Micky van de Ven remembers being told that he would never win a trophy in his career after he moved to Tottenham. But the centre-half, who was signed by Ange Postecogloufrom Wolfsburg in the summer of 2023, says the collective determination within the club to break the silverware curse will fuel them in Wednesday’s Europa League final against Manchester United in Bilbao. Spurs have won nothing since the 2008 League Cup.
“It will be a big thing, of course, because everybody knows that when you join Tottenham, you get the words through of: ‘Ah, you’re not going to win a trophy, you will be trophyless for the rest of your career,’” Van de Ven said. “All the guys that came up here were like: ‘We’re going to change something about this club.’
“It was the gaffer and it was the whole squad who said: ‘We’re going to come here and change something.’ For us, it’s the job now to make this happen in Bilbao.”
Van de Ven was asked who had told him he would never win anything after going to Spurs. “It’s these people on social media, you know?” the 24-year-old replied. “These banter people that you don’t take really serious. It did not play on my mind, not even a little bit.”
The Dutch defender is among the many players who continue to fight for Postecoglou, who ison the brink of losing his jobafter 21 league defeats this season – the most in club history over a 38-game campaign.
“We have all been standing behind the gaffer since day one, since he joined here,” Van de Ven said. “He showed his quality, he brought us to a European final. Of course, he’s getting a lot of doubt from the media and we see these things. But I think he proved all you guys wrong and we’re standing in a European final, so hopefully we can lift the trophy. Not only for us but also for him.
“We all know we play for a big club. This club deserves trophies. That’s the truth. If you look at the quality in the squad, we deserve a trophy. It has been a tough season but we can end this perfectly by winning a prize.”
Postecoglou’s hopes have been fired since Van de Ven and his other first-choice defensive selections returned from injury. Since the second leg of thelast-16 tie against AZ, the goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario and the defenders Pedro Porro, Cristian Romero, Van de Ven and Destiny Udogie have been available.
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Postecoglou picked Djed Spence over Udogie against AZ but, that apart, he has relied on the quintet en route the final, being rewarded with some assured performances, especially in the1-0 win at Eintracht Frankfurtin the quarter-final second leg which secured a 2-1 aggregate victory.
Van de Ven’s partnership with Romero in the middle is fundamental. “We just feel each other in the game,” Van de Ven said. “If he does something, I know how I need to cover him, how I can help him. On the other side it’s the same – when I have the ball, he knows how to cover me.
“From the beginning I felt a strong connection with him but the more games you play together the more you start feeling each other and knowing each other’s qualities. It’s an unbelievable connection that I have with him now.”