Tottenham: Toby Alderweireld Excited to Play in Wembley
After a training session at Wembley, Tottenham center-back Toby Alderweireld is excited to play Champions League football in front of nearly 90,000 Spurs fans.
This past Wednesday Tottenham held a training session at Wembley Stadium to get acclimated to the slightly bigger pitch.
For Toby Alderweireld, he has never experienced club or international football inside the 90,000-seat arena before.
So for the first time in his career, the Belgian defender was able to step foot inside the national stadium and is excited to experience Champions League football at a big ground.
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“I’ve been around but not to watch a game or a concert or anything so it’s the first time ever for me and it’s nice to be here,” Alderweireld said (via Tottenham’s official site).
“It’s always nice to train and play in big stadiums and it’s good to get the feeling for the Champions League games.”
With the group stage draw happening on August 25th and the first match taking place either on September 13th or 14th, Spurs must quickly get acclimated as soon as possible.
For the time being, Mauricio Pochettino used one of Spurs’ training pitches as a makeshift to match Wembley’s dimensions, but nothing compares to the actual thing.
And although Spurs have trained and played at Wembley before, it’s been almost two years since they were last here.
Spurs’ last visit to Wembley was against Chelsea in the League Cup final on March 1st, 2015
Since their 2-0 loss, Spurs haven’t been back, so it’s a good idea by Mauricio Pochettino, with the help of the Football Association, to use Wembley when need be.
After all, it’s only an hour away from Spurs’ training ground, Hotspur Way.
With their first training session in the books from two days ago, Toby Alderweireld understands that taking the initiative will help them get acclimated quickly.
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“Obviously it’s the first time to get a feel for how things are here and some of the small games in training will help us to get the feeling of how the pitch is, how big it is and allow us to get comfortable so it’s a great initiative to train here.
As for playing in front of nearly 90,000 Tottenham fans, Spurs will have a major home field advantage despite playing on a neutral ground.
And the 27-year-old Belgian international knows that they will have to perform well to advance into the knockout stage, but can’t wait to play in front of so many supporters come September.
“It’s an unbelievable place and when we play our games it’s going to be full of supporters so I’m really looking forward to playing here with all the Spurs fans around us.”
“Hopefully we’ll be able to perform well and go through.”
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It’s unknown how often Spurs will use Wembley to train as it is just an hour away from their training center.
But one thing’s for sure, the national team stadium will become a second home for the north London club this season and next year.
Having nearly 90,000 fans will be a boon for Spurs in all of their home games.