Peter Kisfaludy, a man who has coached Lucas Bergvall and seen his rise closely over many years, is convinced that the new Tottenham addition has all the attributes to evolve into a superstar.
There is plenty of excitement at Spurs about the club’s capture of Bergvall, with the 18-year-old being thought of extremely highly back in Sweden.
In a matter of six months, the youngster has gone from never having played in the Swedish top flight to winning a cap for the senior national team, and the teenager will make the next big step of his career when he links up with Ange Postecoglou’s side ahead of next season.
Kisfaludy, who serves as Djurgarden’s sports coordinator, has watched Bergvall’s rise first-hand, but he is far from surprised by what the midfielder has achieved, having first come across him when he was the sporting director of Brommapojkarna.
He told Football.London about the youngster: “I can tell you the crowd are going to love him, because he does so many good things that when you’re sitting in the stands, you’re thinking ‘oh s***, what a player! He can do that extra special thing. He looks like David Beckham at that age as well so he’s going to be a favourite with the girls. 100%.
“He’s a fantastic person. His personality is really fantastic. He’s open-minded and he has a warm heart, but when he goes on the pitch he’s a winner. He has that winning mentality. The best of him is his technique. His technique is five out of five stars. His playing intelligence is fantastic.
“Now he’s growing a lot. He’s 1.87m tall and the muscles are starting to come now and I think that if you give him two years he’s going to be a top, top player in Europe absolutely.”
Kisfaludy revealed that Bergvall had always been earmarked as a future star, having stood well above the rest from the tender age of nine.
He continued: “I was his coach at Brommapojkarna and the academy director there. I worked with Lucas for four-and-a-half years there. I had him in the boys of 2006 group and the whole team was really successful.
“We were in Spain and winning a lot of tournaments, like the Madrid Cup in 2019, beating Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, PSG, Barcelona and Juventus. Lucas was the best player in the whole tournament.
“I took him when he was nine years old and I had him until he was 14 there. He has always been the big player and the big, big star that everyone was talking about when they saw him at tournaments, so he’s been growing up with it.
“He’s great at dealing with that pressure. When we were in the indoor tournaments with 40 teams there, everyone was looking at Lucas and he was only 10 years old. He didn’t care about that though. He’s always been living with it.”
Could Lucas Bergvall be better than Kulusevski?
Kisfaludy also oversaw Dejan Kulusevski’s development, with the winger also coming through the ranks of the Brommapojkarna academy. The 57-year-old believes that Bervall is capable of evolving into an even better player than the 23-year-old.
When asked about Kulusevski, he said: “Dejan is a really, really good player, absolutely but I think Lucas has, well I love Dejan so I can’t say anything bad about him, but I think Lucas is a little faster. That’s something he has.
“Dejan has such good technique even though he’s so big. Dejan is really strong in his mentality, on and off the pitch. He’s always thinking about what he’s going to do in the game. Lucas can absolutely be at the same level but hopefully better.”
Spurs Web Opinion
It is very difficult to predict the growth trajectory of talented young players as while some blossom, others peter out by the time they reach 22 or 23.
However, it sounds like Bergvall is a disciplined and motivated young man and under Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham, he will certainly get the ideal environment to fulfil his potential.