Dispatches From the Garden State
Ahoy! More gifts skimming across the pond this morning as esteemed WFRF reader, Longwell, gives his eye-witness account of Spurs’ adventure in the Garden State. He was there, man. He was there…
New York Red Bulls 1-2 Spurs
When a mate from New York got in touch with me on Monday afternoon to say he had an extra VIP ticket for this fixture, I didn’t even hesitate for a second. “There’s no way my wife will let me fly 1,000 miles to see a preseason friendly,” I told him. As it turns out, I was wrong about that. And pretty well everything else in life; just ask her.
Fast forward twenty-four hours and I’m in New Jersey, hoofing it across a bridge over the Passaic River in the direction of Red Bull Arena to meet up with two fellow Spurs fans and a West Ham supporter with nothing better to do that evening. Before you ask, yes, he was trembling with excitement at the prospect of Andy Carroll and Kevin Nolan getting the band back together in East London. (Not really.)
We put a serious dent in the pre-game spread in the VIP suite, and then waddled down to our front row seats. Yes, first row. That’s how I roll. This being America, we had the local leggy blonde belt out the national anthem, and then we were ready to go. You know you’re not in Kansas anymore when the stadium announcer intones, “And now the starting lineup for the Tottenham Hotspurs!”
This is harsh, but it was a good two or three minutes before I figured out Spurs weren’t starting with 10 men. I had mistaken Aaron Lennon for a mascot. Believe it or not, NY had a fullback (Conor Lade) who I think was smaller than Azza. Lade is listed at 5’6″, but I would say that’s being generous by at least two or three inches. At least. He was up against David Bentley for the first half, and Bentley (listed at 5’8″) absolutely towered over him. I think he might have mistakenly jumped into Jan Vertonghen’s armpit on a corner. Too bad he wasn’t a forward, or we could have trotted out a “You’re just a s**t Leo Messi!” chant. Ha ha! Hey, did I mention this guy was short?
Villas-Boas had the lads set up in a 4-2-3-1, with the boy Bale leading the line. Sigurdsson was pushing up alongside Bale when Spurs had the ball–which was most of the time–so the shape was quite 4-4-2-ish in possession but quickly back to 4-2-3-1 without the ball. Bale and Sigurdsson were making some really intelligent runs across the NY back line and could have been put in easily with the right ball from deep, but NY did a good job closing down Huddlestone. That pretty well cut off the supply line for balls over the top, as Dawson was wayward with his longer passes and Vertonghen just didn’t seem to fancy the vertical ball. Thud in general was pretty rusty. I don’t know if he’s still coming to grips with what sounds like permanent damage to his ankle or what, but his usual silky touch was not often in evidence. Hopefully he’ll round into form as the start of the season approaches.
The High Line came in for some banter when Dax McCarty sprang Tim Cahill with a simple ball through the middle and Vertonghen barged him over in the box. I thought Jan did well to make up the ground on Cahill, but the challenge was a bit oafish and he probably would’ve been sent off had it not been a friendly. Plenty of fault lies with Dawson, who had been pulled way too far to the right for some reason, and Livermore, who didn’t track Cahill’s run from midfield. By the time Vertonghen had to pick him up, Cahill had a full head of steam and was headed right for the yawning gap between the two central defenders. No pressure on McCarty from Thud or Livermore. Too easy. Kenny Cooper sent Gomes the wrong way, and it was Red Bulls 1, High Line 0.
Other than that mistake, which I felt was more down to individual errors than bad tactics, I thought the high defensive block looked much better than in the Galaxy game. Spurs had about five or six successful offside traps by my count, plus another couple that should have been called had the linesman not been poorly positioned. This could be due in part to NY not having anyone as good as Robbie Keane at timing his runs off the shoulder of the last defender, but there’s no doubt the back line looked more cohesive and comfortable than they had in LA. The other piece of the tactical puzzle here is more intense pressure on the ball in midfield. When we get Sandro and Parker back in the mix, that ought to help considerably.
Let’s pause to give credit to the Red Bulls “ultras” who were in fine voice throughout the first half, although they seemed to run low on enthusiasm and cleverness right around the hour mark. This may or may not have had anything to do with Tottenham’s equalizing and then taking the lead at that point. The Spurs support definitely turned up the volume after Bale’s goal (why NY thought it was a good idea to have McCarty marking him on corners I will never know) and went bonkers for Sigurdsson’s dandy solo effort. What a peach of a finish that was. Pure sexytime.
Based on the colors being flown and the reaction to the goals, my friend said there were a lot more Spurs fans this time than when he went to see Spurs play Red Bulls two years ago: also a 1-2 victory for Tottenham, in Thierry Henry’s NY debut. Some nice symmetry there with the scoreline and Tim Cahill as the debutante this time. I’d peg the Spurs support at around 40-50% of the 20,000+ strong crowd. It was a very respectable atmosphere for a meaningless exhibition game in a foreign land.
As the goals would suggest, Spurs dominated the second half even more than the first. NY’s third string coming on had a notable effect on the ease with which the good guys were able to knock the ball around in midfield. From our vantage point (in the Tottenham half of the field, on about the 30 or 35 yard line), it was often tough to tell exactly how the attacking play was evolving at the other end. As one of my mates remarked, “it all became a muddle of depth perception.” He did however go on to note that “based on my extensive understanding of football tactics, I can see that Tom Huddlestone is a very large person.”
At one point, Thud crashed into Villas-Boas after trying to chase down a loose ball near the touchline. “Still better than I was treated at Chelsea!” said my Hammer mate. “Look, the big Tom wants to celebrate with me!” I said. In an act of self-preservation, Villas-Boas soon replaced him with a much smaller Tom. Carroll is a delightful player to watch. I do hope he hits puberty soon, though.
Shortly thereafter, I had to alert Benny to an incoming pass. His attention was focused upfield, and the ball was played across the back line to him. It was going to roll behind him and out for a throw, but I yelled “BENNY! BALL!” and he woke up from whatever he was doing and collected the pass.
Condensed account of the rest of the second half, thanks to my low-angle view of the bulk of the action: Dawson was a man among boys whenever NY tried to play the ball in the air to their forwards. He won every single header. All of them. Gallas ran the show defensively like a boss; he was decisive and vocal about their positioning. Bale, who didn’t look bad at all playing as a center forward, was much more effective when he moved back to wide left. Kane looked absolutely gassed after about ten minutes. I’m sure he was still feeling the effects of that brutally hot game in Baltimore. Kyle Walker does not relax. Ever. What a beast. The lads were quite aggrieved with a two-footed challenge on Kaboul by McCarty late on, and it got a bit chippy for a few minutes near the end. Bassong gave McCarty a pretty good kick in the back of the leg after McCarty slid in on him too. That’s how we do cheap shots in England, sonny jim.
The new gaffer was quite animated throughout the contest, up near the touchline directing traffic and shouting encouragement and corrections. He also spent about 30-45 seconds with each of the halftime subs after they’d warmed up, giving them what appeared to be the Cliffs Notes version of their individual instructions for the second half. I haven’t been to enough matches in person to know if that’s unusual or not, but it was nice to see. The players seemed to respect and respond well to him.
The post-game was kind of silly. Red Bulls got runners-up medals for finishing second in a two-team “cup competition”. They also gave Bale a Man of the Match trophy, which my mate theorized would be collecting dust in some stripper’s closet by the next morning. We elected not to stick around for the trophy presentation.
After taking the train back to Manhattan, we got off at World Trade Center with what seemed like at least half of the Spurs support. Heading out of the station, the crowd got some legit chants of “Yid Ar-MAY” and “When the Spurs go marching in” going. My mate wondered aloud if some guys who just got off work late in Jersey City thought they were going to be murdered by cultists as we all rode up the escalators.
Speaking of which, we made some effort during the game to introduce a few terribly clever (emphasis on terrible) new chants and songs, e.g. “Gettin’ Siggy With It”, but sadly those efforts fell flat. As far as I can tell, it’s quite difficult to get a new chant or song to catch on if it isn’t one of the existing handful of stock chants and songs, but with different words. We stand on the shoulders of giants, you know?
Oh when the Spurrrrrrs
Play a high liiiiiine…
-Longwell
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