Cristian Romero: Tottenham's captain, leader… unlikely poster boy?

New York Times

2 days ago

It must have been an unfamiliar feeling for Cristian Romero late on Wednesday night in Udine. After the PSG celebrations had died down following the UEFA Super Cup penalty shoot-out, he had to lead his Tottenham team past their victorious opponents, up onto the podium, past Spurs CEO Vinai Venkatesham and along to UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.
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Romero and the rest of his team got their runners-up medals and had to put a brave face on, walking past the Super Cup trophy, barely even bringing themselves to look at it, standing to the side, applauding politely, watching on as PSG danced around the Stadio Friuli with it. Tottenham had to fly home empty-handed.
Unfamiliar for Romero because so much of his career to date has been defined by his success in finals. He is the man who knows how to get things done when it matters most. He is the player who can find a different version of himself on the biggest stage, one where the strengths are unmatchable and the weaknesses do not matter any more. Most importantly of all, he is the leader whose winning energy, winning nous, winning habit, he was able to transmit to the rest of his team.
That has been the story of the big moments of Romero's career in recent years. From the Copa America final in 2021, when Romero, just one month into his senior international career, playing through injury, helped Argentina to a 1-0 win over Brazil in the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro. That was the tournament that marked Romero out for the first time as a special player, not least to Lionel Messi. It was also the tournament that laid the foundations for what happened in Qatar at the end of the following year. There, Romero helped Argentina to their first World Cup since 1986, hand-holding more experienced players, providing the cool foil for Nicolas Otamendi, building the platform for Messi to make history.
So it was no surprise, another 18 months after that, when Romero went out and did it again. The 2024 Copa America final was a slog, but Argentina eventually beat Colombia 1-0 in extra time in Miami to retain the trophy. Romero had three major international trophies in three attempts over four years.
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All of which meant that when Tottenham got to the Europa League final in May, it was Romero who had more helpful experience to bring than anyone else. And with Son Heung-min not fit enough to start, Romero had to take the lead. It was Romero, more than anyone, who set the tone among the players in the build-up to the game, as the mood shifted from relaxation to ruthless focus.
It was Romero who talked his team through the game itself, from the famous pre-game huddle in the United half all the way through to added time at the end. They could never have won that game without him, and he was rightly handed the Player of the Match award. It felt like Spurs fans were finally seeing Argentina Romero, mentality monster Romero, winning Romero, in white for the first time. It felt like a revelation.
Although it had become the consensus online that Romero had previously won every final he had ever played in, that was never quite true. In the 2021 Coppa Italia final, Romero's penultimate game for Atalanta before joining Spurs and the first final of his senior career, he lost to a Juventus side with Dejan Kulusevski and Cristiano Ronaldo up front.
But Romero's record in these games, and his immeasurable contribution to Bilbao, meant that it was inevitable that he would get given the Tottenham armband this summer. Given his leadership role within the group, the respect he enjoys from his team-mates, and the lack of other experienced first-choice players, it could only really have been Romero.
Romero is also the closest thing Tottenham have to a global superstar. They are in a new situation right now, with Son having left for MLS. The era of him and Harry Kane, and before them Gareth Bale, suddenly feels very far away. And Spurs will not be able to directly replace Son's name recognition, commercial reach or global appeal. They have no one who will be the global face of Burberry, Tumi and Calvin Klein, as Son was, or with the capacity to fill whole stadiums almost by himself.
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But of the players they do have, Romero is surely the best placed to be the next face of the whole club, their poster boy. By the simplest metric available — Instagram followers — his five million puts him second only to Richarlison, who has a huge personal following of 21.5m. Romero's work with Argentina, shining on the biggest stages of all, give him a reach beyond what he has earned through club football. He has been one of the best non-Messi players in the most successful Argentina team since Diego Maradona. That counts for a lot.
Seeing Romero talking in English — not something he does too often on camera — about how much the armband meant to him felt like a significant moment. In the past, Romero's commitment to Tottenham has sometimes felt slightly transient, as if playing for Argentina was more important to him. The fact that he rarely distanced himself from talk of a departure was part of that. But now that he is captain, he has talked about the club with a genuine sense of regard.
Whenever Romero has been given more responsibility, he has risen to it. Like when he was captain for the Europa League final in May. Or when he was first made vice-captain by Ange Postecoglou two years ago. And staff immediately saw a change in him, becoming more vocal around the club, starting to demand his team-mates fulfil their share of media and commercial responsibilities around the club (so much of life at a modern football club comes down to which players do these jobs and when, and so a captain not only has to do lots of this stuff himself, but make sure the rest of the team all do their bit).
The elephant in the room here is what happens with Romero's future. He has two years left on the contract he signed in 2022. As much as Atletico Madrid were interested, they knew that Spurs did not want to sell, and so they never made a formal bid for Romero. Atletico felt that Spurs were keen to tie Romero to a new deal, and it would only be natural for Spurs to try to convince him to stay for longer. If they do not then they will likely have to sell him next year or risk losing him on a free transfer in 2027.
Romero will turn 28 this season and so he must know that if he does sign another long-term deal at Spurs, that may be the end of any interest he had in a move to a Spanish giant. No senior Spurs player has tied his peak years to this club since Son signed his last big deal in the summer of 2021.
This will inevitably be part of the background to this season. There will have to be a resolution within the next year. But for this season, Spurs fans will want to see more of this grown-up leader Romero, the Argentina Romero, the winning Romero. He did not get his hands on the trophy in Udine on Wednesday, which will hurt him more than any other Spurs player. He will be more desperate than anyone to lift something else this year.
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