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Tottenham Hotspur defeated Hong Kong Premier League champions Kitchee SC 4-1 on Friday in a post-season friendly played at Hong Kong stadium. The friendly was part of a brief post-season tour to Hong Kong by Spurs that was a way to connect to Spurs fans in Asia, and also confirm an extension with Tottenham’s kit sponsors AIA.
Son Heung-Min and Vincent Janssen both struck in the opening 20 minutes for Tottenham, Harry Kane bagged a goal towards the end, and promising academy player Kazaiah Sterling added a late strike after coming on as a second half substitute. Lucas Silva got the sole consolation goal for Kitchee.
The match was notable in that it was not televised anywhere, but it was streamed on both Tottenham Hotspur’s and Kitchee’s FaceBook pages. American viewers could only watch the Kitchee stream, which was commentated solely in Chinese.
I’ll be honest — I didn’t watch this match, though I did have it on in the background. A post-season friendly that starts at 8:00 a.m. on a work-day isn’t the most conducive thing to being able to cover an actual game, so I’ll leave it to you all in the comments to say what you thought went well and what went poorly. But from the little I did see, Son Heung-Min was absolutely dominant in this match. George-Kevin N’Koudou, who started the match on the wing, looked especially bright for Spurs, and Sterling nearly had a brace after putting an earlier header on goal. We also got to actually see Pau Lopez in goal for Tottenham!
But the best part might have been this: after the match there was an trophy ceremony in the stands, and Vincent Janssen got to do the honors of lifting it on behalf of his club.
Vincent Janssen lifting a pre-season trophy like it's the Champions League warms the heart. pic.twitter.com/l3qGELdVJ6
— Andy Ha (@_AndyHa) May 26, 2017
Look at how excited Janssen is to finish the season by lifting silverware! What a lad!
The season is now officially over for Tottenham, and the players will return to London and then disperse thither and yon for their summer breaks, except for the players who are involved in the upcoming international matches in June. This may be the last time we will have gotten to see players like Kyle Walker and Moussa Sissoko in a Tottenham Hotspur shirt, as both have been strongly linked with moves away from the club.