Tottenham Hotspur have signed a player with ‘great potential’ in Lucas Bergvall with the Premier League club’s technical director Johan Lange delighted to beat Barcelona to the £8.5 million Swedish starlet.
Spurs, Lange explains, want to make this side of North London home to some of Europe’s most exciting young talent.
And signings like Lucas Bergvall will go a long way to transforming that ambition into a reality, the recently-turned 18-year-old a very public target for Barcelona before putting pen to paper with Tottenham ahead of his summer move to the English capital.
Bergvall is not the first teen talent to arrive in recent times either. Spurs also snapped up Luka Vuskovic from under the noses of Manchester City. Ashley Phillips, then of Blackburn Rovers, was also courted by England’s big hitters before Ange Postecoglou’s side won the race.
Tottenham Hotspur win race for Lucas Bergvall
“First of all, we want to be a destination for the best young talent out there,” Lange tells the club’s official media channels. “And that can be talent coming into our academy in the foundation phase, or later and being developed in the academy.
“Or, in this case with Lucas, it can be a player that we decide to try to see if we can buy them from a club abroad. In this case, Djurgardens.”
Bergvall already has two caps for the senior Swedish national team, and spoke to compatriot Dejan Kulusevski before signing a long-term deal with Tottenham.
‘He has great potental’
“Lucas is a very mature player, despite him just turning 18,” adds Lange, who worked at Aston Villa before moving to the capital and has a detailed knowledge of Scandinavian football due to his time at Copenhagen.
“Out of possession, (Bergvall) has a great work rate. Then, for his age, he’s mature as a person. And, on top of that, he also has a very good family and support network around him, so he has great potential.”
Interestingly, the technical director insists that Bergvall will be part of Tottenhan’s first-team squad, rather than the reserves, when he arrives at the end of the Swedish football season.
“He will join in the summer and be part of the first-team squad,” Lange says. “But then it’s just for him to adapt to this new environment and take things step by step.”
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