Glenn Hoddle in Madrid: “This was worth staying alive for!”

Picture the scene. It’s Friday evening, we’re in Madrid and in a convoy heading to the Wanda Metropolitano for our press conference and final training session ahead of the Champions League Final.

In the vehicle, Glenn Hoddle. Spurs fan, player, manager, legend. Genius midfielder, twice FA Cup winner, star of many a ‘glory, glory night’ in Europe. A fan since he was a young boy, a player for 17 years.

And we’re on our way to the stadium on the eve of the Champions League Final.

That would be enough in itself, but Glenn has very much a renewed perspective on life - a life that was almost taken away in October last year when he suffered a cardiac arrest and needed a quadruple heart bypass. He says he’s now ‘almost there’ in terms of his recovery and what better tonic than to watch his beloved Spurs walk out in Europe’s showpiece against Liverpool later this evening (Saturday, 9pm local/8pm UK)?

Glenn’s excitement was palpable as we zipped through the traffic. “I’m really good and it’s a lovely tonic, to be coming here for the Champions League Final,” he said.

“It might have been something I’d missed. To think of that... it hit me in the studio (at Ajax). In the light of day, I thought ‘this was worth staying alive for!’ (laughs) and hopefully we can just go one step further.

“Even if we don’t, it’s a stepping stone. Look at Liverpool. They reached the final and lost last year and now they are back again with another opportunity. So that can happen.

“But yes, I feel good. I’m recovering and almost there now. A few bits and bobs, but it’s been a wonderful journey in some respects with the fans, Tottenham fans particularly, but football fans as well. It’s been amazing and it’s helped me as well. It’s helped me to recover, the positive thoughts, the positive energy.”

Glenn’s reaction to our dramatic win at Ajax – three goals in the second half to go through, Lucas Moura’s hat-trick goal in the final seconds - in the studio with Gary Lineker and Rio Ferdinand for BT Sport was priceless.

“This is what football does to you, the emotion,” he smiled, thinking back to that glorious night in Amsterdam. “I thought I’d seen it all in the second leg of the City game (in the quarter-final) but for Ajax to score twice, go 3-0 up (on aggregate) and then us to do what we did away from home, in 45 minutes, was just incredible, absolutely incredible.

“Even after what I went through six months ago, you just react. The emotions... I could not believe it! I had a bit of a head rush when I jumped up, which wasn’t so good, but that’s football.

“When your club is your club, and I’ve supported Spurs since I was eight years of age... it was just wonderful.

“Then when you think about it and it sets in, you start panicking, even if it was one minute we had to hold on for. You think ‘no, surely not’. Ajax then lined-up on the half-way line like a cavalry charge! I was like any other fan in the world. Emotions took over and that’s what this lovely game can do to you.

“Now it’s a one-off game. It’s an old cliché, but anything can happen. If the lads hit their straps and play well, they can win the Champions League. Now that would be something.”