Recent decades have reduced the images of both Tottenham Hotspur and England to that of the ever-bridesmaids, but don’t let that deter you from the fact that both Spurs and the Three Lions have rich, storied histories spanning well over a century.
The two sides were famously good, trophy-winning good, in the ’60s, and while the trophy draught for both of them keeps getting more and more desperate, there is no doubt that even in recent times the two sides have presented some scintillating performances, sharing some shining superstars of the sport that either have gone down and will go down as veritable legends of both the two sides as well as the sport.
In this article, we present to you our top 5 picks for the greatest Tottenham players to have ever represented England.
Jimmy Greaves
Looking back, anyone with silverware won with both Spurs and England immeduately stands out to the point that mythologising their legacy becomes inevitable. Not that “Greavesey” needed a lot of that done for him given his record.
Part of the 1966 World Cup-winning squad as well as the golden ’60s team of the Lilywhites, Greaves had his legendary record of 266 goals in 379 appearances broken only by Harry Kane in his final year at Tottenham. He wasn’t just an England or Spurs great, Greaves was a football great, period.
Glenn Hoddle was flair incarnate when flair was a foreign concept in the British isles. Dazzling the gazers with his footwork in the ’70s and ’80s, Hoddle earned over 50 caps with England, won a European trophy with Spurs, and even went on to manage England in the late ’90s.
Steve Perryman
Sure, Steve Perryman makes this list on a technicality, having earned just one England cap for himself in his playing career, but in a Spurs context ignoring him is out of the question. Perryman played for Spurs for 17 years spread across three deacdes, earned the captain’s armband at the tender age of 20, and led them into a new trophy-winning era of the ’80s. He also briefly served as a caretaker of the club in 1994.
Jermain Defoe
Three different Tottenham stints and an England remontada late in his career makes Defoe’s story a unique in an unavoidable way. The Premier League centurion, like Hoddle, also earned over 50 England caps over a senior career spanning a whopping four decades.
Need we say more? England’s top scorer, Tottenham’s top scorer, the German Bundesliga’s reigning top scorer from last season, and only the third ever member of the “Premier League 200” club after Wayne Rooney and Alan Shearer. Kane’s legacy will only be embellished in the future decades long after his playing career, regardless of whether he notches a team trophy for himself or not.
What do you think of our picks? How different would your list look from ours? Let us know in the comments!
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