‘He had no interest in football whatsoever’ – Crouch makes revelation about ex-Spurs star

Peter Crouch has revealed that his former Spurs teammate, Benoit Assou-Ekotto, was disinterested in football and would often have no idea who the team was up against.

Crouch’s admission wouldn’t come as a surprise to some fans given that Assou-Ekotto was pretty vocal about seeing football as merely a job during his playing days (Guardian).

The Cameroonian arrived from Lens in the summer of 2006 but a knee injury he picked up in his first season at Spurs delayed his impact in the first-team.

However, the left-back recovered from his injury and managed to win his place back in the side in the 2008-09 season under Harry Redknapp.

He went on to become a solid left-back for Spurs for several years and provided the perfect foil for Gareth Bale to get forward and terrorise opposition defenders.

Crouch recalled how the 36-year-old didn’t like to socialise with the team during his time at Spurs but insisted that he could have gone on to much greater heights had he been more invested in the game.

When asked to name a gifted player he played with who didn’t enjoy playing football in a Q and A for the Daily Mail, the striker said: “There are a few contenders but I’d have to say Benoit Assou-Ekotto, who I played with at Tottenham is the best example. He would tell us straight out that he had no interest in football whatsoever.

“He could name four or five players who were household names from the Premier League, but other than that he didn’t have a clue who was who.

“Benoit did things differently from the rest of us. For instance, he would turn up for pre-match meals with a hot chocolate and a croissant while we had to load up on pasta and eggs.

“If you asked him who we were playing, he wouldn’t know. He didn’t watch any games, he would just get on with things, do his job and off he went.

“He was a quiet lad and liked being on his own. He didn’t socialise with us but he certainly had talent. He could have gone a lot further, that’s for sure.”

Spurs Web Opinion

Assou-Ekotto was a solid left-back who hardly made any mistakes defensively. He was also quite decent going forward when he wanted to but he was usually quite conservative in his choices and didn’t really like getting up the pitch too often. I believe he was certainly up there with the best left-backs in the league during his prime.

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