Two teams, two games, two continents: When Tottenham met ...

Published: 12 Aug. 2024, 07:45

JIM BULLEY [email protected]

  LONDON and SEOUL — It had been settled for months that Bayern Munich and Tottenham Hotspur would overlap twice this summer — once in Spurs territory in the final tune-up to each club’s season opener, a week after facing off on the other side of the world.  

  Bayern beat Spurs 2-1 in a friendly in Seoul on Aug. 3 and then exactly one Saturday later, Bayern beat Spurs 3-2 in a friendly in London.   The back-to-backs came and went, and they showed a handful of people who managed to snag a seat at both that the same clubs playing the same game in (on paper) the same general conditions were capable of bringing vastly different vibes.  

  Rumors that Bayern were mulling a first-ever visit to Korea hit the threads and feeds in January. A few months later, it was confirmed that the German club would be one of the European giants slated for a cameo in the 2024 Coupang Play Series, an annual exhibition game event.   About a week after that, Bayern and Spurs confirmed a clash in London, setting up an exciting hour of football in London featuring what, at that point, was a Bundesliga team that had not been outmaneuvered domestically for 11 straight years. (That’s obviously since changed.)   And then, two months later, Spurs were announced as the second club to accept an invite for the exhibition series in Seoul — Spurs captain and Korean national team darling Son Heung-min a sure cash draw.   The Seoul friendly would be the first clash between the clubs in five years, after Bayern beat Spurs in both their home and away matches in the group stage of the 2019-20 UEFA Champions League. But Harry Kane and Eric Dier have since traded their Spurs kits for Bayern ones, and now both clubs have their own Korean star.  

  Kane was absent from the Seoul game, still out on vacation following the Euros, but would be there for a homecoming of sorts at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, on the grounds that he had called home in some form for 19 years.   But before that happened it was time for the Seoul fixture, played in front of a very different crowd compared to the ones both teams are used to.   The atmosphere at K League games lacks a lot of the tension Premier League and Bundesliga games can bring — the worst the fans have to offer is generally a boo or jeer, so much so that water bottles thrown onto the pitch earlier this season was so uncharacteristic it made national news.   Nowhere is that more obvious than at a Coupang Play Series match, which are always more of a celebration of football in general than a serious fixture. It’s a festival atmosphere with much lower stakes and a 60,000-strong crowd determined to have a good time whatever happens.   This summer, Seoul World Cup Stadium got the first look at how a Tottenham Hotspur without Kane matched up against a Bayern with Kim Min-jae and a new manager.  

  On a sweltering Saturday, tens of thousands of people arrived early for the finale of a summer preseason series in Seoul.   The first big difference between the two Spurs-Bayern games was visible hours before kickoff. Korean stadiums permit fans to bring food and sometimes drink into the stadium, so fans in Seoul rocked up with plastic bags of takeaway fried chicken or zip-up coolers in tow.   The difference was even more noticeable inside. Korean stadiums allow the one thing that has been banned in Premier League grounds for longer than any of the players on the pitch have been alive — drinking in the stands. While most Bundesliga stadiums do still allow a beer in the seats, it has been banned in the Premier League since 1985.   Seoul has no such qualms.   Another noticeable difference was in the clothes. While turning up at a football stadium in the UK or Germany in the kit of a team that is not playing would be asking for trouble, in Korea any football clothing is better than no football clothing. That means that football crowds always have a smattering of fans in distinctly the wrong kits.   Of course, when Son is on the pitch there’s a high chance that many of those kits will at least have the right name.  

  Strolling around — scratch that, squeezing through — the crowd that had gathered around Seoul World Cup Stadium under a blazing sun in thick humidity, one would spot a white No. 7 shirt in every frame. It’s a surprise to no one that its bearer is the clear fan favorite.     Son, the captain of both club and country, is everywhere in Korea. His face adorns the walls of every other Mega Coffee and perpetually waits for a ride at bus stops around Seoul plastered with Gatorade ads. For some fans that don’t have a Tottenham Son shirt, a red Korean national team seemed to suffice.   But don’t feel bad for Bayern Munich’s Korean national team attache, Kim Min-jae. He’s only been at the German club for one not-necessarily-mediocre-but-not-that-impressive-either season, while Son’s belonged to Spurs since 2015.    

  Kim has been a fan favorite for years, and his Serie A-winning year at Napoli saw plenty of hype here, but there has not been much time yet for a rush on Kim Bayern Munich shirts.  

  Jump forward a week to London, and Son is probably still the most popular name in the stadium. The crowd here — also numbering the 60,000s and equally sold out — were overwhelmingly Spurs, the tiny Bayern Munich contingent limited to one level of the away corner.   The Korean fans were still out in force here, thousands turning up for this game just as they do for every other Spurs game. Again they were overwhelmingly in Tottenham colors with Son branding, but the odds suggest there must have been a few Kim fans in attendance, too.  

  But despite the similarities, the way the two crowds enjoyed the game was still markedly different. At the Seoul festival of football, every touch of the ball is met with an ooh or an aah — doubly so if Son is involved — whilst in London, preseason or not, football is still serious business.   The stakes were higher at home for Spurs, especially as the goals against piled up. The crowd were not as tense as they would be if the club was down 3-1 at halftime in a regular season, but with just a week to go before the new campaign starts, fans were very aware that every missed opportunity could resonate for weeks to come.  

Bayern Munich's Harry Kane hits a shot toward goal during the friendly against his former club, Tottenham Hotspur, in London on Saturday. [AP/YONHAP]

  That is perhaps the biggest difference. Korean fans are no less passionate about football or Spurs as those in London, but the novelty of a Premier League club playing in Seoul is ultimately what takes center stage in the Coupang Play Series.   Back in London it was business as usual, and Tottenham's Champions League-starved fans seemed less eager to throw out cheers for free.

BY JIM BULLEY AND MARY YANG [[email protected]]