After finishing last year’s campaign in strong fashion by grabbing the 4th position, expectations from fans have only increased from Antonio Conte and Tottenham Hotspur this season. Following an impressive transfer window where the north London side splashed the cash to bring in the likes of Richarlison, Ivan Perisic, Yves Bissouma and Clement Lenglet, finishing 4th seems to be the minimum requirement now.
Surely enough, the Italian manager’s team have begun the new season as per plan after securing a 4-1 thrashing of Southampton. While new faces such as Bissouma, Lenglet and Perisic all made their debuts against the Saints, the attacking output came from household names in Son Heung-min, Dejan Kulusevski and Eric Dier.
While both Son and Kulusevski were perhaps expected names to appear on the score sheet, the Englishman joined the duo after latching onto the end of a pinpoint cross into the Southampton box from the South Korean.
Although the goal was not perhaps the most appealing finish of the night, since Dier was an unexpected scorer, the squad proceeded to swarm him in a celebratory huddle.
But as the rest of the eleven were embracing Dier or giving him a friendly pat on his head, Spurs’ very own passionate defender Cristian Romero seems to have not forgotten his own traditions from last season.
The Argentine international dished a rough treatment to the Englishman by punching him and slapping his head multiple times during the goal celebrations and has amused football fans once again with his antics.
This is not the first time that the central defender has offered such rough treatment to his teammates as Romero has in past given it to Son on two separate occasions.
The first instance was back in February following a 4-0 win against Leeds United while the Argentine chose to repeat his traditional celebratory moment once again in March following a win against Everton.
While this might be a rare sighting in Europe, such a friendly rough treatment whether by pulling the hair or through a few punches is not an uncommon sight amongst South American footballers.
Although this is a tradition followed predominantly by the entire continent, Romero seems to be creating a separate tradition of his own. All three of the instances during which the 24-year-old brought out this traditional treatment have been occasions where Tottenham enjoyed thumping victories (4-0, 5-0, 4-1).
Now that Romero has established and owned up this tough love treatment as his personal way of appreciating the success of the team, it will not be long before a fellow Spurs supporter included this into the latest chant for their robust South American centre-back.
