Preview: Basle (Home)

Author: John Kelly

The Christian Gross Derby

My mate 'big John' has joined the Hot Shot Hotspur team, at least for this week. Here's his preview of tonight's first-leg vs Basle. Take it away JK:

  

Once upon a time, not that long ago, when Tottenham Hotspur had a problem that needed solving, they turned to Switzerland.

Around the time when Spurs could go through a whole summer and only sign Allan Nielsen or Paolo Tramezzani, there was one winter when Alan Sugar took out the chequebook and flashed it around with all the reckless promiscuity of an 18-year-old whose father’d given him unlimited use of his gold credit card to celebrate his birthday in a stripclub.

Those days of Spurs never signing anyone were particularly frustrating because the only access to any transfer news was through clubcall -- when a minute on the line cost roughly the same as the annual GDP of Botswana -- or through The Sun or The Mirror who, when they decided everything else was too outrageous a lie, constantly fell back on the rumour that Matt le Tissier was on the way to White Hart Lane. I spent all of the summer of 1996 saving my pocket money to get his name printed on the back of my Spurs shirt. I had enough for ‘Le Tissie’ before I finally accepted it wasn’t going to happen, but by then a summer that could’ve been spent experimenting with how many Desperate Dan bars it was possible to chew at the same time was ruined.

The other way to get news of potential transfers was through page 220 on teletext. Through that summer of ’96, both twos, the zero, and the up and down buttons were almost worn away, so you had to press down on them really hard. I reckon I checked page 220 that summer approximately 9,000 times. No exaggeration.

When the day came -- well after Euro 96 was over -- and the second or third line on the page divulged we’d signed Nielsen for £1.65million, I think I had a spasm over the couch in a way I hadn’t done since Jurgen Klinsmann scored the winner at Anfield in the 1994/95 FA Cup quarter-final. I’d taped most of Euro 96 and pored through everything until I found about 25 seconds of highlights of a Denmark game. Little did I know I’d have my second next subsequent spasm at 4.48pm on Sunday 21 March 1999 and the two events would be cosmically linked.  

The in-between spasm of excitement happened when we signed Ramon Vega. It was almost too much. We’d already brought in John Scales (slid along the front hall and smashed into the door when that was confirmed) and Steffen Iversen (told everyone in school to put all their Post Office savings on Spurs winning the league) who’d just given Franco Baresi the runaround at the San Siro.

And then Vega only went and scored on his debut against Manchester United! Sadly, though, apart from that 1999 League Cup final, that was as good as it got. And it’d gotten a whole lot worse in the meantime.

Christian Gross. Holding that tube ticket, as if to symbolise Swiss efficiency, durability and reliance. He did sign Klinsmann again but was gone within a year and took over at tonight’s opponents Basel where he actually did very well.

It made sense, though, to look to our neutral cousin to sort things out for us. The Swiss do things properly. They’ve the best public transport system in the world. Everything is integrated: when you get there you buy one ticket that allows you access to pretty much anything. Trains and buses leave when they’re supposed to.  

They have a resilient economy when everyone else’s has collapsed. They have nice food and wine. They have Martina Hingis. Roger Federer. Emmental. Swatch. Multi-linguists. The League of Nations and the Geneva Conventions. Mountains, lakes, everything squared and on time.

Thankfully, though, their football clubs aren’t quite as renowned.

They’ve never won a UEFA or European Cup but have accumulated more recent experience than Spurs in both competitions.

They’ve shown they can be dangerous. Young Boys proved that in 2010 when they went 3-0 up in that qualifying tie. Basel knocked Liverpool out of the Champions League 10 years ago and Manchester United last season. The two players who scored in that 2-1 win against Alex Ferguson’s side are proven goalscorers. Between them, Marco Streller and Alexander Frei have scored 54 goals for their country.

At the weekend they defeated Luzern 4-0 and sit top of the Swiss Super League.

In many ways it’s an extraordinary achievement that André Villas-Boas has Spurs third in the league after more than three-quarters of a season during which no striker has fired with any consistency. The only player who has shown any form, however fleeting, is Jermain Defoe and he again misses out. Emmanuel Adebayor has been awful, while Clint Dempsey hasn’t delivered enough.

That means the focus is, yet again, on the number 11. He has shown so far the responsibility doesn’t faze him. And if he’s on form Thursday night then hopefully there won’t be another problem to be solved in Switzerland.  

Prediction: Spurs 3-1 Basel

Make sure to follow John Kelly on Twitter @JKelly1882