacking third. It was clear heading into the summer transfer window that this was the area of the pitch in need of strengthening most, and that remains paramount.
Bayern’s haphazard search for a new manager seemed to resemble the one Spurs themselves went through last summer.
After whittling their way through a list of candidates in 2023, Tottenham settled on Postecoglou, who managed to quickly instil his beliefs onto a group of players scarred by the anti-football eras which preceded the Australian.
It appears Kompany is enjoying similar benefit at Bayern, inheriting a group who have taken on board his instructions swiftly and are starting to put them into practice.
Tottenham’s troublesome first-half display was not as much through fault of their own, but rather the suffocating press and quick-thinking Bayern thrust upon them. Early days still, but that’s a promising first step for Kompany.
Tottenham supporters are understandably growing impatient with the club’s slow transfer business this summer, but at least the first-team squad has been blooded with more young talent.
The emerging star of Spurs’ pre-season to this point has been Lucas Bergvall, who dazzled again after coming on as a second-half substitute.
Following in his footsteps were the likes of Mikey Moore, Jamie Donley, Will Lankshear and Alfie Devine, while Djed Spence’s reclamation (the ‘Red Djed Redemption’, if you will… is this mic on?) continued with an exciting display at left-back.
Europa League football awaits for Tottenham this season, and Postecoglou has plenty of young stars to give run-outs to throughout the season.
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