SAME TEAM, DIFFERENT SPORT

Sammy Brezovsky

Recently, the official Dynasty Sports Network TikTok posted a video highlighting the football team that was most similar to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Of course, it was the Dallas Cowboys. A team with a long reputation of being “un-clutch” despite their abundance of talent and high expectations going into each season. Since we now know the American Football team most similar to the Maple Leafs, it got me thinking; what European football team is most similar to the blue and white?

After watching countless premier league matches, I came to the conclusion that the Tottenham Hotspur was Europe's closest comparison to Toronto’s beloved franchise.

As of February 24th, 2022, Tottenham currently sits in 8th place in their domestic league (The English Premier League) and four places out of Champions League contention- a tournament in which the team has yet to play in since 2019 following a brutal 2-0 loss to Liverpool in the finals.

The reason I make the connection between these two teams is solely based on the unpredictability surrounding these two teams on just about any given matchday. The Leafs have always been a squad known to many for all the wrong reasons in North American sport. The team is both heavily familiar with beating teams way above their pedigree and losing to teams that sit way below the team in the standings.

Case in point, this month the Maple Leafs bested the Hurricanes, and two weeks later failed to come within two goals to the last place team in the league- the Montreal Canadiens.

Tottenham loves to do the exact same thing. Last weekend, the group achieved the impossible by beating the number one team in the nation-Manchester City 3-2. Fast forward three days later, and you shall find the exact same team in the exact same jerseys getting shutout 1-0 to Burnley, a bottom feeding team in danger of relegation this season.

That’s not their only similarity however. The Leafs, at least for the past few years, have been absolutely loaded with superstar talent; Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander to name a few.

In the same breath, talent has been far from foreign to the Spurs over the past few seasons, having guys like Harry Kane, Heung-Min Son, and Lucas Moura leading their offense every week. You’d think with some of the best duos in the league that success in Tottenham would just come naturally, especially with the abundance of trophies up for grabs each year.

Yet the team has still gone 14 consecutive seasons without hoisting some hardware.

Blame it on poor luck, bad officiating, or even a curse if you feel superstitious, but at the end of the day the problem with both these teams has always been the defense. The Spurs and Leafs have never had a shortage of goal scorers, but have each developed the reputation of picking stuff out of their own net.

Despite the unfortunate events of the season before, their fans continue to pour out their love and support year after year with an unwavering amount of optimism. It’s like they forget their team's reputation and history before preparing for their hearts to get broken once more.

This overconfidence within Leafs and Spurs nation causes outrage in other fan bases year after year and that has to be the defining quality that makes the two teams comparable.

Everyone hates them

I don’t know what it is about Tottenham or Toronto that makes people have a hatred against them but it’s common for the average football or hockey fan to strongly dislike these teams. It’s always been a note of question to me, “why hate a team that doesn’t win”?

To summarize, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Tottenham Hotspur are unsuccessful, inconsistent, disliked, stacked, and poor defensively.

And it just so happens that I’m a fan of both of them