This Sunday, Spurs will begin their 24/25 FA Cup journey, as they travel to the Midlands to face National League side Tamworth, in the third round of the competition. It was at this stage last season where Ange's side won their one and only game outside of the Premier League, when they overcame Burnley 1-0 at home, thanks to a wonderful goal from Pedro Porro.
What can we expect from Tottenham Hotspur's FA Cup hosts?
As mentioned above, Tamworth currently play in the National League, the fifth tier of English football, and step one of the non league pyramid. It has been a successful period for the club, having achieved back to back promotions in their previous two seasons, winning both the Southern League Premier Division Central, and the National League North.
After initially struggling with the step up to the National League, they have managed to pick themselves up and currently sit in 16th place, with 30 points from their 24 games to date, winning exactly a third of their games.
How did they get to the third round?
Due to being in non league, Tamworth had to play a qualifying round just to get to the first round proper. Sides in step one only have to play one qualifier, and they were able to overcome Macclesfield FC, with a 4-2 win at home.
Then, in the first round - they pulled off the biggest shock of the tournament so far. Welcoming League One promotion hopefuls Huddersfield Town, they were able to defy the odds by pulling off a famous 1-0 win, live in front of the cameras for the televised Friday night game. After a giant throw was launched into the box, the Huddersfield goalkeeper was unable to deal with it, and diverted it into his own net for the only goal of the game.
Just to put into perspective how impressive it was, when interviewed after the game - their goalkeeper referenced how he had finished work at 3pm that day. A part time club managed to beat a side right at the top end of the third tier.
The second round was a bit more complicated. After a 0-0 draw at another League One side, Burton Albion, albeit a much worse one - the two sides went to extra-time. Their football league counterparts took the lead just two minutes into the 30 minutes, but Tamworth equalised just another two minutes later.
There would be no more goals in extra-time, so they went to penalties. Despite missing a penalty of their own, Burton would miss two penalties themselves, and Tamworth would go through by virtue of a 4-3 penalty shootout win.
Ironically, despite beating two football league teams, they were actually defeated in the FA trophy (in short, the FA Cup for non league teams), by divisional rivals Sutton United. That game was only last weekend, so perhaps a suggestion of where their focus is at the moment.
In terms of play style, Tamworth are very direct. As touched on above, they like to utilise their giant throw, with midfielder Tom Tonks the architecht. He also mentioned that he had been working before the win over Huddersfield. Whilst Spurs will be the favourites for the game, this could, unironically, be an avenue where they are exposed.
Although people see the national league side as a nice magic of the cup story, there is perhaps less backing for them from neutrals as there would usually be. Tamworth caused nationwide controversy when they bumped their prices up for this game to extortionate prices, despite the TV money and knowing they'd have a sell out crowd regardless. Fans from all sorts of clubs have expressed their disdain at diehard Tamworth fans being potentially priced out of going to such a big game for them.
Nevertheless, they have done extremely well to get this far, and deserve huge credit for that. It will be something incredible for their players to tell their colleagues at their day jobs when they go to work the next day.