Kulusevski's letter to fans | The Players' Tribune

Dejan Kulusevski has penned a letter to Spurs fans via The Players' Tribune, telling the behind-the-scenes story of his move to the Club and how life has truly changed for him in north London since becoming one of our own.

A letter to Spurs fans

Dear Spurs fans,

It’s never been a big deal for me to tell my story. To some people in England, I’m probably still the Swedish guy with the funny name who came over from Italy. 

But I’ve spent more than two years at this club now, and I have some things that I’d like to share with you. Some crazy stories. Some life lessons. Maybe some stuff that can inspire a kid or two. It’s funny to look back now, because when I came here, I don’t think many people in England expected much of me. 

To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect of myself either. 

As a footballer, I was in a bad place. 

I had barely started a game at Juventus for six months. You feel terrible, because you’ve given your life to play this game, training as hard as you can, and you end up watching players play in your position that are not even wingers. Honestly, I felt embarrassed, even worthless. Some people began saying that I wasn’t good enough, that I was too slow. And it affects you, 100%. It’s normal, it’s human. When you begin to believe them, that’s the devil right there. 

I should have shut out the noise, because the only critic I respect is my older sister, Sandra. And she is brutal. Even when I’m scoring, she’ll be like, “You’ve lost it. You don’t have the hunger. You’re too comfortable.”

And I want to explode. I’m like, “YOU DON’T RESPECT ME. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I’VE PUT INTO THIS GAME.”

But Sandra is telling the truth. She has seen me play since I was a kid, and when something is bothering me, she can tell. When I was struggling at Juve, she said, “Deki, when did you become weak?” 

I knew I had to get away.

One day I asked my agent Ale, “Can you find me something?”

He was like, “Yeah, it’s gonna be hard,” because it was January 2022, a few days before the transfer window closed, and we were running out of time. But then he called me back and said that Tottenham were interested. 

I was like, “Yes! We’re leaving. When’s the next flight?”

He said it left in an hour, so I ran to my room and started packing. I was there with my girlfriend, Eldina, and I just started crying. And then she started crying. We had no idea why. There were just so many things happening at once. We kissed, cried some more, and I left for the airport. No way was I missing that flight. 

After a few days at Spurs, I realised how tough this challenge was going to be.

The Premier League goes 300 times faster than any other league in the world, and in the first training session I didn’t understand anything. Players were flying past me, Conte was shouting and pointing. I had joined Spurs on an 18-month loan with an “option to buy,” as they say, so if I was going to get a permanent deal, I had to perform. But my first game was an absolute disaster. 

You remember it, right? I’ll never forget it. 

We were leading 2–1 at home to Southampton, and my job was to lock up the win. 

76th minute: I come on. 

79th minute: Goal Southampton. 

82nd minute: Goal Southampton.

Full-time: Spurs 2–3 Southampton.

Nice start, Deki. 

My sister completely killed me. Even my agent was like, “Hey, come on … it happens.” Just trying to be nice, you know?

Four days later, I go again. Wolves at home. Got to be three points. I start on the bench, but Conte puts me on after half an hour.

I know the feeling is that I failed at Juventus. Well, I think that’s a strange thing to say when I won two trophies, played in both finals, and decided one of them with a goal and an assist against my former team Atalanta. But in those last six months, it is true that I had a difficult time. When I came to Spurs, I didn’t know how to get out of this negative spiral. 

“Hopeless, Deki … hopeless.”

So what happened? After the Wolves game, Conte told me that I would start my first Premier League game … away to Man City. 

Honestly, it felt like a joke. I was happy that I was going to start, but I was very nervous, and when we were lining up before the game, I remembered the stuff from Italy. 

“He’s not good enough.”

“He’s too slow.”

The devil’s work. 

We all remember that game. Three minutes in, I score, and it’s like 30 kilos fall off my shoulders. Then in injury time, at 2–2, I put in a cross for Harry, who heads it in. Everyone starts running to him, but I’m on the other side, so I turn, I watch the fans and I scream as loud as I can. 

“I’m him! I’M HIM!”

Just hyping myself up. 

And I’m not exaggerating: That moment was one of the happiest of my life. It’s the most alive I’ve ever felt in my life. I remember thinking, I don’t care about nobody anymore. Nobody can tell me again that I cannot play this game. Nobody can tell me what I can and cannot do. 

Well, except Sandra, but even she was happy. She told me.

“Finally, your first good game in three months….”

In June last year, I signed a permanent deal at Spurs. 

It’s one of the easiest decisions I’ve made. 

Playing for this club is like being part of a family. Going into training, you love everybody. I’m going to become a father soon, and many of my teammates just got a kid, so we talk a lot about parenthood. I already know that the day I leave Spurs, the part I’ll miss the most is the dressing room. 

I think a lot of our family atmosphere is down to Ange.

Ange is brave, and he makes you brave. He doesn’t say a lot, but when he speaks, we can listen for hours. You can tell that he’s been through a lot, and he often talks about what he learned from his father. He is different from any other coach I’ve had. Everybody talks about tactics and winning, and that’s good, but with Ange it means a little bit more, because it’s about you as a person. It’s about you as a man and what you believe in. 

Ange says, “I don’t care if we lose, because everyone loses in life. If we lose, we’re going to lose on our terms. Never go away from being you.”

And that’s how I want to live my life. O.K., we’re gonna face the best, but we’re gonna do it our way. We’re gonna play like we did all our lives. 

Let me be clear: We want to win. We are fighting so hard to give you the trophies you deserve. We train for you, we eat for you, we sleep for you. We know that this club changes lives. It’s a huge deal to me when I see people wearing my shirt, because that means we connect on some level. And I still find it incredible that I can simply score a goal and send 60,000 people home happy.

But we are also a young team with many new players. We’re not gonna win every game. And actually, Ange never speaks about trophies. He says, “Yes, we’ll get there, but first of all we have to become us. We have to find ourselves.”

Deki reveals Ange's key words which sparked comeback at Manchester City

That’s why that Chelsea game back in November was so special. 

Maybe it’s weird to talk about a game that we lost, especially when we just beat Villa away, but that Chelsea game said so much about what we are trying to do. When it was half-time and 1–1, Ange was very calm. Romero had been sent off, but he didn’t tell us to sit back and defend. He just said, “We know who we are.” 

Then Destiny got a red card, and things got very difficult. I know that a lot of people thought we were crazy for playing such a high line with nine men. 

We were naive. We were Spursy. 

But you know what I remember from that game? 

I remember the moments near the end when we almost made it 2–2. I remember Vicario saving shots with an energy that was bigger than the entire stadium. I remember that we kept attacking, and not because Ange had told us to, because when Destiny got sent off he had no way of talking to all of us. No, we kept attacking because we felt it was the right thing to do. 

Ange was proud of that. We never stopped being us. 

But my favourite moment was after the game. When we had lost 4–1, and we went over to the fans. You didn’t boo us. You didn’t whistle us.  

You applauded us. 

You understood what it meant. 

Yes, we had lost a game. 

But we won in life. 

I’m so grateful that this journey has led me here. I’m so happy that this is the place where I’m gonna start my life as a father. When I look back, life has given me everything I’ve needed from so many amazing people. 

So to my parents, for always being there.

To my sister, the only critic who has ever helped me. 

To Eldina, for making my life so incredible.

And to you, the fans, for your unbelievable support.

From the bottom of my heart.

Thank you.

Deki