Conte having to suffer
It was somewhat fitting that the night before his one year anniversary as head coach of Tottenham Hotspur Antonio Conte would have to suffer exactly what it means to be a Spurs fan.
Up in the stands of the Orange Velodrome, unable to influence matters on the pitch with his voice and instructions, the suspended Italian could only suffer the full range of emotions that the Tottenham fans were going through further along in the same stand and back at home.
He watched a familiar first half littered with mistakes and nerves from a group of players boasting huge experience of the competition and having played in some of the biggest games in club and international football.
READ MORE: Harry Kane praises Hugo Lloris, Cristian Stellini and Ryan Mason for rousing half-time words
Conte was sat alongside Spurs' performance director Gretar Steinsson and he went through the whole frantic gamut of emotions as he would on the sideline but without the ability to convey his thoughts to his players.
Instead Costantino Coratti was on hand, on the other side of Steinsson, to frantically take notes from what Conte was shouting to pass on to the other coaches.
Thankfully for the suspended Spurs boss, he had men he could trust to fill the void he left in the changing room at half-time. Conte has known his assistant coach Cristian Stellini for more than a decade and in Ryan Mason he has a young coach who has impressed him since the first day he stepped into the club.
While no player would admit after the game exactly what was said in that dressing room, goalscorer Clement Lenglet would only say that 'important words' were uttered and Harry Kane admitted that Stellini, Mason and captain Hugo Lloris all had their say in changing the mentality of the team around in those 15 minutes.
Stellini admitted afterwards that he channelled his inner Conte as he was walking down the tunnel after the half-time whistle.
"I was coming into the dressing room and I was thinking how Antonio would speak now and I did it, with all of my energy and my thoughts and we are here now to celebrate," he said after the game. "Also thanks to Antonio because I learned lessons, a lot of lessons from him, and this evening I used them."
Kane added: "There were a few words said by a few people at half-time, that we had to be more aggressive, have more intensity and I think we came out in the second half and did that."
Those words certainly did the trick and in the second half Conte watched those same previously underperforming and experienced stars remember who exactly who they were.
The atmosphere inside the stadium was hostile. The north stand was closed but 54,000 fans packed into the other three stands and they ensured that from the first moment Lloris stepped on to the pitch for his warm-up - the World Cup winner admitted afterwards that he "felt alone" - that every Spurs player was going to feel utterly uncomfortable inside their home.
Yet this Spurs team that has felt it's share of criticism this season showed fight. They exhibited mental resilience inside an intimidating atmosphere - something they have struggled with in the last few seasons - and they ended their long run without a win away in Europe despite losing Son Heung-min to a painful looking facial injury after half an hour.
They did ride their luck in one moment late on with former Arsenal defender Sead Kolasinac heading wide a huge chance for Marseille and Ivan Perisic blocked a point blank effort from another ex-Gunner Alexis Sanchez superbly.
However, on the whole Spurs managed the second half well and Lloris did not touch the ball much at all after his two first half saves from Sanchez and Jordan Veretout.
It was the visitors who threatened more, levelling with Lenglet's header from Perisic's deep free-kick, another goal for the growing collection of set piece coach Gianni Vio - Spurs' best signing of the summer - and for the French defender to open his Tottenham account in front of his family up in the stands.
Kane had various dangerous moments in front of goal when the ball would just not fall kindly to him, while Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg crashed a shot against the crossbar.
Marseille pushed in the final moments for the winner they needed to progress from a group that on the night had seen all four teams in qualifying spots at various points as the scorelines changed constantly across the two games.
The French side could not find a way through and instead Spurs found an out ball to Kane, who held the ball up magnificently during the second half, and this time he saw the Energiser Bunny that is Hojbjerg sprinting up the pitch.
The striker played him through and the Dane ran on and smashed an inch-perfect shot in off the left-hand post to send the Spurs players, staff, fans and Conte into delirium.
The Italian went crazy in the director's box, hugging everyone around him and punching the air, almost pulling Steinsson's head off with a bearhug. It would have been a very new experience for chairman Daniel Levy to have such a livewire so connected with the team and steeped in football knowledge raging and screaming behind him.
One of the other Spurs directors, Rebecca Caplehorn, sat directly in front of Conte and could be seen looking skywards and breathing a big sigh of relief amid the celebrations.
That's exactly what the night brought, relief and a little bit of pride to be taken from the way the team completed its second remarkable comeback within a handful of days and this time on the biggest stage.
Having Conte experience it all like a fan was not a bad thing at all and neither was having Levy sat near him for the months to come.
Those experienced players and Ventrone's legacy
For everything Spurs' experienced players did so poorly in the first half, so they more than made up for in the second half.
For example, Eric Dier was a nervous mess at times in the opening 45 minutes with loose passes and one bizarre moment when he tried to stop a ball bouncing off near the home dugout by booting it into the air behind him and all the way into the Spurs' penalty box, which gave Lenglet and Ben Davies a very uncomfortable moment with Sanchez sniffing around.
Davies was similar with some poor passing while Lenglet had the lowest pass success rate from the back with just 75% as Tottenham squandered most opportunities they had to get up the pitch.
When they did finally do that so the front three continually lost the ball. Lucas Moura had a pass success rate of just 61.1% and gave the ball away six times with poor touches, far more than any other player on the pitch.
Son had just six touches of the ball in his 28 minutes on the pitch and sent two of his three passes to opposition players before his painful looking blow to the face during an aerial challenge which left him wobbly on his feet and needing to be helped down the tunnel.
The South Korean star was set to have a scan on Wednesday back at Hotspur Way but Stellini was hopeful that the player would be fine. He said of the injury "it's not bad" in the aftermath of the game and explained that Son was feeling better after he came back in the changing room and was able to join in the celebrations after the game. The scan will reveal whether there is any underlying damage.
Yves Bissouma replaced Son on the pitch and as the game wore on, the Mali international played his part in getting Spurs up the pitch and out of their own box, while Emerson Royal's introduction at the break gave the team more balance after the lopsided nature of having first the left-footed Ryan Sessegnon struggling on that side and then Perisic not looking right in the role.
Tottenham at the moment just can't seem to stop themselves naturally dropping and sitting back. Conte said last week that he doesn't want it to happen and he prefers Spurs pushing up with their pressing but it still is.
Kane admitted after the game: "We've got to find a balance between dropping and pressing. At the moment, I think we're just dropping and sitting too deep."
That changed in the second half and the mood turned inside the stadium. Lloris called it a psychological battle, saying Spurs could feel Marseille had no fear of losing in the first half but in the second period he said the Tottenham players could sense that fear rising of the hosts losing grip of the three points.
Even in the final moments, the Marseille players did not know that a draw was good enough to get them into the Europa League and so were still throwing themselves forward for a winner, which left the door open for Spurs and Hojbjerg to instead take that result.
Hojbjerg and Bentancur have become lynchpins of everything good Tottenham have done this season.
Despite Spurs' poor first halves during much of this campaign, their second half displays have been borne of their superior fitness and that is the legacy of the late Gian Piero Ventrone, their renowned fitness coach who passed away suddenly last month.
Few players exemplify his work better than Hojbjerg and Bentancur, with their role as the engine of Conte's team.
The 27-year-old Dane's late lung-busting run to score the winner was training put into practice from all of Ventrone's pitch-long sprints that pushed the players beyond their limits in pre-season in the heat and humidity of Korea.
Hojbjerg's attacking stats are there for all to see with four goals and four assists now, meaning eight goal involvements in 18 matches this season for a player who has not been expected before in his career to weigh in so much offensively.
The midfielder told football.london ahead of the game that his extra attacking improvement had come from his comfort and greater understanding of Conte's system and his confidence in his own play within it.
His finish in the 95th minute was as confident a strike as anything Kane could produce, as was his defence splitting pass for Ryan Sessegnon just days earlier at Bournemouth.
Alongside him Bentancur is taking his game to a new level for Spurs. A three-time Serie A winner, the Uruguayan has taken to life at the club like a duck to water but he has become even more integral to everything they do as he has fully understood what the English game requires.
The 25-year-old's fitness level now ensures he can motor up and down the pitch at will and in the second half he was leading the press at times with surges deep into the Marseille half as he has been doing constantly in most recent matches.
His composure on the ball is Mousa Dembele-esque on occasions and his team-mates trust him with it implicitly. He will occasionally give it away, such is the risky nature of his role, but on the whole he uses it better than most.
It looked like Bentancur's game time and expended energy had caught up with him late on as he felt his hamstring and sprinting again after that, he needed to go off, with Oliver Skipp doing well with a busy late cameo in replacing him amid the high stakes.
Bentancur did however show that his hamstring might just be okay with a 50-yard dash to celebrate Hojbjerg's last-gasp winner.
Lenglet and Perisic showed their experience as the game wore on, both combining for Spurs' first goal while making some important contributions at the other end. The Croatian in particular made that goal-saving block to deny Sanchez at a crucial point.
Then up front there was Kane. Quiet in the first half, the striker was wonderful in the second. When Spurs needed him, he was there, holding up the ball, fashioning breaks and providing them with a chance to breathe.
Scoring freely in the Premier League, Kane has found the goals hard to come by in the Champions League this season after such a strong start to his time in the competition in his previous campaigns in it.
However, his performances have been key in taking the club through to the knockout stages, this one more so perhaps than any other in recent months.
This was a game when Conte's experienced players took their time but eventually came through for him and the squad was rewarded with deserved days off on Wednesday and Thursday to recover.
What this means for Conte's January demands
This Champions League victory will have far-reaching ramifications beyond what it simply means on paper.
It was apt that Antonio Conte should be celebrating wildly behind chairman Daniel Levy after that Hojbjerg goal crashed in off the left-hand post, for the two men, along with director of football Fabio Paratici who was down on the bench, will now be able to plot what comes next with a little bit more oomph.
Not only will this victory hand Spurs a boost of confidence on the pitch but it will also make their January transfer window exploits that little bit smoother.
For the victory will bring more finances to the kitty as reaching the round of 16 earns Tottenham an additional £8.2m in prize money alone, without taking into account TV revenue, gate receipts and more. Even simply winning the match on the night was the difference between a cash boost of £2.4m for each group stage victory and £800,000 for each draw in the money-spinning competition.
Being in the knockout stages of the Champions League is also a big pull for any prospective targets Spurs will look to sign in January in what is expected to be a busy market after the World Cup as clubs react to what happens at that tournament and in the first half of the fragmented season.
football.london understands that after improving the quantity of the Tottenham squad - or "numerical aspect" as Conte called it - during the summer, they will focus purely on improving the quality of it in January.
The Spurs head coach has been frustrated that he has been unable to change games with his bench with ready made players after a couple of attacking injuries and that will be addressed in January.
The talented but lightweight Bryan Gil is expected to be allowed to head out on loan to get the regular football he needs to continue to develop and in his place Spurs will look for a player who can be a direct alternative to the creative Dejan Kulusevski.
Conte's team has sorely missed the Swede throughout his hamstring injury-enforced absence with no other wide player providing his combination of playmaking creativity and workrate.
At the back, Japhet Tanganga has seen little game time and he could also be allowed to head out of the club, with interesting in his services among some Serie A clubs in the summer. His exit would come if Spurs are confident they can upgrade their options in the back line.
The same applies across the squad if there is interest in players after the World Cup that Conte deems expendable if a better replacement can be found.
Spurs will benefit from the extra boost in Champions League money as well as the increasing revenue pouring in from a full season of an open and busily-used Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, including the money-spinning NFL games, concerts and other sporting events such as Tyson Fury taking on Derek Chisora in an all-British WBC World Heavyweight Championship fight next month.
Then there is the remaining £50m of the £150m capital increase made available by owners ENIC at the end of last season. So far the club have declared an equity injection of £100m to Companies House, which was filed in late June.
There is an incentive for ENIC to make the remaining £50m available, which may be drawn in tranches until the end of the year.
That is because in the original unveiling of the £150m capital increase it was stated that "if drawn in full, ENIC’s ownership of the club could see an increase from its current level of 85.6% to circa 87.5% on conversion".
The break for the World Cup will present plenty of extra planning time to make the right moves in the January transfer window and Conte has consistently spoken about this being a multi-window project but that the club could not afford to make mistakes.
Conte said last week: "I think the club understand very well the importance of bringing in important players, good players, in January. I’m not the person who has to explain this to my club."
He added: "This season will be more difficult than last season because after the transfer market you have seen many, many teams have spent a lot. You have to face a lot of big teams. For sure there will be the time to speak with the club. To understand what is the best solution for us.
"This is not the right moment to answer. Since November now and after one year I understood a lot of things. The first moment for me was really difficult to understand. Now I am going into the Tottenham world. I understand very well what our situation is, what is our position, what is our starting point, how long is our path to be competitive and to fight for something important. Now for sure my knowledge about Tottenham is more complete.
"For this reason I will be prepared for the moment when we speak with the club and understand what is best for the future. For now we need to focus on the present because we want to do our best in the present. My desire, my will and of the players is to do our best and give satisfaction to the fans. That is the best aspiration of everybody. For the other situations we will see the right moment."
Conte's contract will also be discussed. Spurs' option to extend it whenever they want to the summer of 2024 means there is less pressure on them to rush into any jump in salary for one of the world's best-paid managers.
However, with the team through to the knockout stages of the Champions League and with the potential of ending the first half of the season in the Premier League's top three or four, depending on this weekend's result against Liverpool, it would be remiss not to reward the Italian for what it brings to the club.
While the football has not been eye-catching on the whole, that Spurs are just five points off the top of the table in third place without hitting top gear will not have gone unnoticed and neither will the improvement on and off the pitch at the club in the past 12 months.
Handing Conte a new contract will provide stability - as much as one can with the emotional Italian - to the club's stars, and increase the chances of them committing their own future to longer deals. Backing him with quality transfers could be crucial at this pivotal part of the campaign.
Levy sitting so close to Conte on a mild Tuesday night in Marseille and understanding first hand what Spurs are and can be feels like perfect timing and it might just be a defining moment in the club's season.
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