Part 4: Can You Build a Winning Team Without Any Winners in It?

Tottenham Hotspur won the Europa League in 2025.

The narrative changed.

For the first time in 17 years, Spurs crossed the line. They lifted a trophy.

Players like Son and Romero — already elite — became winners.

They’d felt it. Lived it. Delivered it.

But now?

Son is likely to be sold.

Romero too — a combined £90 million heading out the door.

And the new manager?

Highly rated. Respected. But no silverware on his CV.

So now we’re asking the question all over again…

Can you build a winning team if nobody in the dressing room has done it before?

❌ You Can’t Just Buy Winners

Let’s get one thing clear:

Most clubs don’t build a winning mentality — they buy it.

They sign players from Bayern, Real Madrid, Man City.

They appoint managers with six league titles and a Champions League.

But that’s not an option for Spurs.

We don’t have oil money.

We don’t offer Premier League-ready squads full of stars.

And as history shows — even when we brought in proven winners like Mourinho and Conte — they didn’t build a winning team here.

Because they didn’t teach mentality.

They demanded it.

And when they didn’t get it — they collapsed.

So no — buying winners is not the solution at Spurs.

🧠 What Real Winners Actually Do Differently

If we’re serious about building a winning culture, we need to understand what winners actually do.

Not just in finals. Not just in May.

Every day.

Here’s what they bring that others don’t:

• They hold teammates accountable — even when it’s awkward

• They stay calm under pressure — and calm others too

• They train with the same intensity they play with

• They speak about winning like it’s inevitable

• They act when others panic — they don’t wait for someone else

These aren’t slogans. They’re habits.

You don’t learn them from YouTube clips or matchday motivation.

You learn them by living them.

💡 Can You Build a Winning Team Without Winners?

Yes.

But it’s the hardest route possible.

You need:

• A manager who knows what mentality looks like, even if he hasn’t lifted trophies

• Senior players willing to buy into the standard and enforce it internally

• A club willing to back the process — not the headline signings

Postecoglou built that for a while.

He got players believing, fighting, owning the moment.

Romero responded. Son stepped up. Maddison embraced his mentoring role. The squad transformed.

But if Son and Romero leave this summer?

The mentality they helped create goes with them — unless someone carries it forward.

That’s the risk.

And the challenge.

🛠 Stop Buying Names. Start Building Men.

Spurs fans want names.

They want transfers. Ambition. “Back the manager.”

But history is clear:

That’s not what makes Spurs win.

We’ve spent before. We’ve bought stars. We’ve appointed “proven winners.”

It didn’t work.

Because character > CV.

Mentality > marketing.

We need to stop thinking we can sign our way to trophies.

We need to sign players hungry enough to build it with us.

And we need a manager who can develop more than tactics.

He has to develop men.

🔚 THBN The Final Word

Spurs proved in 2025 they could become winners.

But with Son and Romero potentially leaving — and a new manager with no silverware — the cycle could restart.

The only way out?

Make winning mentality a club-wide standard — not something a few players bring with them.

Not something we buy in waves.

But something we train, live, and demand — every week.

You can build a winning team without winners…

But only if you create the conditions for winning to exist.

And only if you have the courage to commit to it.

The new manager has to convince 25 players that he can teach them what winners like Cristian Romero already know.

Without ever having done it himself.

That’s not just a tactical challenge — it’s a credibility crisis.

Because when the pressure mounts, when the moment arrives, when players are looking for leadership — they’re not looking at Thomas Frank’s Wikipedia page.

They’re looking for someone who’s been there.

Someone who’s felt the weight of expectation and delivered anyway.

Someone who can say: “I’ve done this before. Follow me.”

But when you’re 2-1 down in a cup final with 20 minutes left, players don’t remember your team talk from Tuesday.

Make no mistake, Frank has a massive job on his hands, far bigger than you realise.

Can you build on the mentality, that’s his biggest role and the one that will define whether he is a success or not.

My worry is that the club don’t know that job exists!

It’s not impossible though, Jurgen Klopp did it at Liverpool.

PLayers follow conviction, not tactics.

Postecoglou’s conviction won us the 2025 UEFA Europa League.

And finally, let me throw in something losing mentalities won’t agree with.

Frank’s job is to create new winners.

That means:

Finding players who are hungry to prove themselves, not players who are already proven.

Creating an environment where standards are set by the group, not just the manager.

Making every training session, every team meeting, every decision about building character first, talent second.

And most importantly — accepting that he might not be the one who gets the credit when it works.

Because the best managers don’t create followers. They create leaders.

And leaders don’t need their manager to have won trophies.

They need their manager to believe they can win trophies.

That’s what Ange Postecoglou did.

COYS

The Tottenham Hotspur Trophy Series