We spoke one morning in 2019. That was in August, in London, so two months after the evening in Madrid when everything went wrong against Liverpool.
It had stayed with son Heung-Min, scratching away on his days and nights, and at a certain moment in our chat he made a sound that can best be described as a growl.
“I couldn't count how often I thought about it,” he said, and children in Tottenham shirts were all around us on one of those community days that the club is doing well. When the children approached him, he showed them his happy face. When they turned around, the face hit the door.
'For me, the goal was to win the Champions League, not to play the Champions League final. After the game it was really pain. Every day. I immediately started playing for the national team and that was fine, but then I started dreaming about it every day. '
That was when he did the growl.
“It was pain. Every day and night I would see it in my head. I remember them with the trophy, lifted him up, fourth. I am thinking about that bit with the trophy. We stand there at the floor and look at that – it's painful. '
I still vividly remember that conversation. And I remembered it again on Wednesday evening, when Son finally had his bit with the trophy and then flooded that field in Bilbao with his tears. The second season of Ange Postecoglou was the story, but before my eyes the story was just as much about the 10th of the son.
I would not claim that I know him particularly well – we have only had an exchange occasionally since that longer interview. But I can easily imagine that Liverpool and 2019 are still floating in his mind, waiting at quiet moments to have a quick word. The same applies to the League Cup final against Manchester City two years later.
Let go? He really is not the type.
That was actually the theme of our chat. And it was the usual about shaping fuel pain for something better. He was sure he could.
So it was no coincidence that we also spoke briefly about what made him, or rather who, and the omnipresent, strict father who once ordered him to do Keepie-Upspies in the garden for four o'clock as a 10-year-old after a fight with his brother.
Success by Zwuten is how it was built. The only way he knew. And what better for struggling than traces? Before this week he had played 32,173 minutes in matches for that club and there was not a one -second with a trophy. All he received was more fuel than someone could burn in their lives.
But then happened on Wednesday. Son barely played half an hour off the couch and at the time he only had 13 touches, tried six steps and four went to someone who wore the wrong shirt. He is now 32. His feet used to be as agile as that face, but the last age seems to have caught him.
He was struggling in that final and this was his swoeg season. Due to output and injuries, the worst was. But just like Tottenham, he persisted. Just like Tottenham, he finally crawled over the line. Just like Tottenham, he was not close to his best and, remarkably enough, this was the one who worked it out of all years.
And that is a wonderful thing in the sport, if it goes so long and against expectations. Maybe it's the best things.
I thought about Rory Mcilroy and his catharsis at the Masters. And Newcastle United in the League Cup, Crystal Palace in the FA Cup and Harry Kane in Germany. Further back, Andy Murray in Wimbledon or, further, Nigel Mansell, 39 years old, in 1992.
Their toil made it sweeter. And whatever they demand in style with Spurs, it was because of strolls they reached it. It was because of the toilet of that son, one of their most stylish of all, it also reached it. And that way he became the face of Tottenham, even more than Kane ever was.
When Son was interviewed by the field after the game in Bilbao, he stood between Gareth Bale and Glenn Hoddle and at one point he was asked if he was also a club legend.
He once said that he could not be considered as such until he had a trophy, but now he felt more comfortable: 'Let's say I am a legend. Why not? Only today, only today. '
But it's not alone today, right? The journey of the 10 years of Son in Tottenham is the story of punchlines for every promising moment, spread over 32,173 minutes, immediately back to his first season, 2015-16, when they finished third in the race with two horses. Some grim days, real.
But from Wednesday the story of Son can best summarize by comparison with what others have tried in the past 17 years and have not done it there. Bale, for example. He received a medal for the League Cup 2008, but he was not in the last team – he played in the third round of that run and did an ankle injury for the rest. Real Madrid and Wales had the fruits of his gift.
Kane was completely beautiful and of course won none. Luka Modric gave the club for four years and landed the same number. They are modern quadries on a global scale and had to leave to get their flowers. Son is the man who never left and that makes him unique.
In my opinion it also makes him bigger in the localized conversation.
I spoke with a club source on Thursday and he quickly got over that most of the son of son to leave were just rumors.
But there was a real substance for the interest of Liverpool in 2022 when he had just won the Premier League Golden Boot. Jurgen Klopp was serious about it. But Antonio Conte supplied Champions League football and in the eyes of the son that was enough.
A year earlier, when Son Up's contract was, it was a similar situation. He had just delivered his most productive season so far, 22 goals, which made 99 in five since the end of his first campaign.
All he had to do was prepare the word and he could have his choice. Released with Tottenham Jose Mourinho and as seventh, who would have blamed him?
Instead, he signed for another four years. For more toil, more minutes and an always decrease in shot in the final. And then one came out of the mud.
He didn't need a trophy to secure affection at the club – which had already been thrown into iron. But silver is a nicer jacket. Just as struggling to a dream ends, can be more satisfactory than a Blitz.
He may never avoid the other memories, but it is wonderful to think that he has finally bought a few moments of peace.
I admire your bile, Ruben
I used this space last week to ask if Ruben Amorim's honesty was the smartest policy.
I will use it today to think about his comments after the final to say that he would leave Manchester United without compensation if his bosses thought he was not working.
Since he works for Sir Jim Ratcliffe, whose economy extends into a war for lunches in the staff, you cannot accuse the hunger of Amorim of the risk.
World record? It's just a mischievous
The Enhanced Games, which promote the use of performance -enhancing medicines, have issued a press release this week to have one of the athletes have defeated a world record.
With reference to the Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev, who was fifth in the 50m Freestyle last year at the Paris Olympic Games, they said he won 0.02 seconds of the 16-year-old record of the discipline in February. He had been doping for a month.
This mischievous is branded as a showcase of an unhindered potential; The only thing that really shows are the pathetic and dangerous depths on which some will travel for clicks.