PEACE CUP FINAL
(Seoul, S. Korea)
SUNDAY 24TH JULY, 2005
LYON 1 (0) TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 3 (3)
Spurs scorers:-
Berthod (o.g.), 7
Keane, 9, 45
Lyon scorer:-
Ben Arfa (pen), 74
Referee: - Mr J. C. KWON
Teams:-
Lyon (4-2-3-1):- Coupel; Reveilliere (sub Diatta, 46), Cris, Cacapa (Capt.), Berthod (sub Monsoreau, 51); Diarra (sub Ben Arfa, 58), Pedretti; Govou, Essien (sub Clement, 75), Malouda; Wiltord (sub Frau, 58)
Unused subs included Carew
Booked:- Cris, Essien
Spurs (4-4-2):- Cerny; Kelly, King (Capt.), Gardner, Edman (sub Bunjevcevic, 36); Routledge, Tainio (sub Mendes, 46, sub Marney, 87)), Carrick, Reid; Mido (sub Kanoute, 67), Keane (sub Defoe, 65)
Booked:- Mido, Gardner
Here is "Johnny Hotspur's" exclusive eye-witness report on yesterday's Peace Cup victory for Spurs. Johnny lives in South Korea, and apart from a touch of editing, the words are very much his own. They sure convey the meaning to me, and I hope you enjoy the report! My thanks to Johnny for some truly great accounts from South Korea.
Spurs in a Cup Final then; it may seem like nothing at all to the British press, the footballing community and all fans of other teams, but to be here, in a historic, magnificent and reasonably full stadium on a beautiful day, with proper fanfare, you sort of got sucked in and started to believe it yourself.
There was a proper pre-match build up, and the stadium was decorated with immense Spurs & Lyon flags, and even each team had a designated singing section of about 50 fans assigned to each team – they sang, dressed in colours and waved the right flags all afternoon. How could we consider this a casual pre-season friendly? It isn’t – it’s a sort of cup final!
The stadium, meanwhile, is a real place, and Wembley might take some notes:
it has a subway station that lets you out right there; on the ground, first and second floors there is a huge Carrefour supermarket, and a multiplex CGV cinema. Inside there are real shops and the walls are decorated with memorabilia – it’s a real nice place! And sitting right behind the Spurs bench, who could grumble?
Spurs started bright and strong, wearing white against Lyon’s red, and played with pace, neat passing, confidence, and in 8 minutes were 2-0 up.
On 7 minutes Mido spread the ball to Routledge, who put Kelly through on the right; his cross was deflected in and it’s 1-0 to the Tottenham. The players, fans and staff were delighted but not as much as a minute later when we scored a better goal, Mido ran down the left wing, crossed it over perfectly for Robbie Keane to get in between two defenders and head in for 2-0 – already! They had Essien, Govou, Diarra and other Champions League quality performers, but it’s us, with our young and up for it team who are 2-0 up. From our seats you can hear our guys calling for it, showing tenacity you don’t see from further off – Carrick, Gardner – these apparently laid-back guys were bossing players around. Who’d know they had it in ‘em?
This is Lyon, who are good though. Wiltord crosses, they hit the post, but they are offside anyway. Essien puts someone through, Cerny saves. Essien looks proper class, and you’d have picked him out as a class act even without all the recent press fanfare; he plays with the ball and seems to have real space around him whenever he has the ball, even if there’s a defender on him; what are Chelsea doing though chasing him? Are they going to drop Lampard or what? Or is it just to stop Man U getting him? Phew, those guys up there living the high life; still, one day it’ll be us…
Cerny (top keeper no less) does it again, saving at the feet of another through pass from the same. Meanwhile Govou is a constant thorn down our right side, although Spurs shirts are quick to get behind the ball, and someone, often Tainio or Gardner, gets the tackle in to break it up.
At the other end, Mido Ed:This may have been Andy Reidtries a deft chip which the goalie puts over neatly, but already our Mido’s having a great game. And so is Robbie Keane, and Reid, who are particularly passy-passy – these two play well together, they look for each other and form somewhat of a mini-unit within the Spurs team.
Likewise Routledge and Kelly on the right, who forage a chance on the right out of nothing.
Amazing skill by Reid takes him past a defender and into the box, to great excitement from the crowd – the cross comes over for Mido, who knocked it down but a defender cut it out. It’s an end to end game at this point, with an instant reply by Govou at the other end that got cut out by Edman, and the Koreans are finally appreciating this Tottenham Hotspur. I live here – it’s a non-starter even talking about us, but maybe now…? Everyone I spoke to about the game afterwards loved it!
Jol started with Tainio and Carrick in the middle, and you might take this as a hint as to who he thinks his best two are. Carrick played well – he is the available man in midfield, whatever defender wants to get it out just needs to play a short pass to Carrick, instead of hoofing it up there. He sidesteps around there, finding space, and rarely wastes a pass; and next comes Tainio, who is box to box, he gets around, he’s very busy, and can do everything very well. Not a bad pair. Meanwhile the wingers are full of self-expression and try stuff out. We don’t look too bad…
Bunjevcevic comes on for Edman, who got injured. Cerny pulls off a nice point blank stop on the edge of the box from Wiltord, who fancied a goal against us but, well, no, it’s us who score next, as Reid puts Mido through with a perfect lobbed through pass; he then crosses for Keane who puts in it there again and we’re 3-0 up right on the stroke of half time.
Mendes came on for Tainio; Diatta comes on for Lyon, who get a free kick right away but it comes to nothing, except an unnerving shot of Houllier’s eyes bulging bigger than ever. No, don’t try to imagine it, let’s move on… Tony Gardner stops another promising Lyon burst; Tony G is doing just fine tonight; they all are; makes me think Jol can make them rise to the occasion. Or is it the stadium? I notice our end of season mishap last time came at the Riverside…
Routledge gets into the box with his tricks, he passes to Mendes, who gives it to the very confident Reid, who shot just over. A fine Lyon one-two gives Govou a shot but Ledley blocks it. Cerny then saves point blank from a shot from another Essien cross.
Mido then dives but doesn’t get a yellow for it – they seem to like Mido here. Probably because (a) he’s playing a blinder, and holds himself like a real crowd pleaser, (b) Mido is also a Korean name, so they just love to overuse it, because they know they are pronouncing it right. They also gave him the Silver Ball after the game for second best player of the tournament.
Andy “Ride” Reid and Goran “don’t even go there” Bunjevcevic never stood a chance.
Keane won the Golden Ball – they love Robbie here; Keane and Mido, we got Keane and Mido, two seeming world beaters. Keane gets a very warm ovation as he comes off for Defoe. Essien then gets a yellow for trampling all over Routledge; then he tackles the same guy like he’s not there – can we get Essien (cheesed off) then bid for him? Take our chance while he’s here! Freddie Kanoute comes on for Mido, more proper cheers from the neutrals who’d never heard of him before today.
Lyon are reduced to long shots round about now. Essien comes off, and suddenly a poor decision by the ref turns the game, as Lyon get a penalty for blasting the ball at Gardner’s shoulder. He also gets a yellow for complaining. Ben Arfa puts it in for 3-1 – this is Korea for you – surely they just wanted to liven the finale up?
It totally worked anyway, and the game completely opened up, after a previously flat 10 minutes or so. Amazing skill on the right by Routledge and Kanoute leads to nothing. Lyon break right away but nothing. Another shot comes in at Cerny – you want Spurs to take a yellow at this point just to send a message to Lyon here – stop this sudden proper CL football you are throwing at us – we are English barbarians, ok? Don’t be trying it on…
Another Lyon shot comes in but is saved for a corner; another cross, Bunjevcevic, not winning any prizes but that’s just because of his name, heads it out for another corner; yet another cross comes in, this time met by a header, and at 10 left, you had to wonder if Spurs would crumble. But no~~~we didn’t!
But we have signed a cracking winger called Wayne Routledge who can get mixed up with two guys on him, wriggle out, and hold the ball up; still, Lyon are playing like CL contenders, and force Cerny to tip it over the bar, then Ledley came out with a super tackle to save the day.
Mendes comes off hurt, Marney comes on. Mendes looked bitter about that as it turned out he was fine; Keane had to literally give him an arm round the shoulder on the bench as he let off steam to Mido, who was pretending to look concerned – what a big phoney! Marney took a free kick that forced a nice save. Lyon run through our whole team but Kelly sorts it out in the end and what was that? The final whistle, and we have won a cup, which we will defend in two years. The players, credit to them, did not take it casually – they were genuinely happy with this, and Jol was truly delighted – can we dream a little now?
Maybe – certainly, the awards ceremony was long enough to literally send you to sleep and start dreaming right there and then. In fact you could have gone down to Carrefour, bought some pyjamas, made Ovaltine, drank it, dreamed of Spurs winning the CL, woke up and the awards ceremony would still have been going on. Talk about pompous speeches sucking the life out of a cup final win – but finally Ledley lifted the Peace Cup, the players took it to show the fans behind the goal, and all was well in Korea.
Thanks for reading, see you in two years at the next Peace Cup,
Johnny “only goes to Peace Cup games” Hotspur.
· Read the Spurs Odyssey report on the game
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