Roberto De Zerbi's Challenge to Lucas Bergvall: Stay on My Terms
Roberto De Zerbi walked off the pitch in Sydney with a win, a penalty shootout edged against Sydney FC, but no clearer answer on one of the biggest questions of Tottenham’s summer: what happens next with Lucas Bergvall?
The 20-year-old Sweden international finally had his first start of the tour, a chance to stretch his legs and his case in front of his new manager. The performance will have helped. The situation around him has not.
De Zerbi’s message to Bergvall: Stay, but on my terms
Asked directly whether he had gained any clarity from Bergvall about his future, De Zerbi didn’t budge. The Italian went back to the theme he has hammered since arriving in north London: commitment, or nothing.
“I would like that he stays with us — I think he's a potential top, top, top player, but in the end I don't want to convince anyone to stay,” he said, making it clear this would not be a summer of pleading.
Tottenham, he stressed, stand on their own.
“I think Tottenham is already, without me, a top club, and we are not to convince anyone to stay. I think he can find the space because the competition between the players will be very strong. We are Tottenham and we have to build a strong squad, not just 11 players.”
That line matters. De Zerbi is not promising minutes; he is promising a fight. In a squad that has creaked under the strain of injuries in recent seasons, he wants depth, not decoration.
“Especially considering a lot of injuries we suffered in the last two, three seasons. Football is going in a clear direction: to compete for the [highest] place on the table, you have to manage 22, 23, 24 players.”
Bergvall, who has already seen interest from Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest turned away, sits right at the heart of that plan. De Zerbi has been working on him for months, long before this pre-season tour.
“I'm speaking with him before the end of the last season, during the World Cup two times, now we are speaking better now [face to face] without competition in this moment,” he explained. “Now I started to work [with him] like I know, like my style. In the last season, when we prepared the games, we worked on the head, on the mentality, more than the style of play.”
That detail reveals plenty. First came the mind, now comes the football.
“I think his position is very clear for me now also because I needed time to understand the characteristic of the players, but I would like that he stays with us. He's a very young, very good player, good guy, and it's not so easy and so fast to find a young player of that level.”
The message is blunt: the door is open, the pathway is there, but the decision — and the responsibility — is Bergvall’s.
A “precious diamond” at the heart of the rebuild
While Bergvall’s future hangs in the balance, De Zerbi’s eyes are already fixed on another key piece of his Tottenham rebuild: Sandro Tonali.
The Italian midfielder, signed in a record-breaking deal from Newcastle, drew a different kind of language from his head coach. Admiration, but also a warning about the work still to come.
“But we have to manage him like a precious diamond,” De Zerbi said. “We have to help him to improve in the last decision, as [well] as physical work. He has to work hard to become stronger because this diamond footballer needs to be strong and to give space when there is the right moment.”
This is how De Zerbi sees his squad: not as a fixed hierarchy, but as raw materials to be sharpened, polished, pushed. Youth is not a shield; it is an opportunity he expects his players to seize.
“I usually give time to all my young players I work with in my career, and with his potential, he is a special player.”
Between Bergvall’s uncertainty and Tonali’s arrival, the outline of De Zerbi’s Tottenham is becoming clear: a deep, fiercely competitive group, built to withstand injuries, rotate without dropping standards, and chase the very top of the table.
Whether Bergvall chooses to be part of that story is now the next big decision. Not for De Zerbi. For the player himself.
