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Friday brought another packed day in Tottenham Hotspur's South Korea tour schedule with three events going on simultaneously in the afternoon across Seoul.
On one side of the city Harry Kane, Davinson Sanchez and Ryan Sessegnon were at a girls football event, in another part of Seoul Eric Dier and Matt Doherty were visiting an art gallery and within a skyscraper next to the team's hotel, Antonio Conte and Hugo Lloris were holding the press conference ahead of Spurs' friendly against Sevilla.
With everything taking place at the same time in different parts of the city, the band of four UK journalists plus our resident South Korean reporter Sungmo Lee, an icon around these parts after his years in England covering the Premier League, split up in order to cover everything we needed to.
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I took on the task of quizzing the manager and captain at the press conference, which having been at the Seoul World Cup Stadium ahead of the first game, was this time at the ICF Forum's Tower Two inside a huge modern conference room.
The press conference had the added timing of taking place just as I'd just found out that Djed Spence, set to be Tottenham's sixth signing of a remarkably productive summer, had arrived at Hotspur Way early in the morning in the UK as he waited for his medical to begin when the go ahead was received from Middlesbrough.
Conte, fresh from another two-hour morning training session at the Mokdong Stadium, is one of those managers who does not like to talk about transfers before they are done, but as a journalist you have to ask the question otherwise the fans would ask why you did not.
The problem for me was that the format of the South Korean press conferences so far had been very much one question per media outlet and as the only UK journalist in the room I was in danger of wasting my one question on a subject that would likely get a simple and ultimately useless 'it is disrespectful to talk about players from another club' answer.
The Korean reporters understandably mostly ask questions about their country and Son Heung-min, which doesn't leave much variety for Spurs fans elsewhere in the world and back home in the UK.
So stopping short of devising a plan to ask my question first and then running to another seat and putting on a disguise, perhaps one of those toy glasses, nose and moustache sets, to ask another, I figured out my plan of attack.
The Korean media had often wrapped up two questions in one when it was their turn in previous press conferences so I figured I could get away with that too with an early question to both Conte and Lloris and then try my luck at asking again towards the end of the event if others had run out of questions.
Thankfully it worked, other than Conte treating my Djed Spence question with the brush aside I knew he would, despite me wrapping it up as a deeper one about needing another right wing-back as well.
"Yeah, about Spence we don't want to comment about speculation because it is disrespectful for all the other players, for the club and the other team," said the 52-year-old. "Sure we are always looking to improve the squad if there is the possibility."
It was clearly an answer straight out of the Spurs press officer's briefing notes. In fact Conte, who has been a bundle of fun and laughs throughout the tour, seemed a little more terse, weary and more matter of fact this time around, no doubt missing his wife Elisabetta and daughter Vittoria back home in Italy after a summer spent with them and also feeling the effects of the tour schedule on and off the pitches.
Never before has one man used the expression "tactical and physical aspects" so much in a press conference and there was even a glare at his press officer towards the end that seemed to ask 'why hasn't this finished yet?'.
In contrast, Lloris was in fine spirits. He had enjoyed an evening out as Son took the players for Korean barbecue food, time spent without the coaching staff and a chance to unwind together for a moment within a packed schedule that had brought gruelling training, matches as well as frequent daily events for the sponsors and fans.
The Frenchman called it "a very good moment" and with the goalkeepers not having to go through those brutal pitch-long runs to end training sessions, or not as many at least, he looked fresh and was smiling throughout.
Lloris will reach his decade of service at Tottenham this summer, having joined from Lyon way back in 2012. I asked him if this was the best Spurs squad he had played in over those years and whether it was finally a chance to win the silverware at club level to go with that World Cup triumph.
There was a genuine excitement about the way he replied as he looked forward to the start of the season on August 6.
"Like you said, it's going to be 10 years at the end of August. It's still very exciting and I'm looking forward to the new season. You can see I think the club have tried to put the players, Antonio and the staff in the best position they would like to get to, to strengthen the squad," he said.
"Obviously to be back in the Champions League, we are all looking forward to this. Also we want to be even more competitive than last year, in all the competitions we're engaged in. I think we are going to start the season with a lot of ambition, but also a lot of humility and respect. The priority at the moment is to be focused on the preparation.
"We know how important it is to be condition for a high level of football so we're trying to be as fit as possible and there is a lot of excitement for the coming season."
Ambition. It's a word frequently used by Conte and in a summer when Spurs have certainly shown it with their actions in backing the Italian, it's clear the players are starting to believe something in happening in N17.
It was at that point I had to sit back and let the Korean media ask their questions and to be fair they weren't all about Korea or Son on this occasion. One reporter even very helpfully asked for an injury news updates, which saved me one of my questions.
As the press conference wore on, I chanced my luck and caught the eye of the moderator Junil So, an experienced sports announcer who speaks excellent English, and I raised my hand once again for another double question attempt.
Thankfully he nodded and the microphone came back my way for the final questions of the press conference. This time I asked Conte what his plans are for Pape Matar Sarr, the highly-rated 19-year-old Senegalese midfielder who had finally arrived a year after being signed from Metz and loaned back again.
"About Sarr, he's a young player. A good prospect. He will be the future for Tottenham," he said. "Together, with Sarr we also have other young players and we will try with the club to take the best decision for them. It can be very important to take the best decision about whether to stay in the squad, to stay at Tottenham or go out on loan and play with regularity every game and continue to improve."
The line about being the future for Tottenham was a good one, but I got the sense from the remainder of the answer that a loan move, particularly as Spurs are well over their foreign player limit for the Champions League, may well be the preferred option.
The last question of the press conference was me asking Lloris about the arrival of Spurs' fifth signing Clement Lenglet, who had missed the Korea trip as a visa could not be sorted in time. I took a chance that the Spurs and France captain would know his fellow international well. What I hadn't banked on was that they were firm friends and that brought a really insightful answer about the 27-year-old centre-back on loan from Barcelona.
"About Clement, I'm really happy. Obviously I would have preferred him to be here with the team but it was not to be and he is working very hard to make sure he is going to be ready to work with the team soon," said Lloris.
"You know he's the kind of player who is going to help the team, obviously with his experience, having played in a club like Barcelona and also his experience with the national team, even if the last few times he was not called, I think he has the ambition to get back in the national team.
"As a player I think he's a modern defender, comfortable to be able to play from the back, he has a great left foot and he can be very strong in one vs one and he's strong in the air. Even if it's never easy when you arrive in the Premier League and he will have to adapt to the intensity of the games but he is a high level player.
"Also I'm even more happy because I have a good connection with him and also a great relationship with him. He has a great personality and he will adapt well to the team."
When the Korean translation of his answer was done so the manager and captain had to do the traditional holding up the match scarves for the cameras, Conte shooting me a glare as I also took a quick photo which suggested "Thanks for capturing this joyous moment'".
The Italian and the Frenchman were then finally free from their duty and as the recognisable face from back home in the room they both shot a parting wave in my direction as they headed out of the door.
The theme of growing ambition and excitement is definitely one that is sweeping across the Spurs squad. Harry Kane, who looked thoroughly fed up last summer and wanted a new challenge, has been a man reborn under Conte and across town was speaking about the club's "big signings" and trying to do "something special" with Tottenham this season.
It's not just the experienced players, the ones who have seen it all at the club, but also the younger players who are hoping to be a part of it. Even 20-year-old Troy Parrott, who has been sent out on three loan spells in the past 18 months, told me earlier in the week just how high this squad is aiming. "The sky is the limit", the young Republic of Ireland international had declared.
All the while on Friday, Djed Spence was finally undertaking his medical and then undertaking his various media duties for Spurs ahead of his Saturday announcement. The deal is a great one for all parties.
The 21-year-old will sign a long-term contract and Spurs will pay Middlesbrough £12.5m for him, rising to around £20m eventually if all conditions and objectives are met. That means Boro are getting a decent money for a Championship player who is not in their plans and almost half again if he is a success in the Premier League.
For Spurs, they are paying a relatively low fee up front in current terms and if Spence does end up costing £20m then it's because he's developed into a star so will be more than worth the outlay.
The rest of my Friday was spent finally getting to see some sights away from the football for an hour or two in the morning, in the shape of the beautiful Gyeongbokgung Palace, and later that evening feeling about 20 years too old for the pulsating nightlife of Itaewon and instead walking straight through to enjoy some incredible Korean Beef which was cooked at the table. It's considered by the locals to be the best food in the country and they're not wrong. Son and the players had eaten the same the night before.
There had also been some celebrity spotting in the shape of rapper, singer and songwriter AJ Tracey, who has become synonymous with Spurs in recent years as a big fan of the club, with his tracks a regular sound inside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
He is out on the tour with Tottenham, doing plenty of crossover work, and has been mixing with Conte, the players and Spurs' managing director of football Fabio Paratici at training and inside the team hotel. We had a chat outside that hotel for a while and the 28-year-old is a thoroughly engaging and likeable guy, even if he remained expertly tight-lipped on anything the Spurs bosses might have spilled during his time within the hotel's inner sanctum.
He's not the only celebrity to have been out with the team. Comedian and TV star Michael McIntyre, a regular at Spurs matches with his family, also popped out for a few days of the tour before departing before Friday.
The team will fly home on Sunday following the previous evening's match against Sevilla. While Conte, like most managers, is not the biggest fan of trekking across the world during pre-season and he's grumbled in the past about it at other clubs, the tour so far feels like one where plenty has been achieved not least on the hot training pitches of Seoul.
The two Covid cases aside, it's all been positives in a different sense and you can feel in the way the players speak about the season to come that something is stirring and Conte seems to be a man on a mission.
That Kane and Lloris, two men used to disappointment over the previous decade at Tottenham, are genuinely excited says it all. Spurs are looking to do something special and the way they are building under Conte, you wouldn't bet against them this time.
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