The Soccer Bourne Legacy

The Soccer Bourne Legacy has nothing to do with Jason Bourne and the Bourne Legacy movies, instead I am using Bourne Legacy to describe last week's match against Bournemouth, which it turns out is the local team of fellow bee Lisa Vanderburg.

Spurs were expected to win all 3pts from this game, but in the end despite resolute defending, just one single mistake at the start of the 2nd half led to Spurs winning 1-0.  If not for a world class save by Spurs keeper Lloris, Bournemouth's efforts were worth a draw.  At the time last weekend this was based on the opposition a disappointing performance.

It is also probable that the lack-lustre Spurs performance may have had more to do with not Bourne as in Bournemouth but Bourne as in the Bernabau.  The Bernabau stadium is the home of Real Madrid, the most successful club team in history.  Spurs game last Tuesday against Real Madrid is where the heads of Spurs team probably was.

On Tuesday Spurs drew 1-1 in a game that Real Madrid initially did dominate but in the end Spurs were unlucky not to walk away with what would have been a famous win.  Based on the performance on Tuesday and also today against Liverpool, one can forgive the relative lack of interest in playing a much slower game against Bournemouth.

Bournemouth as I told Lisa in another post earlier today about the Liverpool game is the one club that every soccer supporter can love.  Last year they were expected to be relegated and yet amazingly survived.  How a team with less than 12,000 seats in their stadium can compete against teams that can fill five times their stadium capacity is quite an amazing feat.

This is what makes the Premier League so interesting.  It is not a couple of amazing teams in a division of not so good teams.  On any given day a top team can be beaten by the team with the worst record, such as Crystal Palace who had lost 7 games in a row only to beat the Premier League Champions 2-1.  Now with 9 games played, those 2 goals against Chelsea are the only goals Crystal Palace scored.  Then there is Huddersfield Town beating the mighty Manchester United this weekend by a score of 2-1.

Last year Spurs finished second because they did not take these smaller teams for granted.  On the other hand Liverpool could have competed for the title but for many losses against these very smaller teams.  This year Swansea and Burnley have come to Wembley and achieved drawn matches against Tottenham, so it was imperative that Spurs beat Bournemouth before the next group of games which included Liverpool today, Manchester United next week and then Real Madrid for their return trip to London after Spurs fine 1-1 draw in Madrid.

It is a sign of Tottenham's growth under manager Mauricio Pochettino that Spurs are doing well and no longer disappointing their long-suffering fan base.  In today's game against Liverpool, the legendary Diego Maradona sat with the Chairman of Tottenham and was also accompanied by Spurs legend Osvaldo Ardiles.  Pochettino is also from Argentina.  While Spurs fans were treated to the greats, I can look back one week ago against a team called Bournemouth.  In the movie Bourne Legacy, it is about an assassin whose memory had been wiped clean of his deeds.  When I now look forward from last week's Bournemouth Legacy - now we begin to see the kind of Tottenham team emerge that Spurs fans have been dreaming about for decades.