Roberto De Zerbi treats the Tottenham team to a luxury meal.
Roberto De Zerbi has taken the Tottenham squad for a luxury team dinner at the Bacchanalia restaurant in Mayfair, according to Football London, in an attempt to improve morale and strengthen the group’s collective spirit ahead of what amounts to a six-game fight for Premier League survival.
The evening at the Mayfair venue, which features sculptures designed by Damien Hirst and a menu that includes a leg of lamb priced at £130, was designed not merely as a social occasion but as a deliberate exercise in communication. De Zerbi used the gathering to encourage players to talk more openly with one another, building the kind of trust and connection that he believes is essential if Tottenham are to find their way out of the relegation zone in the time that remains.
Similar approach as Igor Tudor
The approach mirrors a strategy employed by his predecessor Igor Tudor, who also treated the squad to a meal before his first match in charge back in February. Tudor’s attempt at team bonding ultimately did little to reverse a catastrophic run of results. De Zerbi will be hoping the outcome is considerably different, though the early signs have not been encouraging. His debut in charge ended in a 1-0 defeat at Sunderland, a deflected Nordi Mukiele strike enough to send Spurs to 18th place, two points adrift of safety.
De Zerbi was candid about the psychological challenge facing his players after that result, while making clear he intends to confront it with positivity rather than pressure. He said (h/t Football London):
“First of all, the players of Tottenham are all good guys, and they are suffering for this moment. They are not happy when we lose the game, or they are not happy to see Tottenham at the bottom of the table, for sure. But we have to find the energy, we have to find the right spirit to be positive, to think during the week when they stay with me. For sure, they will see a positive coach because I believe in their qualities. Because we are Tottenham, but we have not the right to win the game just because we are Tottenham. You can’t win the game with the paper. You have to win the game showing the quality on the pitch, the fighting on the pitch. You have to score the goal, and you have not to concede the goal, for sure. But they are human, and they are suffering maybe too much, and altogether we have to stay close, to be positive, to work, to improve in the details, in the football, but to be better as a mentality.”
The message is clear and consistent with what is known of De Zerbi’s managerial philosophy. He builds from relationships, from trust, and from the kind of collective belief that cannot be installed through tactical sessions alone. The dinner at Bacchanalia is an extension of that approach, an acknowledgement that what is broken at Tottenham is not solely tactical but deeply human.
Whether a meal in Mayfair can shift the mentality of a squad that has been psychologically fractured for the better part of a season is another question entirely. Brighton arrive at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday as favourites, and the record under Hurzeler against Spurs makes for grim reading. But De Zerbi knows this group, knows what they need, and is at least making the right noises about how to provide it. The results need to follow, and they need to follow immediately.