It's no coincidence that Antonio Conte's tougher version of Tottenham Hotspur is going to have a very different look to it next season.
Spurs wore a flaky label for years, often exposed as being weak mentally and opposition managers would often rely on that, Sir Alex Ferguson most famously simply stating 'Lads it's Tottenham' in that half-time team talk. Mauricio Pochettino brought more steel to the north London club but even he admitted after a Champions League match against Juventus that his team could do with knowing more about the dark arts of football.
"We saw how the sporting director put pressure on the referee at half-time," Pochettino said. "He was in the corridor. They were complaining about the penalty. Maybe we need to learn how we put pressure on the referee. In this type of game every minimal detail can help you to win."
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On the pitch, the Argentine added after witnessing his players' reaction to one rough challenge on Son Heung-min: "We complained. We put pressure on the referee but it was easy for the referee to manage us because we were very nice people, trying to help to play a game. In this situation, with experience, you have more possibilities to achieve all that you want. That is another game. It’s not only the game playing football.
"Juventus are specialists because they have the habit to win and the habit to put pressure on the referee. It’s a club with a culture to try to do everything to help the team. It’s the small details and I believe those details can help us to achieve what we want."
Behind the scenes as one of the staff at Juventus that day was Fabio Paratici. He is now managing director of football at Spurs and it's perhaps no surprise that with him and Conte at the helm, the north London outfit are building a squad of players who have a bit more street smarts to their game.
Richarlison is the latest. He's one of those players who opposition defenders hate to play against and fans of other clubs vent their frustrations at as the pantomime villain of the piece, as he earns fouls and complains about pretty much everything.
However, for his team-mates he's hugely popular and the things that annoy those outside the club ease the pressure on those within it, as he wins free-kicks in important areas and gets decisions for them from the officials that the 'nice' guys don't.
Cristian Romero has had his battles with Richarlison this season but he will end up appreciating the Brazilian being on his side. Romero himself is another who plays the game with the extra competitive edge.
It's a growing trend at Tottenham with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg clever in the way he earns fouls and the Dane is one to let the referee know his opinion constantly. Rodrigo Bentancur brings the South American edge to his game while Harry Kane knows how to get what he wants from the officials among others.
Jose Mourinho accused his Spurs players of being "too nice" and needing to be intelligent somethings and Conte wants similar.
"A strong team has to become nasty. During the game, you have to feel the blood of your opponent! Sorry, but I don’t have any other words to explain it," he said in the aftermath of Tottenham's victory at Manchester City in February.
"In my opinion, when you go into a game, one [team] lives and another dies. You have to be available to do everything – but in a sporting way. You have to know that the game doesn’t finish with two happy teams. One team is happy, another is unhappy.
"You have to try to be the team that finishes happy, celebrates all together and then has a good atmosphere for the rest of the week. And then continues to improve. Don’t forget, [with] wins come wins, wins come wins. This is very important. We’re talking about the mentality aspect, about the right mentality, the winning mentality.
"For sure, this aspect we’re working on and we need time and patience, but I’m happy because I know with our players, when I tell them something, what I say goes into their heads and doesn’t go in one ear and out the other."
Conte wants his players to absolutely hate even the mere prospect of losing a football match.
“The first step to change your mentality is after a loss. You have to understand that you lost a game. The atmosphere has to be different. When you lose a game and you come back to the training ground and [it’s like], ‘Ok, it’s the same like yesterday’. But yesterday you lost!" he explained.
“If we start to change the atmosphere, to understand that atmosphere also depends on the win or the defeat – I think this is the first step to improving your mentality, to starting to be a winner.
"Because when you know that the atmosphere is different, you try during the game to do everything to have a good atmosphere the day after, or the two days after."
Conte pointed towards Bayern Munich, who that weekend had followed up two winless matches with a 4-1 rout of Furth.
“Slowly the [Spurs] players have to understand this difference," he said. "It is very clear in top clubs. When you are in a club that is used to winning, what happens when they lose? For example, Bayern Munich. They were dominating this season in Germany and then they lost 4-2 in the league [at Bochum] and then they had a 1-1 draw in the Champions League [at Red Bull Salzburg].
"I read that the players were very, very angry. They said, ‘No. We can’t continue this way. We have to be strong’ and you show you are feeling that."
The postscript to all of those Conte quotes is that in their very next match Spurs went to Turf Moor and lost 1-0 to Burnley, prompting the Italian to suggest that the club might be better off without him and spark months of speculation about his future.
He wanted things to change and they have. The Conte adventure continues and it's no shock that his first four signings of the summer are all players ready to hit the ground running and all of them have that nous that comes with being battlers.
It's no longer about being the nice guys of north London. Conte wants a snarl and he wants his players to "feel the blood" of their opponents. This is going to be a very different Tottenham Hotspur.
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