From Tottenham to Tuscany. Leonardo Gabbanini — Spurs’ former chief scout and stand-in sporting director after Fabio Paratici’s departure — sits at his kitchen table in Florence to give a rare interview.

The 43-year-old prefers life in the shadows but wants to shine a light on his 14 months working in north London, a tumultuous time for the club.

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“The sporting director was banned, the coach left, we didn’t change straight away to a new one, Harry Kane was leaving with a lot of focus on the deal and time was running out,” he tells The Athletic. “It was a period of incredible ups and downs.”

He sits back, stretches in his seat, and takes a deep breath. “This is what I fought against. Nobody probably understood that because I am tough,” he says. “But when I was at home, it was difficult because, in the history of the club, I’m not sure if there was a situation like this. It was an amazing experience but it wasn’t easy.”

Gabbanini, a former player and coach in Italy, was reinvented in recruiting by the Pozzo scouting network overseeing Udinese and Watford. Tottenham appointed him chief scout in July 2022. By April this year, Paratici’s resignation as managing director of football — due to his 30-month ban for illegal transfer practices at Juventus — meant Gabbanini was given greater responsibility.

“I was a chief scout when I arrived at Tottenham and I loved this. When I left, I was sporting director in my mind,” he says. “To fix the situation at the club I had to do something that brought a new mentality. They opened my mind.”

Paratici’s departure and Gabbanini’s greater responsibilities gave him a five-month insight into what the sporting director role looks like, but when it came to it Tottenham decided against giving him the job.

It meant a crossroads for Gabbanini: “The plan of the club was to have more people and more positions. In this world now we have the ‘head of’ and the ‘chief of’. You have seven steps before you speak with the owner.”

After discussions with the club, the decision was taken to part ways.

“We did an amazing job. Now tell me why I need to step back. Why do I need to be (working) under one or two other people? I want to be in direct communication with the ownership of a club, this is where I can make the difference. If I continue speaking directly with the owner, we can do something good,” he says.

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“I don’t want to repeat the same (responsibilities) as when I was a chief scout, bringing a list of players for others to sign. I want to be active like I was in this summer’s market. Sometimes, when you try something you cannot go back.”

Gabbanini is a self-confessed workaholic, who says he wants things to “be perfect”. But the time away from Spurs has allowed reflection and understanding of Tottenham’s decision-making.

“As a chief scout, I can achieve the best level in the world, but I probably wasn’t the top sporting director for Tottenham. So when you want to be sporting director like I do, maybe you need to take another path, start with another club and maybe, one day I can come back (to a club like Tottenham) as sporting director,” he says. “The club needed someone like me at that moment (when Paratici left), but I don’t think that the club need someone like me now.”

To be a sporting director in Italy he needs a licence, which he’s now studying for, to add to his Premier League experience. “I was under real pressure and you learn from this situation. It feels like I squeezed two years into four months,” he says. “It feels strange to have started in a terrible moment (last season) and now leave in the good moment, but this is life. I left at a time when nobody can say anything (negative).”

Gabbanini was aware that when things “got back to normal” after a season of turmoil, a futureproof structure would be put in place. Although that ultimately did not include him, he looks back with fondness at the streamlined decision-making process involving Levy, Ange Postecoglou and himself over the summer just gone.

“Probably it was more simple because there were not so many steps. We were direct. That was the best solution to do something good. And I think that we did.”

Rather than being bitter towards Levy, Gabbanini holds the Tottenham chairman in high regard. “He’s one of the smartest men I’ve ever met,” he says. After the combustible experience of Antonio Conte’s tenure and controversy surrounding Paratici, he says Levy wanted “fresh air and something different” for Tottenham.

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“In this moment of confusion, he was a master because he was clear in his mind what he wanted. He learned from the past and made the change.”

Contributing to that transition was the aim. “I helped him to achieve that because I love when I can change something and make a difference.”

It was a challenging experience too. “When you work with Daniel, he’s not someone that says, ‘We want to create something but you have time, don’t worry guys’. He wants to win.”

Gabbanini says the decision to appoint him was split “50-50” between Levy and Paratici. “The parameters were that they needed someone already in England able to speak Italian to work with Fabio, to make things easier, but also with UK knowledge, which I had from five years at Watford. So the original list was a long list, but only I really met the criteria.”

Gabbanini built a strong bond with Postecoglou in their short time together. The process started before the Australian’s official arrival. “I studied the coach deeply and I could see that we were dealing with someone different. I really appreciated him from the first moment,” he says. “I did so much research that when he arrived, after the decision of the owner, I felt I already knew him really well.”

He is quick to point out that the research was not only done by him but by the scouting team with whom he worked. “We checked his way of football, we checked everything, we focused data and scouting activity on his methods and tactics,” he says. “So when I brought my ideas in terms of the market, he knew that I understood what he wanted.”

As Tottenham fans and players have exhibited, Postecoglou possesses the ability to inspire those around him, and that included Gabbanini.

“He changes your mentality because you want to follow him,” he says. “And I wanted to follow him like everyone else.

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“To speak with Ange was amazing because he understands the players as people. We both have a perception of the man (behind the player), and the secret is to establish if the man is good or not. Afterwards, the player will become a top player because so far every player that Ange touches has improved.”

Gabbanini misses that working relationship especially. “This connection was so clear and I’m still thinking about that. In that particular moment we did something simpler, correct and more direct between people. The human side was really important and sometimes in this industry, we underestimate how much difference it makes when the chemistry is right.

“The only regret is — and I told this to the coach — that many clubs in the world want to find an amazing connection between those who buy the player, who propose the player and who decide about the player. I was so lucky because I lived a simple moment in an amazing club and I’m glad I had this.”

Postecoglou’s appointment proved to be the antidote to the toxicity that surrounded the end of Conte’s reign. Gabbanini didn’t get as close to his countryman due to his lower rank at that point. “I was a simple chief scout and I knew to accept and respect my position, so I didn’t have access to speak with the coach, but it was clear to me that he was one of the best coaches in the world.

“But the connection between what the owner wants, what the coach wants, what the club wants is everything now. You need to be aligned.”

Gabbanini feels the recruitment carried out by the club before this season — in which he played a key role — was a success for one simple reason: “If the player ends up in the team, you have done a good job. I’m really happy, and I want to say well done to all the guys that worked with me, because all the players are in the team and this is not always the situation. For this reason, it felt like the perfect procedure.”

The view rings true. James Maddison, Pedro Porro, Micky van de Ven, Guglielmo Vicario and Destiny Udogie have been mainstays of Postecoglou’s league leaders having signed during Gabbanini’s time at the club. He admits on the signing of Maddison: “Honestly he’s a perfect player, there wasn’t any deep scouting activity needed there.”

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But on others, it was different.

“When we have a player like Van de Ven, it’s not as simple as, ‘He’s tall and fast’. We have to predict the future,” explains Gabbanini, who ensured rigorous research was carried out on the Dutch defender. “You need to be sure when (decision makers) start to say, ‘I don’t know, the price is high, he’s young, not in the national team’.  Your job is to be there and say, ‘No, go ahead. He will achieve great things’. And this is the thing I’m most proud of at Tottenham, because I didn’t fight for obvious players.”

Background checks helped confidence. “Knowing the background, the history and education of the player was fundamental in saying this is the player for us.”

“Ange is the same, he wants to know the person, he wants to know the man behind the player. So it was a high level of scouting with a focus on the player as a person.”

Discussing Van de Ven takes Gabbanini on a tangent. He recalls being on the scent of Erling Haaland in his youth days in Norway while working with Udinese and Watford, but being unable to convince the player and his father to sign.

His assessment of a teenage Haaland was: “He’s big, he’s fast, he’s angry. And this is also what I saw in Van de Ven. I say he’s like Haaland, but a centre-back. So maybe I failed to get one but I’m happy we got the other.”

It was Gabbanini’s links to Udinese that helped pave the way for Udogie’s move to north London. The left-back was signed shortly after Gabbanini arrived at Tottenham in 2022, and he was able to champion his inclusion in the squad this summer after an initial season on loan back in Italy.

“Destiny is a player that I first wanted to sign six years ago for Udinese and Watford. I always had in my mind that he would become a top player.”

“Ange has helped him improve a lot already from last season, and perhaps playing in the Premier League is a better fit for him. The coach is so good and clear in his instructions, he gives Destiny and every young player a clear pathway to follow.”

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Udogie is excelling in front of another Italian — new goalkeeper Vicario. “Signing him was a team decision and it’s clear that (last season) our targets were different because we had a different coach. But when you have the scouting department leading the process, the names will be different.”

Being nimble during the summer window has given Gabbanini confidence that, with alignment, things can change quickly. When his next opportunity arrives he won’t, therefore, expect a long bedding-in period.

“When a new sporting director arrives usually they say, ‘I need time to change because the process is really long’. It’s bullshit. It doesn’t have to be long if you are strong and you have a clear idea. You can change everything in one month.”

His connection with Tottenham, despite the change of direction, remains strong. “The experience helped me a lot and I’m a fan now. I’m watching every game, celebrating every goal. I need to say thank you to them because now I understand my path is different and I want to do something more.

“We did a difficult job and now there is a clear pathway, young players, the right manager… I am proud, I don’t need a medal. This is our job. I will be happy if it goes well as I know the job that we did. The players and the coach are under the lights, we are in the back room.”

(Artwork: Sam Richardson, Getty Images)