Espírito Santo signed instead
Paulo Fonseca was on his way to become the new manager of Tottenham Hotspur—but then long-time Juventus sporting director Fabio Paratici took over at the Premier League club. The 48-year-old Fonseca left Roma at the end of the 2020/21 season and had already started planning the pre-season with Tottenham before the deal fell through.
“The agreement was done,” Fonseca said in an interview with The Telegraph. The transfer, however, fell through because Paratici wanted a more defensively oriented manager. Instead of Fonseca his compatriot Nuno Espírito Santo took the job—he has collected 1.78 points-per-game.
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We were planning the pre-season and Tottenham wanted an offensive coach,” Fonseca said in the interview. “It wasn’t announced but we planned pre-season players. But things changed when the new managing director arrived and we didn’t agree with some ideas and he preferred another coach. I have some principles. I wanted to be coach of the great teams but I want the right project and a club where the people believe in my ideas, my way to play, and this didn’t happen with the managing director.”
Tottenham: Paratici wanted more defensive football and signed Espírito Santo instead of Fonseca
Paratici’s arrival in London at the beginning of July made Fonseca’s arrival impossible. “It’s what the chairman and the sporting director [Steve Hitchen] asked for,” Fonseca said. “To build a team who can play attractive and offensive football and I was ready for that. I cannot be a different way. All my teams will have these intentions. In Rome or Shakhtar in the Champions League against the biggest teams, I’m not sending out my teams to defend near their own box.”
Without a team at the moment, Fonseca coached Roma from 2019 to 2021. Previously he was under contract at Shakhtar Donetsk for three seasons. Even though the deal with Tottenham fell through, Fonseca would like to coach in the Premier League. “I haven’t done it yet so cannot say my way of coaching is perfect for England,” Fonseca said. “But there is more open teams, teams trying to win, of course more intensity but also space to develop my game.”
