Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy took the decision to sack Jose Mourinho in April just a matter of days before the Carabao Cup final against Manchester City.
Having suffered a humiliating exit at the hands of Dinamo Zagreb in the Europa League and with hopes of Champions League football fading with a seventh-place position in the Premier League, Levy decided to hand 29-year-old Ryan Mason the responsibility of managing the side until the end of the season.
While it eventually took Tottenham ten weeks to confirm a replacement for the Portuguese with the appointment of Nuno Espirito Santo, The Athletic have revealed that the North Londoners leading candidate early on in the search was Hansi Flick.
The 58-year-old announced two days before Mourinho was sacked that he was leaving Bayern Munich, having guided the German giants to the German double, Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup all within 18 months.
Flick’s success had seen him attract interest from around the continent, including Barcelona but he had no desire to work in a language other than German or English.
The Spurs hierarchy felt that Flick’s personality and vision of the game would have made him an ideal appointment but did not do enough to convince him to take up the role, having informed the club in mid-May that he had made the decision to succeed Joachim Low as the German national team manager after this summer’s Euros.
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