You know what’s funny? That Spurs never win anything. It is a never-ending seam of rich comedy content.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Whether that’s from brands as diverse as Dulux paint and Domino’s pizza raking in the guffaws and sweet, sweet likes on the socials, or us taking the piss, it’s absolutely never not funny.
But you know the easy cure for (almost) any player seeking to end that trophy-dodging purgatory? Leave.
In many, many cases that leads to trophies. In some cases, a great many trophies. Not always, sure; some players are simply too powerfully infected with the Spurs. Harry Kane, most famously, and surely even he is going to escape the potless parade soon.
But for most, leaving Spurs is all it takes to cure that trophy curse, and quickly. Just look at the below, who have all won very important things from Champions Leagues to Canadian Cups since playing their own part, small or large, in Spurs’ drought. Rules are simple enough: any first-tier trophy from any country plus continental and global club titles won after a permanent move away from Spurs count but players who were at the club for the 2008 Carling Cup win are excluded. This is only for the Jonahs.
Roman Pavlyuchenko – 1
Left: February 2012
Won: 2015 Russian Cup (Lokomotiv Moscow)
Scored some memorable Spurs goals, most famously getting on the end of one of Gareth Bale’s crosses in the Maicon evisceration. Silverware only came with his return to Russia, though.
Steven Pienaar – 1
Left: July 2012
Won: 2018 South African Cup (Bidvest Wits FC)
Spending your English top-flight career with Spurs and Everton (last major trophy: 1995) suggests a man uninterested in the gaudy frippery of trinkets and baubles. Like Pavlyuchenko, a return to his homeland brought success.
Rafael van der Vaart – 1
Left: August 2012
Won: 2017/18 Danish Superliga (FC Midtjylland)
Van der Vaart is a gifted trophy-avoider, managing somehow to spend two full years at Real Madrid with only a single Supercopa to show for it. He was thus fully Spurs before he even joined in a deadline-busting coup that was 15 years ago now and yet still has every single Spurs fan desperately thinking ‘something might still happen’ two minutes before the window shuts twice a year, every year. It never does. The Dutchman did at least manage one Danish success in the post-Spurs years.
Etienne Capoue – 1
Left: July 2015
Won: Europa League 2020/21 (Villarreal)
Among those to pull Man United’s pants down so spectacularly in the final, alongside a then on-loan Juan Foyth. It’s practically Spurs’ trophy, this one.
Kieran Trippier – 1
Left: July 2019
Won: La Liga 2020/21 (Atletico Madrid)
Could even now win something with Newcastle, a club historically even more trophy-averse than Spurs, just to rub their noses in it.
Fernando Llorente – 1
Left: September 2019
Won: Coppa Italia 2019/20 (Napoli)
A weirdly significant and handsome figure in the inherently weird 2019 Champions League run, he handsomely got his hands on the Coppa Italia a year later.
Victor Wanyama – 1
Left: March 2020
Won: Canadian Championship 2021 (CF Montreal)
Two fun facts about the Canadian Championship. One, it is actually a cup competition not a championship. Two, the 2021 final won by Wanyama’s CF Montreal was actually played before the Covid-delayed 2020 final. Which, pleasingly, means 2019 winners Montreal went into the 2021 final as holders against Toronto, who won the 2020 title six months later.
Erik Lamela – 1
Left: July 2021
Won: Europa League 2022/23 (Sevilla)
Given the way he out-shithoused Jose Mourinho in the final, leaving the former Spurs boss angry, confused and swearing in a car park, this is perhaps the one post-Spurs success that Spurs fans can truly and thoroughly enjoy as one of their own. It also wouldn’t be completely true to say he never won anything at Spurs: he won a Puskas Award, and also our heart.
Emerson Royal – 1
Left: August 2024
Won: Supercoppa Italiana 2024/25 (Milan)
Even Emerson Royal beating Harry Kane to the post-Spurs trophy bounty is an undeniably good bit.
Bongani Khumalo – 2
Left: July 2015
Won: South African Premier Soccer League 2016/17 and South African Cup 2017/18 (Bidvest Wits FC)
Played not one single first-team game for Spurs in four-and-a-half years, but did rack up plenty of loan moves.
Lucas Moura – 2
Left: July 2023
Won: Copa do Brasil 2023, Supercopa do Brasil 2024 (Sao Paulo)
Returned to his first club after leaving Spurs and promptly pocketed a couple more trophies to go with the vast collection he amassed at PSG and the two runners-up medals he got at Spurs.
Davinson Sanchez – 2
Left: September 2023
Won: Turkish Super Lig 2023/24, Turkish Super Cup 2023
We grow increasingly convinced that Spurs’ current centre-back despair is direct and deserved karma for all the mean things their fans said about Davinson Sanchez.
Clint Dempsey – 3
Left: August 2013
Won: Supporters’ Shield 2014, US Open Cup 2014, MLS Cup 2016 (Seattle Sounders)
Always enjoyed the MLS Supporters’ Shield. Sounds like a player of the year award, but isn’t. It’s for the team with the best regular season record in MLS. Or, as almost all other footballing cultures would understand it, the ‘league champions’.
Georges-Kevin Nkoudou – 3
Left: August 2019
Won: Turkish Super Lig 2020/21, Turkish Cup 2020/21, Turkish Super Cup 2021 (Besiktas)
Rather neatly, Nkoudou scored eight goals in 32 Super Lig appearances in the 2020/21 title-winning season and has scored four goals from 16 appearances in each of the two subsequent seasons. Alas, he is now out of contract and thus we are to be denied the chance to see him score two goals from eight appearances in each of the next four seasons.
Christian Eriksen – 3
Left: January 2020
Won: Serie A 2020/21 (Inter), Carabao Cup 2022/23, FA Cup 2023/24 (Manchester United)
Manchester United’s Banter Era containing more trophy success than most club’s golden eras is truly something to behold. Erik Ten Hag has won more trophies as a manager in English football than Mikel Arteta and Mauricio Pochettino combined. These are facts.
Toby Alderweireld – 4
Left: July 2021
Won Emir of Qatar Cup 2022 (Al-Duhail), Belgian Pro League 2022/23, Belgian Cup 2022/23, Belgian Super Cup 2023 (Antwerp)
Returned to Belgium to play for hometown club Antwerp and casually delivered their first title since 1957 (a longer wait even than Tottenham’s) via a 25-yard sh*tpinger of a 95th-minute final-day equaliser to break Genk’s hearts. Just a genuinely stunning moment. AlderweirELDDDDDDD > AguerOOOOOOO.
Benjamin Stambouli – 5
Left: July 2015
Won: Ligue 1 2015/16, Coupe de France 2015/16, Coupe de la Ligue 2015/16, Trophee des Champions 2015, 2o16 (PSG)
Fair play, if you’re going to snag yourself an inexplicable 12 months at PSG after an entirely forgettable year at Spurs then you might as well win everything in sight before you get rumbled and sold on to Schalke.
Vincent Janssen – 5
Left: July 2019
Won: Liga MX: Apertura 2019, Copa MX 2019/20, CONCACAF Champions League 2021 (Monterrey), Belgian Pro League 2022/23, Belgian Cup 2022/23 (Antwerp)
Among the more conspicuous flops of those signed for the impossible ‘striker who has to watch Harry Kane play all the games’ gig, Janssen has enjoyed conspicuous success on an eclectic post-Spurs journey, including a front-row seat for Alderweireld’s aforementioned title-snaffling nonsense.
Vedran Corluka – 6
Left: July 2012
Won: Russian Premier League 2017/2018, Russian Cup 2014/15, 2016/17, 2018/19, 2020/21, Russian Super Cup 2019 (Lokomotiv Moscow)
We think about Corluka a lot, specifically about the way he left Manchester City on quite literally the day Manchester City changed forever in 2008, joining Spurs just a few short months after what remains their last trophy. City have won 23 trophies since then. Corluka does at least have plenty of pots and pans from his time in Russia to go with his 2009 League Cup runners-up medal from Spurs.
Cameron Carter-Vickers – 6
Left: July 2022
Won: Scottish Premiership 2022/23, 2023/24, Scottish Cup 2022/23, 2023/24, Scottish League Cup 2022/23, 2024/25 (Celtic)
Having won the league and League Cup while on loan in Glasgow (which sadly means they can’t officially count towards this list), promptly went one better by winning the lot after making the move permanent. Is thus one of two former Spurs players to be involved in all Big Ange Postecoglou’s five Celtic trophies, alongside Joe Hart.
And has subsequently won another league and cup double, while already having this season’s League Cup winner’s medal in an increasingly bulgy collection.
Joe Hart – 7
Left August 2021
Won: Scottish Premiership 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, Scottish Cup 2022/23, 2023/24, Scottish League Cup 2021/22, 2022/2023 (Celtic)
A key member of Postecoglou’s all-conquering Celtic after being unceremoniously told he was surplus to Spurs requirements by Nuno Espirito Santo, which turned out to be quite the break. And whatever did happen to Nuno?
Hossam Ghaly – 8
Left: January 2009
Won: Egyptian Premier League 2010/11, 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18, Egypt Cup 2016/17, Egyptian Super Cup 2010/11, 2014/15, 2015/16 (Al Ahly)
Gets in on a technicality: he was a Spurs player during the 2008 Carling Cup win, but was at the time on loan at Derby. That’ll do for us, because it’s funny to remember that time he threw his shirt isn’t it? Also won a whole bunch of stuff after returning to Egypt.
Paulinho – 9
Left: July 2015
Won: AFC Champions League 2015, Chinese Super League 2015, 2016, 2019, Chinese FA Cup 2016, Chinese FA Super Cup 2016, 2017 (Guangzhou Evergrande), La Liga 2017/18, Copa del Rey 2017/18 (Barcelona)
A genuinely baffling career path providing one of the very best ‘Senior career’ sidebars Wikipedia has to offer. Almost the only part of it that makes any kind of sense is ‘two disappointing trophyless years at Spurs’.
Kyle Walker – 17
Left: July 2017
Won: Champions League 2022/23, Premier League 2017/18, 2018/19, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, FA Cup 2018/19, 2020/23, League Cup 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, FIFA Club World Cup 2023, UEFA Super Cup 2023, Community Shield 2019, 2020 (Manchester City)
His £50m move to Manchester City back in 2017 was widely heralded as one of those ‘good news for everyone’ transfers. But mainly for Manchester City and Kyle Walker, it turned out.
Luka Modric – 27
Left: August 2012
Won: Champions League 2013/14, 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18, 2021/22, 2023/24, FIFA Club World Cup 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2022, La Liga 2016/17, 2019/20, 2021/22, 2023/24, Copa del Rey 2013/14, 2022/23, UEFA Supercup 2014, 2016, 2017, 2022, 2024, Supercopa de Espana 2012, 2017, 2020, 2022, 2024 (Real Madrid)
Yeah, the bloke who beat Alex Song to the worst La Liga signing of 2012 has done all right in the end.
