There’s a cruel symmetry to two unravelling crises thousands of kilometres apart, where Accra and London are bound by instability, underachievement and despair.
In Ghana, the Black Stars are trying to drag themselves out of one of the bleakest spells in recent memory, while in England, Tottenham Hotspur are staring into a season that has veered from dysfunction to impending disaster.
Both have sacked their coaches — two in Spurs’ case; both have invested resources only to lurch from tactical confusion to emotional drift and back again, and both of these fabled institutions, these fallen giants, are clinging to the idea that a reset can save them.
For both, this rebooting will be taking place without the injured Mohammed Kudus.
Losing Kudus to a ‘significant quad injury’ stretches beyond the absence of one more name on the teamsheet. His loss will have a decisive, significant impact on both FIFA World Cup dreams and English Premier League survival hopes.
For Spurs, he proved — at least on occasion under Thomas Frank — that he was that rare attacker who could conjure chaos from nothing.
Without Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison, both yet to feature this season, he was increasingly invaluable, with individual displays of excellence against Burnley and Leeds United in the first half of the campaign encouraging Tottenham fans to believe that they were primed for a push for Champions League qualification.
For Ghana, he’s been the difference-maker, a rare touch of quality in this demoralising cycle, where the four-time African champions have found themselves shorn of the individual excellence and strength in depth of squads gone by.
The parallels between these two decrepit edifices are striking.
Ghana’s recent collapse has been marked, because of both the results and the fashion in which they’ve arrived. Qualification for the Qatar World Cup papered over the cracks that had been increasingly evident, while ultimate failure to qualify for the bloated 24-team 2025 Africa Cup of Nations was a national embarrassment.
Otto Addo’s exit felt inevitable, but hasn’t erased the damage of the previous spell. It arguably came too late, and surely has come too close to the World Cup for Carlos Queiroz to succeed to the best of his abilities.
Similarly, for Tottenham, Igor Tudor’s dismissal felt inevitable, but the board’s decision to cut with him has not solved the damage done during those miserable 44 days. Last year’s Europa League success under Ange Postecoglou partly papered over the cracks of Spurs’ structural decline, but there’s been nowhere to hide this season.
Roberto De Zerbi’s arrival has surely come too late, and surely too close to an increasingly inevitable relegation for the Italian to succeed to the best of his abilities.
Similarly, for Tottenham, Igor Tudor’s dismissal felt inevitable, but the board’s decision to cut with him has not solved the damage done during those miserable 44 days. Last year’s Europa League success under Ange Postecoglou partly papered over the cracks of Spurs’ structural decline, but there’s been nowhere to hide this season.
Source :ESPN
