Tottenham Hotspur fans have already witnessed Roberto De Zerbi drag their side clear of relegation trouble last term. They have seen the animation on the touchline and been won over by his energy. Yet what arrived last season was only a watered-down version of his football. This time round, supporters are being asked to buy fully into the project.
Everything begins at the back, and the man most likely to translate De Zerbi's principles onto the pitch is Jan Paul van Hecke. Spurs paid Brighton £52m for the Dutchman, and the move was about far more than raw ability - he already speaks De Zerbi's footballing language fluently.
According to ESPN, the transfer was finalised on 18 June 2026 as a fixed £52 million fee with no add-ons, with Tottenham confirming a long-term contract once personal terms had been agreed with the Netherlands international.
That level of detail matters because De Zerbi's system, at full intensity, can baffle even seasoned professionals. Lewis Dunk, who partnered Van Hecke at the back for Brighton, has admitted he felt completely adrift during his first weeks under the Italian.
Anatoliy Trubin, De Zerbi's former goalkeeper at Shakhtar Donetsk, once discussed this exact disorientation with Dunk, explaining that team-mates almost had to erase everything they thought they knew about the game.
"He opened a new way of playing," Trubin told Sky Sports.
James Milner assumed he had encountered every possible coaching philosophy, having been schooled by Terry Venables and Sir Bobby Robson in his youth before lifting the Premier League under Manuel Pellegrini and Jurgen Klopp. De Zerbi, he found, was operating on a different plane entirely.
Milner has spoken of De Zerbi giving him a fresh understanding of "how a team plays and why it happens", unlike anything he had experienced with previous managers.
"He wanted each player in this exact position and to time their movements," Milner told Sky Sports.
"Finding that free man and how you do that is something that you have maybe done a lot in your career but not realised you were doing it. And then, [working with De Zerbi] pieces together exactly how that works and gives you a deeper understanding again."
Pre-season will have been relentless for those tasked with building attacks from the back, because the football that looks so fluid from first phase to final third is actually the result of drilled, repeated patterns rehearsed on the training ground.
De Zerbi does not tolerate deviation from those patterns lightly.
"I remember one situation, I played a good ball, but it was not the way how we need to do it and he screamed a lot," recalls Trubin. "So he demands, he wants, that everyone knows their role, how we need to play, one idea from the team."
It is not merely about the correct movement but the correct moment for it. Dunk has previously detailed how Brighton's players were drilled to anticipate exactly where pressure would come from, and how to construct passing lanes that would slice through it and open the pitch.
Put all of that together and it becomes clear why Van Hecke, now 26 and with more than 100 Premier League appearances behind him, is not simply a good defender arriving at the right age. He may well be the single most important figure in getting De Zerbi's message across quickly this season.
A reunion years in the making
Van Hecke's move represents a reunion rather than a fresh introduction. Reuters framed the transfer as part of Tottenham's broader rebuild, noting Van Hecke had already worked under De Zerbi during his time on the south coast.
Sky Sports reported that Van Hecke had a year remaining on his Brighton deal when the transfer was struck, and that he had featured in 50 matches under De Zerbi's management at the Amex. The Athletic, meanwhile, noted that Brighton's contract situation meant Van Hecke had technically been tied down until June 2027 before Spurs moved for him, as reported by The Athletic.
By 5 August 2026, Van Hecke was already featuring on Tottenham's pre-season tour, according to the BBC, suggesting his integration into De Zerbi's setup has been swift. He has not been the only significant arrival either - Mateus Fernandes also stunned on his Tottenham debut following an £85million move from West Ham, part of a busy summer of incomings at the club.
Adapting to the bravery De Zerbi demands on the ball is no small task, but it happens to be one of Van Hecke's greatest strengths. In last season's Premier League, he ranked second for passes attempted from open play and second for accurate switches of play - both volume and range of distribution.
His progressive passing, threading the ball through the pitch as well as across it, has earned particular praise from De Zerbi, who has highlighted the fine balance Van Hecke strikes between arrogance and control in possession. He is never reluctant to attempt the difficult pass that splits a defensive line.
"He is a strong, intelligent centre-back who is brave in possession and plays with personality," said De Zerbi upon his signing. "Those are important qualities for the way I want our team to set up."
But it is the manner in which Van Hecke gets himself into those passing positions that sets him apart even further.
There is one facet of his game that makes him a genuine outlier, even by elite Premier League standards - so much so that, statistically, he stands out more than Erling Haaland does in his own category. It all comes down to a single metric: carrying the ball.
Van Hecke is not just a good ball-carrier by defensive standards - he is a good ball-carrier full stop. He carried the ball forward on 597 separate occasions in the Premier League last season. Only Declan Rice, Bernardo Silva and Jeremy Doku came close to matching that figure.
Restrict the numbers to carries made under direct pressure from an opponent, and Doku edges ahead of Van Hecke - understandable, given defences are generally more willing to let a centre-back stride forward than a winger in a far more dangerous area.
Yet this only widens the gap between Van Hecke and the rest of the Premier League's defenders. He racked up 315 pressured carries last season, 133 more than any other centre-back in the competition. Simply put, he does this differently to everybody else in his position.
The end result is that Van Hecke carried the ball for 10.66 kilometres over the course of last season - more than four kilometres further than any other player, and roughly double the distance covered by everyone bar England's Marc Guehi and Ezri Konsa.
Tottenham fans should notice the change quickly. With Marcos Senesi similarly progressive in his distribution, and Van Hecke capable of committing opponents like no one else in the league, De Zerbi appears to be assembling a side genuinely equipped to play through the thirds. Having already rescued Spurs from trouble last season, the authentic version of De Zerbi ball looks ready to arrive.
What happens next
De Zerbi addressed the wider project on 11 August 2026, insisting Tottenham's revival hinges on rebuilding spirit and mentality as much as recruitment, and he specifically listed Van Hecke among the new arrivals already brought in to help drive that change, according to Reuters.
Tottenham open their Premier League campaign away at Brentford on 22 August 2026, as confirmed by beIN Sports, giving an early indication of how quickly Van Hecke and his new team-mates have absorbed De Zerbi's methods.
Watch Brentford vs Tottenham Hotspur live on Saturday Night Football on Sky Sports Premier League from 5pm; kick-off 5.30pm.
