FanPost

The Positivity Train has reached its final destination

Full credit goes to Ray_of_Sonshine for conceptualizing the Positivity Train

"Next stop: Madrid!"

Madrid? That wasn’t supposed to be on Tottenham’s itinerary this season. Yet here Spurs are.

At times this season the Positivity Train was held together by mostly duct tape and, at times, stopped running altogether and had to be physically pushed by the passengers. The season was supposed to end long ago. Another year, another finals spent watching from the couch.

Yet here Spurs are.

How many crises have been averted since this season began? Let’s do a quick recount:

  • 13 senior players participated in the World Cup and, resultantly, missed chunks of the season because of fatigue and injury.
  • Stadium was massively delayed and did not move into it until 3 April.
  • Zero net transfer spending in the summer and winter windows.
  • Hugo Lloris, captain, drunk drove.
  • Pochettino was leaving for Real Madrid, and then Manchester United.
  • Mousa Dembele moved to China.
  • Harry Kane missed 17 competitive fixtures.
  • Even Vincent Janssen was brought on as a sub – twice.

The Positivity Train kept on chugging despite these problems. It stalled at certain destinations (Bournemouth, Wembley, Stamford Bridge, Milan, Emirates, Burnley and several times at Wembley) but there was something special about this Tottenham squad.

Was it the manager? Mauricio Pochettino is the only man magical enough to conduct the train’s engine and ensure it still runs despite literally running out of gas.

Was it Sissoko? Last season’s outcast has become the indispensable cog that keeps the wheels turning.

Was it Heung Min Son, Lucas Moura or Christian Eriksen who – at varying times – dug deep just enough to push Spurs that extra inch at the Etihad, the Johan Cruyff or New White Hart Lane?

What about Jan Vertonghen or Toby Alderweireld, the two who directed the train from the back and kept all the carriages interlocked?

To simplify the allegory: Tottenham are not supposed to be playing in the Champions League Final. Spurs are, admittedly, an anomaly.

This squad was destined to fail because of the hurdles they had to jump ever since August. They often stumbled. What Spurs didn’t do, and what separates them from others, is that they didn’t fall flat on their face.

Tottenham had one point in their first three Champions League group stage games, but it didn’t mark the end. Goals from Kane, Eriksen and Lucas saw Tottenham make their own great escape and slide into the group stage, where the Bee Keeper took care of business against Dortmund.

Do not also forget Spurs’ domestic league travesties against Arsenal, Chelsea, Wolverhampton, Bournemouth, West Ham, Watford and Southampton.

Somewhere in this mess was a three-way title chase that eventually fell into a two-horse race and Spurs quickly crashed out of the FA and League Cups. The season was in disarray.

There’s something special about this squad, though, and about this year. Spurs endured the pain of a lingering World Cup, of a beleaguered squad and disappointing results.

This squad is a living manifestation of Bill Nicholson’s ethos:

It is better to fail aiming high than to succeed aiming low. And we of Spurs have set our sights very high, so high in fact that even failure will have in it an echo of glory.

Down 0-2 to Ajax in the second half in Amsterdam the journey seemed over for Spurs. Then magic struck by the name of Lucas Moura and, at the 95 minute, the Posivity Train continued its upward trajectory up to the apex of the footballing world.

And so the Positivity Train has reached its final destination in Madrid, at the Wanda Metropolitano.

Look out your windows and soak in the views because all you’ll be able to see is glory – a glory that stretches far beyond the horizon.

Credit again to Ray_of_Sonshine, from whom the Positivity Train had been conceptualized.




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