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Throughout their
history, many top names have played for Tottenham.
Some were England internationals, some who have graced the game
with skill and honour and even those who have played in a World Cup
final. So, when Tottenham
persuaded Inter Milan to release Nicola Berti to come to White Hart
Lane, why was there no sense of thrill there ??
Berti
had, for many years, been one of the stalwarts of the Italian midfield
and had won just about everything there was to win in the game there.
It probably didn’t help that the reputation he had was of a
whinger, who bent the referee’s ear at every opportunity and seemed to
lack a bit of pace. However,
his relationship with Jurgen Klinsmann was the determining factor in his
move to N17.
Arriving
at a time when Spurs were in the doldrums, it was surprising that he
would want to make such a move, but it did turn out to be a decent one
for him and the club. In a recent issue of FourFourTwo magazine, he was
featured in a series called “They came, They saw, They were crap”,
which is a trifle unfair. Although
he didn’t play many games in total for the club, those he did feature
in during the first season he was here, were ones which were important
to the club in many ways.
He
scored what turned out to be vital goals in the games against Coventry
City, Palace and of course, the memorable match at Blackburn Rovers.
Without those goals, it could easily have been a much tougher
time for Tottenham to escape relegation that season.
It wasn’t his goalscoring that he was signed for though.
While many seemed to fail to recognise his positive attributes,
it was his presence in midfield and his experience which served him
well. I don’t mean
presence in terms of being a dogged ball-winner, but the fact that he
was someone who had been there and done it.
He used the ball simply and effectively; he made a nuisance of
himself rather than just be brushed aside every time and most of all he
wound the opposition up more than Steffen Freund and in a less obvious
way. He did like to
backchat with officials and also was prone to the occasional swan-dive,
but he brought calm and a touch of class to the Spurs side, when it was
panic stations in most games.
The
game against Blackburn at Ewood Park was perhaps one of the most vital
that season and proved a bit of a turning point.
Although Spurs were “too good to go down” (© Nottingham Forest), results had gone against us and matches
were running out. The fans
were despairing (more than they are now, believe it or not) and a 3-0
win away at Rovers came as a blessed relief to all and sundry.
The match contained quite a few memorable moments, with Howells
clearing acrobatically from on the line (although Colin Hendry thought
it was behind the line) and the players at the end running to the Spurs
support to take a bow. But
the first goal came when Berti broke into the box and got on the end of
a blocked shot from Howells. His
sliding lunge got the ball into the net to start what was to be a very
good day for Tottenham.
His
part in that win, when he did run for the whole 90 minutes (as opposed
to the relaxed attitude he sometimes took) really endeared him to the
Spurs crowd. This became
obvious when a song about him started flowing down from the Members
Stand. It is not often that
the Tottenham crowd bother to concoct an original ditty to one of our
players and it was a major surprise when this one hit the air …
“His name is Nicola
Berti,
He's aged about 30,
He comes from a club in Milan,
INTER!”
When
he left the club, he moved to Mexico, then turned up playing in Primera
Liga in Spain for Alaves before ending up in Ian Crook's Northern Spirit
side in Australia, where he is a big star helping to promote the game in
that country. There was also the matter of his name being found in
a phone book of a prostitute in Italy, who also had Ronaldo and
many prominent Italian footballers and public fogures in the same
address book. It was alleged that he had something to do in
running the racket, but this was never proved.
So,
a player who came to the club when we had little hope, played a major
part in our survival in the Premier League and for that we should always
be thankful. The fact that
in his second season, he was pretty dire is by-the-by, but he did a lot
for Spurs in his short time here and he was much more successful than
Christian Gross’ other Italian signing !!
MARCO
VAN HIP |
