Roberto De Zerbi's Stance on Player Commitment at Tottenham
Roberto De Zerbi is making one thing crystal clear at Tottenham: he will not beg anyone to wear the shirt.
Lucas Bergvall’s future remains the first real test of that stance.
The 20-year-old Sweden international started his first game of Spurs’ preseason tour on Wednesday, a laboured penalty shootout win over Sydney FC, but left the pitch with as many questions around him as when he walked on. Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest have already been pushed back in their attempts to lure him away; the player himself has yet to offer the clarity his head coach wants.
De Zerbi, though, is not in the mood to plead.
“I would like that he stays with us – I think he’s a potential top, top, top player,” he said after the game. “But in the end I don’t want to convince anyone to stay.”
That line is becoming something of a manifesto. Tottenham, he stressed, should sell itself.
“I think Tottenham is already, without me, a top club, and we are not to convince anyone to stay. I think he can find the space because the competition between the players will be very strong. We are Tottenham and we have to build a strong squad, not just 11 players.”
This is the heart of De Zerbi’s project: depth, edge, and a group hardened by internal competition. The last two or three seasons, scarred by injuries, have only sharpened his view of what an elite Premier League squad must look like.
“Especially considering a lot of injuries we suffered in the last two, three seasons. Football is going in a clear direction: to compete for the [highest] place on the table, you have to manage 22, 23, 24 players.”
Bergvall sits right in the middle of that vision. Young, technically gifted, and still learning what it means to carry expectation at a club of Tottenham’s size.
De Zerbi has invested time in that process. He spoke with the midfielder before last season ended, twice during the World Cup, and now, finally, face to face in a calmer environment, away from the weekly grind of competitive fixtures.
“Now I started to work [with him] like I know, like my style,” he explained. “In the last season, when we prepared the games, we worked on the head, on the mentality, more than the style of play.
“I think his position is very clear for me now also because I needed time to understand the characteristic of the players, but I would like that he stays with us. He’s a very young, very good player, good guy, and it’s not so easy and so fast to find a young player of that level.”
So the door is open. The pathway is there. But the choice, De Zerbi insists, must come from Bergvall.
While that subplot rumbles on, Tottenham’s head coach has already turned a more protective gaze toward his marquee arrival.
Sandro Tonali has barely walked through the door and De Zerbi is already talking about him like a jeweller guarding his most valuable stone.
“A precious diamond,” he called him, after the record-breaking move from Newcastle.
The description did not come wrapped in hype. It came with a warning and a plan.
“We have to manage him like a precious diamond. We have to help him to improve in the last decision, as [well] as physical work. He has to work hard to become stronger because this diamond footballer needs to be strong and to give space when there is the right moment.”
That is the other side of De Zerbi’s no-nonsense rhetoric. He may refuse to chase after players, but once they are his, he is prepared to nurture them, especially the younger ones.
“I usually give time to all my young players I work with in my career, and with his potential, he is a special player.”
Between Bergvall’s hesitation and Tonali’s arrival, a clear picture is emerging. Tottenham under De Zerbi will be a place of hard choices and high standards, where talent is cherished but never coddled, and where the squad is built for the long, brutal stretch of a modern season.
Now it is up to Bergvall to decide whether he wants to grow inside that pressure cooker, or watch it from somewhere else.
