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There was a moment during Tottenham Hotspur's open training session in the Seoul World Cup Stadium when the 6,000 Korean fans suddenly fell eerily silent.
They had just watched their national hero Son Heung-min collapse to the floor at the edge of the pitch, appearing to be in real discomfort as he rolled over on to his side and stayed there. Eventually he was hauled back to his feet by Harry Kane, who himself had only minutes earlier suffered a similar collapse and thrown up on the touchline before needing a cold towel pressed against the back of his neck.
It was a genuinely uncomfortable moment inside the stadium as thousands of Koreans feared what Antonio Conte had done to their national captain. It was only when he eventually rose to his feet that the cheers came. Son had undergone military training for his country, but this clearly was something his body was not ready for.
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Conte may have been the instigator but the drill sergeant was Gian Piero Ventrone. The 62-year-old Napoli-born fitness coach appeared to take some glee as he pushed the Spurs players on, even turning to the crowd at one point to get them cheering the players on as they attempted to complete their brutal task.
It came after more than an hour and a half of training drills, rondos, one 10 vs 11 two-touch match and then an 11 vs 11 game. Most team's sessions would finish at that point, particularly in temperatures approaching 30 degrees and with furnace-like humidity.
Ventrone, known as 'The Marine' back in Italy, had other ideas. He unleashed his and Conte's renowned pre-season nightmare on the players - 42 pitch-long runs, with very brief pauses after each set of three or four, to see which of the jet-lagged stars lasted the distance at the end of their third training session in just over 24 hours.
This was no light jog either. It was done at pace with the target 42 lengths for the players who came back earlier in pre-season and 30 for the international stars who returned just before the flight to Korea. Kane and Son were the first to begin suffering and it's no coincidence that the former met up with the squad on the day they flew from Heathrow and the latter met them all as they arrived at Seoul's Incheon International Airport on Sunday.
Others flopped around them on the floor as the brutal runs continued. New signings Yves Bissouma and Richarlison were eventually left lying prostrate on the ground or on their knees and others fell around them. Japhet Tanganga was given his own running plan as he continues his recovery from his knee surgery but even he was left drained at the end of the session.
Ivan Perisic, yet to return to ball work after his calf injury, watched on with a knowing smile, well aware from his Inter days what Conte's sessions are like.
Every player that walked off the pitch was drenched in sweat, their new Nike training shirts clinging to them in the humidity. The difference between those who began their pre-season earlier than most at Hotspur Way had been clear. It showed that no matter how many Instagram videos they put up of their off-season workouts in far flung exotic locales, it was nothing compared to the pain to come.
Youth had its advantages. Bryan Gil, newcomer Pape Matar Sarr and Davinson Sanchez were among the fittest of the bunch and led many of the later runs by a distance, while Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg was among the best of the rest, but it was young Irish striker Troy Parrott who led the group back in the 42nd and final run of the night.
He had told football.london just hours before when asked how gruelling Conte's sessions were: "It depends who you ask. I'm quite a good runner naturally, but yeah it's been tough. It's been hard work but it's all preparation."
Our photos from Korea of the Tottenham players collapsing during and after the session went viral across social media as the world got a glimpse at what Conte was doing to his players to prepare them for a big season ahead. Some wondered if he was putting on a show for the crowd and the travelling media, others claimed that's just what he does.
Conte will have found suggestions that the session was brutal as laughable as such training was common place during his time as a player and who did he have as one of his fitness coaches when he wore the Juventus shirt? Ventrone of course.
Ventrone has a reputation in Italy as one of the toughest taskmasters in the game. In a FourFourTwo feature on Zinedine Zidane, it was said that before agreeing to join Juventus in 1996, the midfielder phoned up Didier Deschamps to understand what he could expect in Turin. Among the glowing references, the now France boss mentioned the name Ventrone with dread.
Zidane would soon come to understand why the Juve players referred to the fitness coach as 'Professor Marine'.
"Deschamps did tell me about the training sessions but I just didn’t believe they could be as bad as all that,” he later told the Italian media. "Often I would be at the point of vomiting by the end, because I was so tired."
Zidane would later credit his physical transformation to Ventrone and anyone who would last the distance in one of his sessions had managed something special. The coach would hang a 'bell of shame' wherever Juventus trained and it was to be rung by the first player who had to give up during the session. Ventrone would describe the bell as "a stimulus to overcome one's limits".
The fitness coach would sometimes also play music during drills, including Wagner’s iconic ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ when the exercises hit their highest intensity and Ventone's mottos are said to be statements such as "work today to run tomorrow", "die but finish" and "victory belongs to the strong."
The legendary Italian striker Gianluca Vialli once was so angry with Ventrone after a training session, he apparently locked him in a cupboard and called the police.
Yet for one reason or another the players appreciate Ventrone for what he does for them, despite hating him in the moment and you will often see them celebrating with him after Tottenham's games. The work might be horrible but the results are there for all to see and the Spurs player's dramatic fitness increase after Conte and Ventrone's arrival, along with assistant boss Cristian Stellini and fellow fitness coaches Costantino Coratti and Stefano Bruno, played a huge part in their top four finish last season with their running stats off the scale.
They will be even stronger and fitter for this campaign with this gruelling pre-season under their belt and in Conte they have a head coach who would squeeze every last drop out of sweat out of his body, so they have no choice but to do the same.
"He was great at understanding his limits," Ventrone once said of Conte to FourFourTwo. "To compensate, he would always apply himself to the utmost with hard, focused training. Every year he was called into question, but in the end he stayed at Juventus and became their captain. He won it all for himself with work and sweat. He took that experience into his coaching."
Tottenham's training session before those late runs was high intensity as well on Monday with a fast pace and some tough tackles, including one from Tanganga on Lucas Moura that left the Brazilian down for a while nursing his ankle.
Cristian Romero looks like becoming the Erik Lamela of this current training crop. The winger's aggression in training was renowned at Tottenham, prompting his team-mates to wear shin pads whenever he was involved and Romero could be heading the same way as his compatriot. One tackle on Monday evening angered Emerson Royal briefly before the South American duo returned to what they were doing.
Conte lost Dejan Kulusevski within the first 30 minutes of the session, the Swede appearing to point to his calf muscle as he came off and walked down the tunnel. Hopefully it was simply precautionary as he appeared to moving fine after the session when talking to Spurs' managing director of football Fabio Paratici by the side of the pitch.
Tottenham's pre-season has barely begun and with their first game of the season coming on August 6 against Southampton, it's going to be a very different looking Spurs squad in every sense that lines up for it. Premier League beware.
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