Johan Lange was head coach of Lyngby in the Danish second layer when his old friend called Oud Solbakken to tell him that he was in the wrong track.
They had previously worked closely. At FC Copenhagen during the first spell of Solbakken, Lange coached the young professionals in the transition from the academy to the first team.
Later they were together as a manager and assistant at Wolverhampton Wanderers in the championship and fired after six months.
Back in Denmark, in his second spell as Copenhagen -by the end of 2013, Solbakken juggled with two roles as head coach and sports director when he called Lange with a career proposal.
“He could have been a decent coach,” Solbakken told Mail Sport. “But I said to him:” Johan, you will never be a great coach, you will be a decent coach, not a great coach, so I think you should become a sporting director. “
The challenge was accepted and Lange went on the way to a new course, at Copenhagen where he became technical director and excited for six years in the role, earned a reputation as a talent spotter with a forensic mind before moving to Aston Villa and Tottenham.
In a summer of drastic change at Spurs, the 45-year-old DANE has risen to fame, authorized by chairman Daniel Levy to lead the search for his next head coach.
It was long analyzed more than 30 potential candidates before he presented a shortlist, from which Levy and his new Chief Executive Vinai Venkatesham Thomas Frank selected as a replacement for Ange Postecoglou.
Long and Frank go back a long way. They shared an office at the start of their career in the modest headquarters of Lyngby, where they were an integral part of an enclave of ambitious young coaches who breathe new life into the double Danish champions after bankruptcy in 2001 by feeding his youth system.
They all became influential in Danish football. In addition to Frank and Lange, there were Kasper Hjulmand, who led Rising Force Nordsjaelland to a first title and took the lead over Denmark for four years, and Niels Frederiksen, who coached Denmark under 21 and Brondby.
All are rooted in Lyngby, in the northern suburbs of Copenhagen, where Frank ran in the streets near the stadium this summer, shortly after his move from Brentford to be reunited with long in more lush surroundings on Hotspur Way.
After the fall of the Australians, head coach Postecoglou and Chief Football Officer Scott Munn, they planted the flag for the Danish era of Tottenham.
Those who know long describe him so low in ego with a dark humor. He is, they say, hard -working and professional, often mysterious and the most comfortable in the shade. Not everyone who has crossed his path since moving to English football has been charmed by his modest style. There are people who regard him as cold, featureless and distant to the point of coarseness.
While they pursued villa and traces of their most experienced scouts in the game for decades, some of whom he left behind with the clear impression that he did not make much of their opinion and what or who they might know. Some thought he was afraid of their experience, or the conflict that it could stir up.
Long points out that he exploits a network of scouts, but it is clear that he trusts data and the analysts who lead the lake to his own specifications than the traditional football ballifers whose eyes have seen a thousand games and have made strong views about what makes a player and what not.
Frederik Leth was a data wizard called 'The Brain' at Copenhagen and has followed long to Villa and Spurs, where he led the establishment of the new department for football insights designed to identify and recruit a new generation of talent before it is too expensive to pay.
Rob Mackenzie, who also moved with long from Villa, leads the other side of Tottenham's data operation, focused on team performance and the scouting and analysis of opponents.
Leth is Lange's Figures Man and at Copenhagen, they combined with Baas Solbakken to sign, develop and sell a procession of young players from obscure markets at low prices for enormous profit to richer competitions.
“He is very thorough,” said Solbakken. 'Copenhagen, he let the scouting team work very hard and they gave us the names. I would send Johan to see the player live and we would speak and maybe I would look at the player with him before we made a final decision.
'He works hard with a good eye for football, and the best thing is that you can trust him 100 percent in all cases. I never relied on football more than I trusted him.
“He doesn't splash money without being very accurate. You know that he has done everything he may have done in his mind, to ensure that he has the right decision, but the transfer market is difficult. '
Denis Vavro came from Zilina in Slovakia and was sold to Lazio two years later. Benjamin Verbic van Celje in Slovenia sold to Dynamo Kyiv. Robin Olsen from Paok in Greece sold to Roma and now in Villa. Ludwig Augustinsson from Gothenburg sold to Werder Bremen and also briefly on loan in Villa.
Federico Santander was a forward -identified play for Guarani in Paraguay, but Copenhagen was signed by a bad experience with signing Franco Mussis from Argentina, so Solbakken Lange and his Chief Scout sent to Paraguay to live with Santander's family for a week.
They wanted to be sure that his personality would handle the move and thrive in Denmark. They agreed that he would fit, completed the transfer and Santander scored 48 goals in three seasons in Copenhagen before a £ 5 million move to Bologna.
“It is a big misunderstanding that he is so focused on data,” says Solbakken, now manager of his native Norway. “Johan uses data as a factor to ensure that he has the right man, but if the data does not match his eyes, he will trust his eyes more than the data.”
Lange's first major contribution to Spurs was a mission to convince Swedish teenager Lucas Bergvall to reject Barcelona and move to North Londs.
This too was familiar territory, albeit with a different budget. During those six years at Copenhagen, he was largely responsible for the reconstruction of the Academy, where he was in stock with part of the best teenage talent in Scandinavia.
Hakon Arnar Haraldsson came from IA in Iceland at the age of 16 and joined Lille in a deal of a maximum of £ 15 million four years later.
It is of course a different proposition in North Londs -a Champions League team is needed, after the worst league season of the club was saved in 50 years by the first trophy in 17. But in the psr era there is a pipeline of talent that can be sold for enormous profit, never a bad thing if necessary.
In recent years, Spurs has received their hands on the youth movement and the signing sessions of Bergvall (now the recipient of an improved five-year contract), Archie Gray (19), Wilson Odobert (20), Antonin Kinsky (22), Yang Min-Hyeok (19), Mason Melia (17) last season.
One of the last tips from long before he left Denmark for Aston Villa was to sign the 14-year-old winger Roenon Bardghji from Malmo. Bardghji made his first team debut after 16 years and six days, the youngest ever represented Copenhagen.
He illuminated English headlines with a stunningly late goal against Manchester United last season, who won a crazy Champions League group match with 4-3. A serious knee injury delayed his progress, but the Sweden born in Kuwait under the 21s International returned to action in March and at the age of 19 is now on the way to Barcelona.
Lange's hits in Villa Park for three years such as Jhon Duran and Boubacar Kamara with mistakes such as Morgan Sanson and EMI Buendia. To credit him for Ollie Watkins and Ezri Konsa is incorrect.
Both were chased on behalf of head coach Dean Smith, who coached them in Brentford. Just as the EMI Martinez transfer from Arsenal was on the move before Lange arrived.
However, recruitment is always a team game despite a desire to pin it all to one person and to greet them a genius or the root of all evil.
It works best in an environment of trust, understanding and coordination, perhaps easier to reach on a small scale, without pressure of expectations and flurry of external forces that are regularly found at Premier League clubs.
Villa shunned long aside so that Monchi could come in and strengthen the Spanish connection of Unai Emery, hoping that they could conjure up the successes they enjoyed together at Sevilla.
Spurs offered him an escape in October 2023 and brought him in to replace Fabio Paraticians who had declined after FIFA had issued a ban imposed in Italy for his share in a financial scandal.
Two years later it can be expected that the Danish Axis axis of Tottenham will offer a touch of Scandinavian clarity and cohesion.
But the ban of paraticians will end this month and he will remain closely connected to the club in a consultancy role, so there are no guarantees left.