On Friday, we covered part of an interview ESPN Brasil had with goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes.
In those quotes, he revealed the reason why he left Watford this summer, and confirmed he’s now retiring, instead of looking for any new challenges in his career.
It turns out ESPN Brasil later released some new bits of the interview, and this time Gomes talks about his time at Tottenham Hotspur.
The player joined Spurs in a €9m move from PSV in 2008, and explains there was a big difference to what the club is today.
“The difference between my time and this time… I arrived at Tottenham, and my interview was like: ‘Gomes, why did you come here? You left PSV and what are your intentions?’ I said: ‘win the Premier League’. The guys started laughing at me.”
“Mauricio Pochettino for me is a football genius. He transformed Tottenham’s way of playing. He put a methodology that Tottenham didn’t have. In my day, we couldn’t go out playing. I had to kick Peter Crouch so we could get the second ball.”
Regarding the arrival of José Mourinho, Gomes claims the manager may be what Tottenham need to believe they can win a Premier League title.
“So today you can say that Tottenham is one of the candidates, at least to be in the top 4. And with José Mourinho there, it’s one more possibility that they believe they will win the English title. Because it is often a club of that size, of tradition, but perhaps many times what Tottenham lacks is to believe that they can win.”
The goalkeeper also recalled the time when he played with Gareth Bale, claiming there are only good memories about the winger at White Hart Lane.
“Bale, physically well, is unstoppable. Perhaps he’s older now he doesn’t have the speed he used to. But he’s an environment guy, a group guy. I don’t know what the problem was at Real Madrid, but we never had any problems with Bale at Tottenham. A guy always cheerful, fun. Often very quiet, but when he opened his mouth, he was fun. Simple, very simple, and indisputable on the pitch.”
