Can Tottenham Hotspur Be the Next Chelsea?

While comparisons like this would not please soccer fans of Tottenham Hotspur, recent signs and the success achieved by the team and manager Juande Ramos mirror that of what Jose Mourinho established and achieved with Chelsea during his reign. Taking over an under achieving team mired in negativity and conflict, Ramos has slowly implemented his methods and ways to stabilize Spurs, which has culminated so far this season in winning the Carling Cup in February. This has been done with a team that not so long ago, was involved in a spiraling relegation battle, and with players proudly announcing their departures for bigger and more lucrative moves.

Since then, Juande Ramos has reintroduced a more professional and disciplined European approach that is commonly missing from most English soccer clubs outside the most successful, such as Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. In Europe, soccer players look after their bodies and diets in such great detail that often bordered on the obsessive. Ramos ensured that Tottenham Hotspur's players observed a strict fitness regiment and diet program, which on the evidence of performances so far, might have saved a number of them from sinking further into professional oblivion. One such player that has benefited greatly has been young England Under 21 midfielder, Tom Huddlestone, who has become a key figure in Spurs' revival and progress.

These developments are uncanny in their similarity to that of what Jose Mourinho implemented at Chelsea when he arrived in a blaze of media hype in English soccer, proclaiming himself the Special One. Mourinho instituted exercise and nutritional science at a higher level, resulting in a Chelsea team that operated at a high athletic level that reaped great dividends on-field as they often outran and outlasted most opponents in securing narrow victories borne of being fitter and more tenacious than their rivals. While Juande Ramos has his own style, he has molded a team that has built its foundations on the same basics, and introduced his attacking philosophy in using talented forwards such as Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane. Coincidentally, Tottenham is a club where fans have been bred on the attacking flair of legendary players such as Gary Lineker and Glenn Hoddle. This has no doubt contributed to their loving embrace of Ramos, which has been further enhanced with him becoming their first manager in nine years to claim a competitive trophy in the Carling Cup.

With the foundations in place, it is likely that Juande Ramos will spend even more effort in procuring the essential players that would complete his soccer puzzle at Spurs. Favoring speedy wingers during his successful time at Sevilla, the Spanish manager has often been reported in the media to seek players modeled in the same fashion. No doubt there will be continued efforts to improve the defensive strength of the club, which has been a perennial Achilles' heel. On the current evidence, the Spurs revolution under Juande Ramos is well and truly underway, and it could likely lead to a period of prominence at the fashionable London soccer club.