Inside Lucas Bergvall's quick evolution as Spurs future looks bright

The teenage Swede is starting to turn heads in the Premier League - and for good reason

Welcome to the latest premium edition of Spurs with Alasdair Gold, focussing on Lucas Bergvall’s impressive development over the last 12 months. If you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe to this Substack and get inside information on Spurs by clicking here.

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The evolution of Lucas Bergvall at Tottenham Hotspur has been as relatively quick as it has impressive.

Just a year ago the Swede had just turned 18 and had become the talk of the Allsvenskan after turning down the chance to join Barcelona in an £8.5million move from Djurgarden.

All eyes were on the teenage midfielder; so were the boots of those who either wanted to test Bergvall's talent, or were harbouring grudges about their own inability to make it to bigger leagues abroad.

While those around Djurgarden - including the manager and staff - made their feelings known about the then-18-year-old's rough treatment from opponents, Bergvall took it all in his stride.

"Maybe they try to tackle me a little bit more now, but it's not that much of a problem," he told football.london during an interview in Stockholm in May after he had just helped Djurdarden play his boyhood club Brommapojkarna off the park.

"It's not like they're doing too much and it's not like it's going to be less in the Premier League. It's going to be much more. It's going to be really tough. It's the best league in the world so it's probably good for me!"

That showed the foresight of the youngster for he was absolutely right. The Premier League is an unforgiving, brutal landscape marked by the failed spells of players from abroad who just found it too fast, too tough and too big a step.

There was never any such fear with Bergvall, just an acceptance within Spurs and among those in Djurgarden and Brommapojkarna that he would take around six months to adapt to the new level of football.

Brommapojkarna's head of youth and recruiting Tommy Soderstrom knows a thing or two about finding talent, having worked for years as a scout for Manchester United after being asked personally by Sir Alex Ferguson before starting a similar role for Ajax.

When football.london spoke to him out in Sweden last year, Soderstrom knew what was coming.