When Tottenham Hotspur replaced Mauricio Pochettino with Jose Mourinho, they didn’t just hire a coach with one of the most impressive, silver-coated CVs in the modern era. They also got a contact book longer than Peter Crouch’s legs.
And there are worse people in football to share a friendship with than Pini Zahavi.
The Israeli ‘super-agent’ was central to the deal that saw Mourinho announce himself to English football, ‘special one’ proclamations and all, in the summer of 2004.
And when Mourinho returned to the Premier League headlines in November, Zahavi was once again pulling the strings behind the scenes.
But a man renowned for triggering record-breaking transfers, from Rio Ferdinand to Neymar, may still have an even bigger role to play in North London in the next few months. It might just be no coincidence that, since the turn of the year, Zahavi has added not one but two Spurs targets to his star-studded roster.
In January, Crystal Palace’s £80 million-rated talisman Wilfred Zaha hired his near namesake to help him plot a route out of Selhurst Park (Mirror).
Southampton captain Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg then shook hands with Zahavi two months later (BT), amid speculation that the Danish international could be the sweat-shedding ‘positional midfielder’ that so-often underpins a successful Mourinho side (Telegraph).
Wolves have benefitted immensely from Jorge Mendes’ Iberian influence. Manchester United worked with the motormouthed Mino Raiola to bring Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan to Old Trafford four years ago.
The return of Edu Gaspar to Arsenal, meanwhile, has coincided with links to a whole host of Kia Joorabchian clients.
Now, the Mourinho-Zahavi era could be about to take off at Tottenham.
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